Do you know what is Illusion of Explanatory Depth?
Familiarity is not knowledge!
There was this story in which the king asked his courtier about the number of bangles his wife wears everyday! The courtier could not of course answer the question! The king then tells him, “you see your wife everyday, but do not know how many bangles she wears!”
The courtier then asked the king, “How many steps are there in the stairs to the palace!?”
The king of course could not answer that!
Just because a thing is familiar it does not mean that it is known to us!
In the same way you have the illusion of Illusion of Explanatory Depth which is a cognitive bias where people believe they understand how complex things work much better than they actually do!
Yale researchers Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil named and first studied this effect in 2002!
In this case though people actually have a high level of confidence about their knowledge of familar things!
So the test goes like this!
People rate their own knowledge of a common device (like a zipper, a toilet, or a speedometer) as high! Which means that they know how it works and they can actually replicate the machine or device!
Then comes the Breakdown, literally!
Here researchers ask people to write down a step-by-step description of how the object works!
This is when the realisation dwans and confidence falters!
People quickly get stuck and realize they do not know the real mechanics. Their self-rating drops significantly!
This is routine though! This happens because of familiarity breeding a false sense of knowledge!
People confuse seeing or using an item with knowing its inner workings! Like even a nail clipper with just a few parts! But if you actually ask someone how it works, they will be stumped!
The human brain uses simple mental shortcuts instead of deep causal logic.
In fact complex systems have infinite layers, making it easy to assume the bottom layer is simple!
If you thought that this is only limited to simple things, it actually gets on to day to day life also! Like how a person sitting under the comfort of a sofa gives EXPERT comments to Roger Federer on how to play Tennis!
Even this reflect in common things like Strong Political Views!
People hold rigid opinions on huge public issues (like tax reform or foreign policy) while knowing very little about the actual details!
Like when the inflation happens and many jump sceaming that THEY could have solved the issue! Without realising that they cannot even get a tissue!
Actually at this point if you ask them how they would do it, the whole realisation comes into play!
When you force people to explain how a policy works instead of just why they support it, their extreme confidence fades and they become more open-minded!
The solution!? Read and learn first and then comment!
You can start by reading some blogs! Then you will khow who Usha Nadkarni is!
Shub ratri!!
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