Lay Theories of Expertise: Revealing the Roots of Expert Recognition
Lecturer Ben Walker's research explores organisational behaviour by mapping and examining the "lay theories" of expertise.
“I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him.” - Socrates (in Plato’s Apology, c. 400BC)
“I know more about drones than anybody.” - Donald Trump (in a press conference, 2019)
What does it mean to be an expert? The comments above – each from two very different eras – suggest two equally different answers to this question. While the 45th President of the United States implies that knowing more than others is the hallmark of expertise, that ancient Greek philosopher suggests that knowing your limits is what matters most.
In today’s world, these kinds of differences in people’s assumptions about the meaning of expertise can have serious consequences. For example, the underlying belief that experts should be immensely knowledgeable can breed an attitude that they should also be totally certain of their opinions. This can in-turn make people gravitate to overconfident (but underqualified) figures who promise the world – and follow their simplistic, even harmful advice on crucial topics like healthcare, climate change, and politics.
Yet despite these kinds of effects, social scientists have yet to systematically map laypeople’s assumptions about the meaning of expertise, nor explore how differences in these assumptions might affect who people do (and don’t) recognize as “real” experts.
Mapping the Lay Theory Landscape
Since 2020, and in collaboration with Dr Lauren Keating of Emlyon Business School (France), I’ve been working to fill this gap. We’ve undertaken several studies to begin mapping the most prominent “lay theories” of expertise out there in the world. Going back to the work of researchers like Jean Piaget, the “lay theory” is one of the oldest concepts in psychology, and simply refers to a person’s subjective – often intuitively developed – theory about what something is and how it works.
Our first study was a simple survey, where we asked people to freely describe their understanding of expertise. The second was an analysis of Twitter (now X) posts about experts during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And the final study was a word sorting task, where we asked one sample of participants to generate words they most associated with expertise, and another group to sort these words into broader categories.
Some of the lay theories of expertise we found through these studies were intuitive and widespread. Easily the most pervasive was what we call the “epistemic” lay theory – the assumption that exceptional knowledge is a defining feature of expertise. The “practical” lay theory (the assumption that expertise is defined by solving problems and getting results) was also a recurring character in our data, as was the “developmental” lay theory, which emphasizes specialist training and education as central to expertise.
But interestingly, and though far less common, we also discovered what we call a “Socratic” lay theory of expertise. This relatively rare perspective is nicely illustrated by the following response to our survey:
“Being an expert at something is knowing and acknowledging the fact that you don’t know anything even if you know what is there to know about that field and then coming to [a] humble realization that you’ll always be a student and there is a lot more to learn.”
This Socratic perspective intrigued us, not least because it resonated with what we as academics see as one of the most important lessons of our own pursuit of expertise. Over a decade ago, we started our PhD studies on the same day, and despite studying different topics – both of us reached the end of the process feeling a little more knowledgeable, but a lot more aware of just how much we didn’t know about our respective research areas.
Lay Theories in Action
Our initial studies gave us a window into some of the most common lay theories of expertise. But they also sparked new questions. Does holding a certain lay theory even matter for who people engage with as experts? For example, does holding a Socratic (instead of say, a practical) lay theory of expertise make people more likely to engage with “humble” experts, who are transparent about their limitations? If so, is it possible to change a person’s lay theory to promote engagement with certain experts, but not others?
To begin answering these questions, we designed and conducted an online, scenario-based experiment with 200 managers living in the USA. In the experiment, the managers read a (fictional) vignette, which put them in the workplace situation of collaborating with a legal specialist to deal with a complaint. The vignette also deliberately portrayed the specialist as transparent about his limitations. After working through this vignette, managers rated the specialist on a variety of criteria measuring the extent to which they saw him as an expert.
Importantly, though, before even getting to the vignette, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. In two of these groups, they watched an animated video that aimed to “prime” (persuade them to believe) more of either the Socratic or practical lay theory, while in the third “control” group, participants watched an unrelated video about negotiation styles.
Promisingly, our experimental results showed that even our relatively short and simple videos were enough to meaningfully influence people’s lay theories – at least for the duration of the experiments (around 15 minutes). We also saw that those primed with the Socratic lay theory did indeed tend to be more confident in (and more likely to recommend) the humble expert than those primed with the practical lay theory.
Conclusion
Our early research has produced some enlightening results, but much like the opening quote from Socrates, it’s also shown us how much we don’t know about lay theories of expertise. Motivated by this, we have several new studies in the works. For example, while our experiments showed that lay theories can be temporarily tweaked in certain directions, there’s the deeper question of how exactly they develop in the first place – a process that likely begins as far back as childhood. We also want to look at how lay theories play out in real-world (rather than simulated) interactions between experts and those seeking their help in important domains like healthcare, science, and politics.
Clearly, there’s still a long way to go. But we’re hopeful we’re on to a line of research that will ultimately give people a way of reflecting on their own underlying assumptions about expertise, and the critical ways these might affect their engagement with – or indeed engagement as – experts in our world.
To view the infographic based on this article, click here.
Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour
School of Management