"What? You didn't know that?" This reaction is a symptom of the "Curse of Knowledge," a cognitive bias where experts assume their specific knowledge is common sense.

Whether you are an improviser, a financial expert, or a doctor, you likely overestimate how obvious your ideas are to others. For example, doctors often overestimate how much their patients understand by 20 to 30 percent. Linguist Steven Pinker notes that this bias causes academics to write poorly, relying on jargon rather than concrete details. To fix this in your content, you must consciously remove assumptions and replace abstract explanations with specific stories.

In this micro-episode:

1. Why experts consistently overestimate their audience's baseline knowledge
2. Steven Pinker’s theory on why academics struggle to write clearly
3. How to use concrete examples to bypass the "Curse of Expertise"

Resources:

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/management/curse-of-knowledge

Physicians: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738399106003466

Pinker: https://stevenpinker.com/files/pinker/files/pinker_2014_why_academics_writing_stinks.pdf

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