Knowledge Gap - Tumblr Posts

Someone told me about the cognitive bias form called “curse of knowledge” the other day and I’m obsessed w/ thinking about it.

The basic premise is that it is “when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.” Or in other words, once you learn something, you can’t at all remember what it was like to not have that knowledge or context anymore. It creates gulfs between people who have different knowledge bases who are communicating.

This has come up for me in life SO MUCH around topics of abuse, boundaries, consent, and relationship dynamics. (All types of relationships, not just romantic.) I’ve read about and studied and dissected these things to death so it’s second nature for me to talk about it. Then, I will think that a friend and I have the same values of what’s abusive or acceptable.......but then later I learn that what they meant is totallyyyyy different than me.

Or when I bump into people who truly think that thin = healthy or who don’t understand what being trans is at even the most basic level. I’m like “Jesus this asshole is hopeless” and I no longer remember what it was like back when I very FIRST learned these concepts.

It’s one thing if someone is willfully ignorant or a proud bigot. But if someone is TRULY learning something new, they need the super super basics patiently available to them so they can get the knowledge you have...and then THAT could become a bridge between you.

This “curse” feels important for me to just bear in mind before I write people off. And to just not assume that someone else and I are talking about the same thing. Maybe it’s a case where they have knowledge I don’t.