Expertise or Expertosis

Mistaking Expertosis for Expertise

Before the mid-20th-century, in most places and times, experts were those very rare people to whom a particular body of information was available, and who had been taught how to sift through libraries and who to correspond with in order to have all the relevant stuff in their heads.
Much of the population was occupied and somewhat isolated in their everyday lives, (yes a gross generalisation but roll with me please), and few felt entitled to call themselves expert on anything outside their direct experience (barrel making, farming, building things, bringing babies into the world alive etc)

From the 19th century in Europe (and in fits and starts in other places and times), vocational and lay experts were people who were hooked on a particular thing, spending all their time wondering about it, running tests, and studying and trying something new and making observations. Metallurgy, chemistry, engineering and geology have become fields of knowledge because of lay-expert experiments. For example chemistry started with William Perkin's faffing about with coal-tar waste products until he made mauve aniline dye, and a weather man called Alfred Wegener who had a couple of world maps and a pair of scissors and a wacky idea and came up with tectonic plates and continental drift.

Universities have always (okay since the 9th century) liked to style themselves as storage places for knowledge, and an important crucible for any aspiring (upper class) expert. They would hire those fabulous lay experts who had made a Significant Contribution. But for anyone else, to 'read' law or history or archaeology or natural sciences meant literally that - to spend a number of years on your backside in a library with books open in front of you. If you managed either, you were an expert - a Bachelor, a Master or a Doctor. And you got to wear a robe and lord it over people who weren't experts.


This century, the exclusivity of information-based expertise is rapidly unravelling. In ten minutes, a fast-reading and halfway competent 15 year old can tell you most things your orthopedic surgeon would about hip replacements. And you can watch Youtube tutorials on how to do a hip replacement. In fact, well-informed and questioning patients are the bane of many doctors' working days! All those tricky questions - having to justify your professional position over and over again, client after client! Ideally this would motivate the diligent professional to bone up on the most recent research, and have good counter-arguments for the large amounts of swill available on the web.


Expertise now lies in your ability to evaluate and work with the data you can find. To have the background and analtyical techniques to decide which information is flat wrong. To hold the scalpel, to advocate in a court, to drive an excavator on a steep slope, to design the election-winning advertising campaign. Also, to know where the data stops and where your own knowledge stops. To pick the outliers, the particular problems which can't be answered by WikiHow and a decent Youtube video. And to excel in the complex, ambiguous, grey areas.


Expertosis is the syndrome that you think you know lots but you don't. Just go listen to a student political group yakking about "They Should... " (publicly fund all undergrad places/close the student union/ban umbrellas/force everyone to study a second language - and that was all in 10 minutes!)
Teenagers are prone to expertosis. So are the middle class in their forties and fifties. Not that they are a new phenomenon  - everyone's met an annoying uncle who tells you how it Ought to Be at the Christmas barbie, or an obnoxious teenager who says  "It's all so clear. The answer is obvious. You're just idiots."

Their opinions must be right, because when they think them, they feel warm and fuzzy and right.
Everyone else just hasn't seen it yet.


But in essence, feeling right is only that. A feeling. Not actually correlated with whether or not you are right in any kind of physical or moral sense. In fact, the more right you feel, the less you may have evaluated the problem and the more likely it is that you could be wrong.

Cognitive ease is when the answer is obvious and comes to you effortlessly.
In Thinking Fast and Slow (which is still one of my favourite books) Kahneman summarises research on cognitive ease and cognitive strain- book extract in this link.
You feel cognitive ease if the thought is repeated, or you're in a good mood, or something has primed you for the idea, or if it's easy to take in (eg. small words, clear font, simple, clean, structured, apparently congruent)

So some examples:

Do you like apples?

YES I like apples.
Easy answer. Feels right. Apple. Crunch. Yum. Good for you. Like.

In the recent election campaign, the Liberal campaign was expertly crafted to bring cognitive ease.

Short words.
Four dotpoints.
Clear font. Big print.

Must be right.

Cognitive strain on the other hand, feels uncomfortable, happens for unfamiliar problems, happens more when you're in a bad mood (or even just frowning with a pencil in your mouth), or when the problem is not easy to take in (eg. long words, small print, poor structure,

It's the thing that is triggered when you're asked to do this sum in your head:

158 x 14 = ?

Did you even try?
Bet you didn't.
Bet your pupils dilated and you frowned and went "Oh that's haaaard" and gave up.
I gave up first time, and I'm an engineer.
Go get a bit of paper and give it another shot. See, I will too.

(158 * 10 = 1580) +
(158 * 4 = oh that's haaard)

(158 * 10 = 1580) +
(150 * 4 = 600) +
(8 * 4 = 32)

1580 + 600 + 32 = oh that's haaaard, no hangonatic I can do this, 2180 + 32 = 2210 + 2 =2212 HOORAY! That feels good and right, too.
(Now I've got the length of cladding I need for the kids' cubby front wall. Thanks.)

Another example, to give your poor sore brain a rest.
John Hewson was politically sunk when he gave this very famous and slightly funny interview. Poor guy. Bet he feels wistful when he gets a birthday cake.

Cognitive ease and cognitive strain, and expertise and expertosis

Here is another interesting fragment of research.

If a person is making a conclusion about something famillar, or has a habit of trusting their gut reactions, or likes to express opinions, cognitive ease brings a greater certainty. In Fast & Slow, religious evangelicals are cited as an example.

If a person is working with something unfamiliar, has a habit of trusting thoughtful responses or thinking carefully about their opinions, cognitive strain brings a greater certainty. Graduate students are cited as the counter-example.



So sitting on your backside surrounded by books in a university library for a number of years is actually good way to train a person to trust in the answer that comes after cognitive strain. They may not end up truly expert in the material, but they do end up at least trying to think harder about everything they come across.
In contrast, being able to google "hip replacement" and instantly knowing lots, is a good way to train the 15 year old to trust cognitive ease.

This is what the limitless availability of information may be doing.

• Replace many experts with expertoids. 
• Train us to trust cognitive ease, not cognitive strain, to bring the Right Answer. Foster a habit of seeking the congruent, familiar, easy answer.
• Give a voice to those who would have not had the confidence to say they know anything (eg. mad old uncle Tim) - on an equal footing with those who have trained themselves to strain.
• Equip us to handle the 90% of simple problems (build a retaining wall, write a novel) and then give us the contact details and web reviews of a good orthopedic surgeon when we need it.

Four dotpoints, see. I can do it too.
Gotta work on those short words, though.