What is the Curse of Knowledge?
The curse of knowledge, also known as the curse of expertise, is a cognitive bias in which we assume that the people we are talking to have the same level of understanding as we do on a given subject. This often causes a barrier to effective knowledge sharing as we are uncertain about what the other party already knows.
The Basic Idea
People often say, “knowledge is power.” But what happens when we all have different levels of knowledge?
The “curse of knowledge,” or “the curse of expertise,” is a cognitive bias where we incorrectly assume that everyone knows as much as we do on a given topic.1 When we know something, it can be hard to imagine what it would be like not knowing that piece of information. In turn, this makes it difficult to share our knowledge because we struggle to understand the other party’s state of mind. The curse of knowledge can profoundly affect how information is communicated, particularly by experts and educators. These individuals often struggle to convey complex concepts effectively because they have difficulty imagining what it’s like for others to lack the depth of knowledge they possess.
"Lots of us have expertise in particular areas. Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That’s when the curse of knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it’s like not to know what we know."
– Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
