Kevin Weitz, Psy.D. and William Bergquist, Ph.D. The negative impact of Fake News, especially within the political, economic, and social environments is increasing, emphasizing the need to detect and identify these Fake News stories in near real-time. Furthermore, the latest trend of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create fake videos, known as “DeepFakes” or “FakeNews 2.0”, is a fast-growing phenomenon …

Kevin Weitz, Psy.D. and William Bergquist, Ph.D. To recognize superior expertise would require people to have already a surfeit of expertise themselves. David Dunning (2012) There is a growing body of knowledge coming out of psychology and cognitive science that you have no clue why you act the way you do. David McRaney (2012) In our previous essay on “the …

We focus on the psychology of how influential people use language to propagate misinformation and lies for their own benefit and how it is possible that so many people actually believe them.

Humans are social beings - people have a strong natural tendency to affiliate with others and have a fundamental need to belong to social groups (Van Prooijen, 2018). This need becomes stronger when there is a perceived threat, such as Covid, terrorism or war.

During a leadership coaching or consulting relationship, coaches and consultants will often ponder why their clients behave the way they do, and more importantly, coaches or consultant may struggle with how to shape these behaviors to help clients be more successful. It may appear an obvious and easily answered question, but how many of us deeply understand the factors that …

Recently, the conservative essayist, Jeff Jacoby, wrote a brief piece entitled “Nobody knows anything.” (Jacobi, 2022). He was commenting on the often-failed prophecies made at the start of 2021 about the upcoming year. Many mistakes were made by the prophets, pundits and experts of 2021 – perhaps more than is usually the case when seeking to predict and plan for …

In my previous essay on “the crisis of expertise”, I not only commented on leadership hubris and over-confidence, but also that many people (especially lay-people in the context of a specific complex topic) are often blatantly ignorant and largely unaware of their ignorance. A phenomenon in our modern digital world, is that information – and misinformation – is rapidly accessible …

It is evident that the roles of leaders, particularly in a fast-changing world, and the roles of leaders, advisors, experts and that of lay-people is unclear leading to distrust, rejection and animosity. There is also the broader challenge that is now found in many societies. This is the widespread disbelief in expertise regarding COVID-19 over the past two years.

The title “Google-fueled, Wikipedia based, Blog-sodden” is taken from Tom Nichols book entitled “The Death of Expertise”. While this description may be a little over the top, we are living through a period in our history where people are dying (as a result of the Covid pandemic), many of whom could be saved if they followed the advice of medical …

The following interview conducted by Dr. Kevin Weitz and Dr. William Bergquist with Curt Mandell (a noted organizational coach and consultant) concerns the challenges to be found in the 21st Century workplace regarding the role to be played by experts and the manner in which their expertise is received.   Here are several of the major themes introduced in this …