How to overcome the curse of knowledge in teaching and writing

by Richard L. Weaver II

Throughout my professional career I have confronted the “curse of knowledge”—although it has not always been called that. I was even told that because I was a professor who writes textbooks, that it was unlikely (virtually impossible) I could ever publish a trade book—a book specifically designed for the popular market. My language was too sophisticated, my approach too technical, and my sentences too complicated, cultured, and refined.

Before I go on, I want to give credit where credit is due. The term “curse of knowledge” was popularized in a book entitled, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Random House, 2007), a book by Chip and Dan Heath along with a speech called “Sticky Ideas” in the August, 2007, issue of Vital Speeches of the Day.

One problem that most educators face—any adult whose interest is communicating with others—is something Heath and Heath call “the curse of knowledge,” and unless we are aware of it, it is unlikely we will compensate for it.

The curse of knowledge can best be demonstrated by a simple game—a game studied and explained by Elizabeth Newton, who, in 1990, earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford based on her study. She assigned people to one of two roles: “tappers” or “listeners.” Tappers received a list of 25 well-known songs like “Happy Birthday” and “The Star Spangled Banner.” Each tapper was asked to pick a song from the list and tap out the rhythm to a listener by knocking on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song based on the rhythm being tapped.

Over the course of Newton’s experiment, 120 songs were tapped out, but listeners guessed only 2.5 percent, or 3 out of 120. You may wonder what made this result worthy of a dissertation in psychology? Before listeners guessed the name of the song, Newton asked tappers to predict the odds that listeners would guess correctly. This is what is astonishing: tappers predicted that the odds were 50 percent. They got their message across 1 time in 40, but tappers thought they were getting it across 1 time in 2.

The problem is that tappers have been given knowledge—the song title—and it makes it impossible for them to imagine what it’s like to lack that knowledge. When they’re tapping, they can’t imagine what it’s like for listeners to hear isolated taps rather than a song. This is the curse of knowledge—once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us, and it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.

Heath and Heath remind us that this tapper/listener experiment is reenacted every day with CEOs and frontline employees, teachers and students, politicians and voters, marketers and customers, ministers, rabbis, and priests, writers and readers.

There are three areas where communicators in any field can help diminish the effects of the “curse of knowledge”: language, organization, and supporting material.

In choosing their words, communicators must use simple language, include definitions whenever possible, eliminate jargon, say things in the clearest possible way, try to increase the vividness of ideas (so they have impact), and then use repetition, internal summaries, and continually relate new ideas back to their thesis. If they are presenting new information, concepts, or theories, if they pretend they are explaining it to their grandmothers, perhaps that will help them maintain the proper perspective and frame of mind.

Order and form (organization) are important for several reasons. First, listeners’ (and readers’) attention spans are short, and it is difficult for them to keep one or two ideas in mind at the same time. They are easily distracted, and when they return to the talk (or the words), they have trouble remembering where they were, where they are, and where they are going. Often, nothing makes sense and they lose interest entirely. A simply constructed outline that contains coordinate ideas under well-defined main heads, and subordinate points that have been well-thought-out, will help listeners and readers continually understand their location within a speech or a written piece.

Assisting communicators in helping listeners understand their organizational schemes are transitions—the links established between ideas. Transitions between main heads, transitions between coordinate points, and transitions whenever a speaker or writer moves from the introduction to the body of the speech or from the body of the speech to the conclusion will help. As a teacher, I have always asked speakers to write their transitions into their outlines because I have found that a transition not prepared in advance is a transition not used. Often, transitions can include the repetition, internal summaries, and relationship of information back to the thesis or central idea as I discussed in the section on language, above.

The third area where communicators can reduce the effect of the “curse of knowledge” is in their use of supporting material. Relevant examples, illustrations, anecdotes, personal experiences, and stories, as well as facts, opinions, and statistics, all assist in information enhancement, support, and expansion. In researching ideas and talking with others, always be on the lookout for relevant, immediate, and powerful supporting material.

Another way to judge effectiveness (success) in dealing with the “curse of knowledge” is to use feedback. Maintain contact with your listeners or readers, be flexible, and make adjustments when necessary to facilitate understanding. Student evaluations and textbook reviewers always helped me. In class, I developed a half-sheet response which I used to take attendance, administer quizzes, seek questions and comments, and gain daily reflections, evaluations, observations, and opinions that would guide and direct my classroom approaches.

To be effective, teachers must use every technique and strategy they know to connect and identify with their students. This isn’t something they can do once and consider their job complete, it is an ongoing, everyday, challenging task that requires constant effort, alertness, surveillance, and adjustment. After all, to be effective, that is precisely what effective teaching (or writing) requires.
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Not only does Matt explain “the curse of knowledge” but the responses to his essay are fun to read as well. Check it out at http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/213-the-curse-of-knowledge

The Business Pundit, in an essay entitled, “The Curse of Knowledge - Why Communication at Work is sometimes difficult,” relates “the curse of knowledge” to business. The comments on this short essay are enjoyable as well at: http://www.businesspundit.com/the-curse-of-knowledge-why-communication-at-work-is-sometimes-difficult/
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Contact Richard L. Weaver II