Speak to Connect, Not to Impress: Overcoming the Curse of Knowledge

Your audience didn’t understand a thing you said! You’re standing there, looking at them, and they’re staring back with glazed eyes and vacant expressions. You’ve likely fallen victim to the curse of knowledge—a trap that ensnares many presenters.

First identified in 1989 by economists Colin Camerer and George Loewenstein, this phenomenon was studied in the context of stockbrokers. The researchers wanted to see if better-informed brokers could predict the decisions of their less-informed counterparts.

What they discovered was revealing: those with more information struggled to anticipate the choices of the less-informed brokers. Why? Because they couldn’t put themselves in the shoes of someone with less knowledge. The information they had seemed so obvious, so fundamental, that they couldn’t imagine making decisions without it.

This isn’t just a stockbroker problem—it affects all of us. The curse of knowledge can be summarized like this: once we know something, it becomes hard to remember what it was like not to know it. When we explain things, we often assume too much. We take for granted that others have the same background knowledge we do, leading us to gloss over key details or use jargon that leaves our audience lost.

How often does this happen in real life? You assume everyone knows that English word, that acronym, or the technical term you use daily. Or maybe it’s an internal process specific to your department. Or even a word in English, like Lollygag (I had to look that one up myself).

This issue is widespread in presentations. Performance anxiety and the desire to impress can make us overcompensate, flaunting our expertise. After all, if you’re speaking in public, you’re the expert, right? But this mindset only alienates your audience, making it harder for them to stay engaged.

So, how do you avoid the curse of knowledge? It starts with deciding what language to use and tailoring both your content and tone to your audience. One effective approach is to visualize a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 represents minimal understanding of the topic and 10 represents mastery. You, as the presenter, are likely near the upper end of this scale—let’s say around an 8 or 9. But where is your audience? Are they mostly beginners, somewhere around a 2 or 3? Or are they closer to the middle, around 5 or 6?

The key is to meet your audience where they are. If you’re presenting to experts at a technical conference, your language and depth of detail will be much different than if you’re speaking to newcomers on the subject. By continuously adapting your language and approach, you can avoid taking for granted that your audience “already knows everything.” This way, you won’t be met with blank stares or disengaged listeners—instead, you’ll have an attentive, connected audience following along from start to finish