Back in 2017, I wrote a blog on the loss of expertise, picking up on the expertise of Dunning-Kruger and the more recent response of Tom Nichols. Nichols warned that we are moving toward the collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople. Given my recent experience, we’re no longer “moving toward,” but we’ve arrived at that collapse.
A few weeks ago I was asked by a coffee crony, a professional in planning (not a classical research specialist) to look over a psychiatric study dating from 1970 on “Characterological Deterrents to Economic Progress in People of Appalachia.” Before I opened a page, I remembered my bias against much “psychiatric research," built on the fact that most of them are technically, merely medical professionals who work off models in their field. Diagnostic specialists, not research specialists. It was obvious from the get-go that the writer had no understanding of theory construction, had no competency in critical thinking, was unaware that by the time of his study the model had been discredited, was unaware that he was drawing suspect conclusions, had no understanding of his implicit assumption, an assumption that was identical to Adolf Hitler’s orientation to the Jews--the notion that certain people and races are inherently sub-human. BTW, the majority of PhD’s also lack significant background in theory construction. They just use the typical theory from their discipline for their own research.
Here’s where I got an ear-full. ..
The interaction
But upon reflection, the interaction was highly revealing regarding the issue of expertise. I won’t make the mistake again. Its narrative is already firmly in my unconscious and immediately available for retrieval in just about any future interaction around expertise and research.
What the interaction revealed to me is that discussions of expertise have been personalized, not only for the middle class, but also for many professionals. I can have discussions about expertise with professionals, but I have to set them up for it. Let them know that what I want to talk about, say. . . belongs to a very narrow discipline and that I appreciate their expertise. Recently I pulled off such a conversation about the notion of “luck” with my internist, an MD/PhD. But I knew he had an inadequate orientation to luck that wouldn’t fit me and my situation. And since I was very aware of the research surrounding luck (there’s a fair amount of research on luck), I wanted to talk about the differences between what he suggested and where I landed. Afterward, he agreed fully with me. No recriminations. A smile of assent and verbal agreement with my personal conclusion.
So Nichols’ prediction is not only correct, but broader than he originally expected. We have a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based collapse of any division between professionals and laypeople—and often among professionals. They can be suspect of expertise also.
Tom Nichols' engrossing study of how America lost faith in expertise--and why that's a giant problem--is long overdue. On numerous occasions I've listened to one of the least informed persons in the room hold court, confidently lecturing me and others with a stream of banalities and misinformation. And it's not just at a cocktail party. Some time ago a masseuse was talking with great confidence about national policy regarding healthcare, a subject about which she knew absolutely nothing. Since I was captured on a massage table, I merely grunted, but I wanted to throttle her.
But Nichols reminded me that my experience was about the Dunning-Kruger effect, where research revealed that the less skilled or competent you are, the more confident that you're actually very good at what you do. I was listening to that conclusion with my masseur--determined to find another masseur the next time.
But to move on from my frustration and venting, here's Dunning's conclusion from 2014: A whole battery of studies . . . have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot.
Why don't the incompetent, both lay and professional, get it?
Kruger and his colleagues took the original research further, asking why the unskilled are unaware. Their finding is that: poor performers grossly overestimate their performances because their incompetence deprives them of the skills needed to recognize their deficits. Five studies demonstrated that poor performers lack insight into their shortcomings even in real world settings and when given incentives to be accurate. . . .It was lack of insight into their own errors (and not mistaken assessments of their peers) that led to overly optimistic estimates among poor performers.
In other words, poor performers lack the skills of "metacognition." They can't step back and look at their own thinking processes in perspective. Good singers know when they've hit a sour note. Good painters know when they need to toss their artwork--and begin again. And good coaches know when they didn't connect with their clients--and they've got to start over. But poor singers, poor painters and poor coaches don’t know when they fail to connect with their clients.
How to improve?
Let's suppose as a professional you'd like to improve, for example, your assessments of others. The beginning place is with two strategies from research. First, don't draw conclusions about another person's incompetence until you've got five or six separate examples of their incompetence in a given subject. Then, discount, discount and discount your conclusions about their behavior. Can it be explained as something other than pure incompetence?
Two rules
The human is very complex. Often fantastically complex--and doesn't always know what he or she is thinking or doing. (That's why you can't always believe the feedback you get from someone.)
A real nerd is a person who knows his own mind well enough to mistrust it. (So if you drew a smart conclusion, there may be five other different conclusions you could have drawn about the same experience. Which one or two are the better?)
So?
Nichols' warning is spot-on. The bigger concern today is that Americans have reached a point where ignorance—at least regarding what is generally considered established knowledge in public policy and many other subjects also—is seen as an actual virtue. To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for Americans to demonstrate their independence from nefarious elites—and insulate their increasingly fragile egos from ever being told they’re wrong. For what’s it worth, I’m quite certain that both my coffee crony and I wanted to demonstrate our independence. A strategy that is simply not always necessary. I would have connected with him a lot better if I’d skipped the need to educate him on theory construction and the discipline of critical thinking. Take the small win when you get it, and ignore the need to get the whole banana.