Expertise And Ignorance: We Are All Ignorant—Some of Us Know It and Some Of Us Don’t

Some subconscious heuristics

We find that there are many misleading heuristics operating in our society. These heuristics might be of some value in our day-to-day decision making regarding trivial matters. However, they can also contribute to inaccurate judgement of a critical nature that are occurring in many domains of contemporary society. One of Daniel Kahneman’s colleagues, Lewis Goldberg (1970), stirred up many controversies when he brought this behavioral economic analysis into an ongoing study of misjudgments on the part of clinical psychologists and other mental health workers.

It is not only a matter of misjudgments being made by so-called “experts” in a specific field, but also the impact of these misjudgments on the credibility assigned by the general public to these “experts” – and ultimately to experts of all sorts. This is where the ugly side of Multiplicity shows up. If we are presented with a multitude of opinions and advice offered by experts and if we find out that none (or at least many) of these experts are making inaccurate judgements—then we are left with a destructive option: We don’t trust any of the experts and either quite listening or looking for the most expedient or most carefully crafted opinion. In a negative Multiplistic space we turn the Golden Rule on its head: “those with the Gold will (should) rule – or at least are those to be believed and followed.”

We must focus on the sources of misguiding heuristics if we are to move beyond this nihilistic perspective of disillusioned Multiplicity. We offer the following list and brief description of five heuristics that are often the culprits—contributing to the misjudgments of experts as well as those of us who seek to find expert-based guidance. These heuristics are: priming, framing, availability, status quo, and fear of loss.

Priming

Our guide, Daniel Kahneman”, describes the “marvels” of priming: For example, if you have recently read or heard the word EAT or FOOD, you are more likely to complete the word fragment SO_P as SOUP rather than SOAP. The opposite would be the case if you had read or heard the word WASH. EAT primes SOUP and WASH primes SOAP. We do this unconsciously. Kahneman notes that it is difficult for many of us to accept that our behaviors and emotions can be primed by events of which we are entirely unaware. The theme of unawareness shows up once again! Of course, savvy marketers are very aware of these factors and effectively “prime” our thinking and buying behavior.

As we noted above, “priming” groups of students with the words “forgetful, old age, lonely” and so on made these students walk much more slowly from the interview room than students that were “primed” with more energetic words. At the other end of the energy spectrum, athletes “prime” themselves with energetic and powerful mantras and images. Change leaders can also utilize this phenomenon, for example, by priming employees as they arrive at work, (and frequently during the day) with words or phrases that energize change-oriented behavior. Words like “Innovate, speed, agility, collaborate” and so on, could be effective “priming” effects.