Explain the Mechanism
MinutesBefore taking or accepting a strong position, try to explain step by step how the policy, product, or claim actually works, because the attempt reliably reveals that you understood less than you felt you did and deflates the confidence a persuader was counting on.
How to do it
- 1Rate how well you understand the thing (a policy, a device, a treatment, an investment) on a scale of 1 to 7.
- 2Now write or say, in causal steps, how it works: what happens first, what that causes, what that causes, until you reach the claimed outcome. No slogans, no "experts say", no restating the goal.
- 3Mark every step where you had to write "somehow" or where you jumped from input to result. Those are the gaps.
- 4Re-rate your understanding. The drop is the illusion of explanatory depth; expect it, and lower your confidence in the position to match.
- 5Ask the persuader for the same walk-through. Honest experts can give the steps in plain language; pitches that answer a mechanism question with a benefit, a testimonial, or an insult are telling you something.
What to say
- “Walk me through how this actually works, step by step. What happens first, and what does that cause?”
- “I feel strongly about this. Can I actually explain how it would work? Let me try before I argue.”
When to use it
- •Before advocating a policy position you hold with high confidence.
- •Evaluating a product, supplement, financial scheme, or technology whose pitch is all outcomes and no mechanism.
- •When a group's doctrine or a movement's slogan feels self-evidently right but you have never traced how it would produce the promised result.
Counters
Evidence and how strong it is
Rozenblit & Keil (2002) showed that people rate their understanding of everyday devices far higher than they can justify, and that attempting an explanation collapses the rating: the illusion of explanatory depth. Fernbach, Rogers, Fox & Sloman (2013) extended this to politics: asking people to explain the mechanism of a policy they held extreme views on reduced both their rated understanding and the extremity of their position, and made them less willing to donate to advocacy groups, whereas asking them to list reasons for their view did not. Sloman & Fernbach (2017) argue the effect arises because we mistake the knowledge of our community for our own. Evidence strength: strong and repeatedly replicated for the illusion itself; moderate for the moderation of political attitudes, where later studies find the effect is real but modest, appears mainly for positions people had not previously reasoned through, and does not reliably reduce dislike of the other side.
- Not being able to explain a mechanism does not make the claim false; most of what a well-informed person believes rests on trusted experts. The check calibrates confidence; it does not settle truth.
- Used on another person in public, the question can humiliate rather than inform, which hardens positions. Use it on yourself freely and on others privately.
- The reasons-versus-mechanism distinction matters: listing reasons why you are right increases confidence; only tracing the causal steps reduces it.
- Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The Misunderstood Limits of Folk Science: An Illusion of Explanatory Depth. Cognitive Science, 26(5), 521-562 · linkThe founding demonstration that attempting an explanation reveals and reduces overestimated understanding.
- Fernbach, P. M., Rogers, T., Fox, C. R., & Sloman, S. A. (2013). Political Extremism Is Supported by an Illusion of Understanding. Psychological Science, 24(6), 939-946Experiments in which explaining a policy mechanism reduced position extremity while listing reasons did not.
- Sloman, S., & Fernbach, P. (2017). The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone. Riverhead BooksThe account of why individual understanding is overestimated: knowledge is distributed across a community and mistaken for personal knowledge.