Thanks for the thoughtful post. I’m not too worried about this problem because I tend to assume that people will evaluate my advice in the light of their own circumstances and needs. I have not had a problem with people blindly accepting my advice on faith, without critical thought. Maybe this would be more of a problem for a teacher of young children or famous person or CEO or someone else with a lot of prestige.
Agree, I think the problem definitely gets amplified by power or status differentials.
I do think that people often forget to think critically about all kinds of things because their brain just decides to accept it on the 5 second level and doesn’t promote the issue as needing thorough consideration. I find all kinds of poorly justified “facts”/advice in my mind because of something I read or someone said that I failed to properly consider.
Even when someone does take the time to think about advice though I think it’s easy for things to go wrong. The reason someone is asking for advice may be that they simply do not have the expertise to evaluate claims about challenge X on their own merits. Another possibility is that someone can realize the advice is good for them but overcorrect, essentially trading one problem for another.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. I’m not too worried about this problem because I tend to assume that people will evaluate my advice in the light of their own circumstances and needs. I have not had a problem with people blindly accepting my advice on faith, without critical thought. Maybe this would be more of a problem for a teacher of young children or famous person or CEO or someone else with a lot of prestige.
Agree, I think the problem definitely gets amplified by power or status differentials.
I do think that people often forget to think critically about all kinds of things because their brain just decides to accept it on the 5 second level and doesn’t promote the issue as needing thorough consideration. I find all kinds of poorly justified “facts”/advice in my mind because of something I read or someone said that I failed to properly consider.
Even when someone does take the time to think about advice though I think it’s easy for things to go wrong. The reason someone is asking for advice may be that they simply do not have the expertise to evaluate claims about challenge X on their own merits. Another possibility is that someone can realize the advice is good for them but overcorrect, essentially trading one problem for another.