The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings¶
Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., & Weber, M. (1989). The Curse of Knowledge in Economic Settings: An Experimental Analysis. Journal of Political Economy, 97(5), 1232-1254.
Cited by¶
14 citations across 14 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Theory Of Mind
- In teaching, the modeller is the instructor, the target is the student, and the prime's central discipline is the antidote to the curse of knowledge — a theory-of-mind failure in which the expert routes explanation through its own world-model (where the concept is obvious) instead of the student's (where it is not).
This sourceDemonstrates the curse of knowledge — better-informed agents systematically over-attribute their own knowledge to less-informed others.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Camerer et al. show informed agents cannot ignore what they know when predicting others, and note this makes it hard for experts to convey expertise to others.
“The curse of knowledge makes personal expertise seem more widely shared than it is, making it difficult for people to convey their expertise to others”
- In teaching, the modeller is the instructor, the target is the student, and the prime's central discipline is the antidote to the curse of knowledge — a theory-of-mind failure in which the expert routes explanation through its own world-model (where the concept is obvious) instead of the student's (where it is not).
Domain-specific¶
- Curse Of Knowledge
- The corrective must therefore be routed through the audience rather than through the producer's introspection.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Shows informed agents cannot ignore what they know and that incentives and feedback do not remove the bias, but does not propose routing correction through the audience.
“In predicting the judgments of others, agents are unable to ignore the additional information they possess.”
- The corrective must therefore be routed through the audience rather than through the producer's introspection.
Mechanisms¶
- Audience Knowledge-State Walkthrough
- Its central failure mode is the curse of knowledge:
This sourceThe cited work establishes the curse of knowledge.
- Its central failure mode is the curse of knowledge:
- Context-Shift Walkthrough
- Each place the walker stalls or guesses marks a deictic reference the authors couldn't see was broken, because they still had the context in their heads.
This sourceShows that knowledgeable authors can fail to anticipate how information appears to people who lack their context.
- Each place the walker stalls or guesses marks a deictic reference the authors couldn't see was broken, because they still had the context in their heads.
- Documentation Review for Cooperative Expectations
- Its central obstacle is the curse of knowledge:
This sourceDefines the curse of knowledge as the difficulty informed people have in seeing what an uninformed reader does not know.
- Its central obstacle is the curse of knowledge:
- False-Belief Check
- It targets the curse of knowledge directly — the difficulty of un-knowing what you already know.
This sourceDefines the curse of knowledge as better-informed people having difficulty ignoring private information when judging less-informed others.
- It targets the curse of knowledge directly — the difficulty of un-knowing what you already know.
- Interpretation Probe
- The probe is the antidote to the designer's blind spot — the curse of knowledge, whereby once you know the intended reading you can no longer see the image as a stranger would.
This sourceThe curse of knowledge makes informed people unable to fully reproduce how an uninformed observer will interpret the same material.
- The probe is the antidote to the designer's blind spot — the curse of knowledge, whereby once you know the intended reading you can no longer see the image as a stranger would.
- Minimum Viable Documentation
- Its failure mode is the curse of knowledge: an expert author cannot un-know the context and so writes docs that are perfectly clear to themselves and useless to the newcomer, silently assuming the very steps the reader is missing.
This sourceShows that better-informed people cannot fully ignore private knowledge when estimating less-informed judgments.
- Its failure mode is the curse of knowledge: an expert author cannot un-know the context and so writes docs that are perfectly clear to themselves and useless to the newcomer, silently assuming the very steps the reader is missing.
- Notation System
- Used on an audience that hasn't learned the code, a notation excludes rather than communicates — an instance of the curse of knowledge, where the fluent forget how opaque their shorthand is to everyone else.
This sourceDefines the curse of knowledge as better-informed people failing to reproduce the judgments of less-informed people even when doing so would be useful.
- Used on an audience that hasn't learned the code, a notation excludes rather than communicates — an instance of the curse of knowledge, where the fluent forget how opaque their shorthand is to everyone else.
- Onboarding Reference
- Its failure mode is the curse of knowledge — the artifact is written by experts who can no longer feel what is non-obvious, so it explains the parts that were never confusing and skips the ones that are.
This sourceDefines the curse of knowledge as better-informed people being unable to ignore their privileged information when judging a less-informed perspective.
- Its failure mode is the curse of knowledge — the artifact is written by experts who can no longer feel what is non-obvious, so it explains the parts that were never confusing and skips the ones that are.
- Perspective-Taking Interview
- Its strength is that it is the most direct antidote to the curse of knowledge — the near-inability of someone who knows a thing to model someone who doesn't
This sourceFinds that better-informed agents systematically fail to reproduce less-informed agents’ judgments because they cannot ignore their own information.
- Its strength is that it is the most direct antidote to the curse of knowledge — the near-inability of someone who knows a thing to model someone who doesn't
- Recipient Inference Walkthrough
- Its failure mode is the very bias it fights — a simulated reader built from the author's imagination tends to reason too much like the author, so the curse of knowledge can survive the exercise and the walkthrough blesses a message a real reader still misreads.
This sourceShows that better-informed agents cannot fully reproduce the judgments of less-informed agents and that the resulting curse of knowledge can persist.
- Its failure mode is the very bias it fights — a simulated reader built from the author's imagination tends to reason too much like the author, so the curse of knowledge can survive the exercise and the walkthrough blesses a message a real reader still misreads.
- Semantic Usability Test
- The subtler trap is the curse of knowledge: once you know what a label means you cannot un-know it
This sourceDemonstrates that better-informed people cannot fully ignore their additional knowledge when predicting less-informed judgments.
- The subtler trap is the curse of knowledge: once you know what a label means you cannot un-know it
- Summary-Only Reader Test
- The bias it externalizes is the curse of knowledge: authors who know the substance systematically misjudge what a naïve reader will infer from the summary.
This sourceDefines the curse of knowledge as informed people being unable to ignore what they know when predicting the judgments of less-informed people.
- The bias it externalizes is the curse of knowledge: authors who know the substance systematically misjudge what a naïve reader will infer from the summary.
Verification¶
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