When I considered this topic, I was thinking about the prescriptiveness of our people and how much better off we would be if we each accepted that we do not know everything.
My friends always tease me about my depth of knowledge and act out loudly when I do not have an answer on a particular subject. It is humorous to see the bewilderment I cause when I do not know the answer to something. The truth is, I try to be honest about my level of information on any topic. I am also always willing to contribute to a discourse for which I have facts or informed opinions. And comparatively, I seem to have a lot of information.
What people do not yet know is that despite my apparent or actual erudition, I often shudder at the extent of my unawareness on so many levels in this vast world of knowledge. Sometimes I wish, too, that those who know even less could spare a shudder every now and then and bless us with more silence.
My context remains that of the “expert” opinions received by those managing mental health conditions: unsolicited, uninformed, lacking compassion and plainly insensitive.
This train of thought led me to ask Google why people who have little or no knowledge always speak so confidently, and would you know, I received a full education on something called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
One of the simplest and most effective definitions was on Quora, which says the effect describes people who “don’t know anything about a subject (and) don’t even know enough to know that they don’t know anything about it” (Joshua P Hill, quora.com).
Psychology Today says, “The concept of the Dunning-Kruger Effect is based on a 1999 paper by Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. The pair tested participants on their logic, grammar and sense of humour and found that those who performed in the bottom quartile rated their skills far above average” (psychologytoday.com/au/basics/dunning-kruger-effect).
The article titled ‘Dunning-Kruger Effect’ went on to say, “This tendency may occur because gaining a small amount of knowledge in an area about which one was previously ignorant can make people feel as though they’re suddenly virtual experts.”
The theory is described with terms like “overconfidence” and “overestimation,” which both suggest a deficit between someone’s skills or learning and their perception of those skills or learning (psychologytoday.com). Overprecision is also described as a type of overconfidence when someone is “exaggeratedly certain” they are correct.
To me, these are all fancy ways of saying people do not recognise their incompetence or ignorance but speak confidently, vocalising things outside the realm of their knowledge or proficiency.
We each know one of them.
My take is that overweening pride is a factor. People often want to appear as wise or powerful in front of others and exaggerate their very existence to prove that point or to fit in. Unfortunately, too many attend one lecture; do a three-month course (with a certificate, too); have some minor acquisition of information; or “had a neighbour who had a mental health problem” and become self-proclaimed experts on mental health and managing mental illnesses.
People’s insecurity or dire need to be considered relevant in a discourse translates into authority, as they repeat information gleaned here and there as sound scholarship.
Now I am about to add some suggestions for mitigating this behaviour, but somehow, I feel like I am speaking to the wind because my worst fear is that people who do not know they do not know may think this advice is for someone else.
It is so okay to acknowledge the things you do not know. It is liberating! Cultivating humility is an important aspect of breaking away from the prescriptiveness we practice. And if there is a desire to help others, there must be a commitment to deeper learning, as we recognise and admit how little we know.
Despite all I know, I consistently have to strive to remain humble. I have learned that people will laud your brilliance while also harbouring hatred or drowning in insecurity, as other people’s excellence can seem like a judgement on them.
The more I think about this subject, though, the more I want to shrink back and review my own willingness to teach others, break the stigma and normalise mental health struggles. Maybe that idea of saying less should be on my end. I should really forget this “being open to help others understand” posture I have taken and just say less.
Recently, in a conversation with someone who knows about my decades-old struggles (who also has had to treat and manage anxiety as an illness) about how I was overstimulated and was unable to sleep because of a situation which caused me anxiety—she retorted without missing a beat, in full diagnostic mode and high confidence too, “Oh. You mean you made yourself sick!”
I walked away bewildered. I had to admit that silence (hers and mine) would have been more beneficial. It deepened my consideration of saying less.
