Knowledge Media Research Center, Tübingen, Germany.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2013 May;142(2):445-57. doi: 10.1037/a0029339. Epub 2012 Jul 16.
Being aware of someone else's existing knowledge is a prerequisite to effectively adapting an explanation to that person's learning needs. However, such knowledge awareness introduces the potential for motivated self-evaluation based on relative knowledge, that is, for social comparison. Because favorable social comparisons are actively defended, we propose that knowledge awareness might undermine information sharing in explanation when social comparison motives are active. We tested this hypothesis in a series of experiments in which participants provided explanations to an ostensible learning partner with or without knowledge awareness. Both dispositionally and situationally motivated social comparison interacted with knowledge awareness to reduce information sharing in explanation. Intriguingly, knowledge awareness uniformly facilitated adaptation of the information that was shared to address partner knowledge deficit. These results illustrate a tension in the components of effective explanation. At the same time that knowledge awareness effectively coordinates explanation content, it can lead to knowledge hoarding by knowledgeable explainers who are motivated to rely on knowledge differences between the self and the explanation recipient for self-evaluation.
意识到他人已有的知识是将解释有效地调整为适应该人学习需求的前提。然而，这种知识意识会带来基于相对知识的动机性自我评价的可能性，即社会比较。因为有利的社会比较会被积极维护，所以我们提出，当社会比较动机活跃时，知识意识可能会破坏解释中的信息共享。我们在一系列实验中检验了这一假设，在这些实验中，参与者在有或没有知识意识的情况下向一个表面上的学习伙伴提供解释。无论是性格上还是情境上的社会比较动机都与知识意识相互作用，从而减少了解释中的信息共享。有趣的是，知识意识统一地促进了所共享信息的调整，以解决伙伴的知识缺陷。这些结果说明了有效解释的组成部分之间存在紧张关系。与此同时，知识意识可以有效地协调解释内容，但它也可能导致有知识的解释者进行知识囤积，因为他们有动机依赖自我和解释接受者之间的知识差异来进行自我评价。
