Fraud alert! Is this another scam alerts targeting seniors? Here’s a scam that may be new to you: The fake aging experts, the self-ordained gerontologists, are all over the internet promoting their products, books, and services.
Those of us who are authentic aging experts avoid high-impact advertising not
because we are lazy or stupid but because we have no products to sell. Our
clients want and need credible expertise but it is difficult or nearly
impossible to know who is fake and who is credible. I am annoyed at how much
traction they get and how they are victimizing vulnerable people. They do not
have a passion for older adults, they have a passion for overstating their
abilities and make money from unsuspecting people.
Is it a CZ or a genuine diamond? Is it a real gerontologist and aging expert or a fake? Do your homework before hiring an aging expert or gerontologist.
Don’t just google. I have provided some tips below to help you decide. More
later. AgeDoc
Hallmarks of an Expert:
1. Education, knowledge, training,
experience, and credentials in the field of expertise.
2. Referrals from other
experts.
3. Unbiased stance.
4. Ethical standards of
practice adherence.
5. Continued education [for
re-licensure/credentialing].
6. No sales pitch or
products to buy.
7. A percentage of their
practice is pro-bono or sliding scale adjusted.
8. Follows scientific
protocols and embraces scientific literature.
9. Interacts and consults
with other experts and scientists.
10. If they don’t know, they
don’t wing it by guessing.
11. Membership in
professional associations.
Hallmarks of a Fake Expert:
1. They are selling
products and making sales pitches.
2. They overstate their
abilities.
3. They seek “customers,”
not clients or patients.
4. Their platforms are a
source of income.
5. Their theories are not consistent
with established scientific inquiry.
6. They embrace “pseudo-science”
to sell you things.
7. Their products have not
been psychometrically [scientifically] tested.
8. Their articles are not
published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Examples of Fake Aging Experts. These are actual business owners
with websites who are overstating their abilities and faking their aging expertise:
1. A college graduate with
a BS in Business who owns a caregiving franchise and identifies as an “aging
expert.”
2. A physical therapist whose father had dementia. Identifies his/herself as a “dementia
expert” and “aging expert.” Promotes programs and sells products that have not
been tested by the scientific community.
3. College graduate with a BA
in music. Cared for his/her mother for five years before she died. Bought an
in-home care and hospice franchise. Identifies as an “aging expert with a
passion for the elderly.”
4. College graduate with a Masters
in Long-term Care Management degree and ten years of nursing home experience identifies
as “aging expert and gerontologist.”
5. A retired high school
coach. His/her father had dementia before he died. Now, the coach volunteers at
a senior center and claims to be a “gerontologist and international aging
expert.”
In 2014, Kathy Caprino wrote an article for Forbes Magazine
about fake experts. Although this article is seven years old, it is a timeless
classic and I have excerpted it below:
“In this Golden Age of
Expertise, three things have never been easier: 1) to find a top expert in any
given field, 2) to learn directly from that expert, and 3) to build upon what
experts teach us to develop our own body of work.
However,
there’s a huge problem today: While it’s never been easier to work with
experts, this also means it’s never been easier to waste your time—and your
money—on fakes. So it’s important to know how to tell the real experts
from the shams.
Over
the course of a career spent working with hundreds of experts across different
fields—manufacturing, finance, technology, education, psychology,
humanities—I’ve learned that there are seven characteristics that set true
experts apart from the rest:
1. Real experts focus on
their field, not themselves.
There tends to be an inverse correlation between
the amount of someone’s true expertise, and the amount of time that person
spends discussing him- or herself. For real experts, the joy is in the
work itself—that’s why they get out of bed in the morning. Real experts
are deservedly proud of what they know, but their interest is less self-focused
and more other-focused - about how their work and the important information it
reveals can benefit others. Fake experts, on the other hand, seem to star
in every single story they tell.
2. Real experts have no
trouble saying: “I don’t know.”
They've
got a clear sense of how far their expertise extends, and where it ends.
They never, ever want to mislead you. Therefore, real experts will be the
first to admit when the question you’ve just asked exceeds their personal
knowledge. If they’re really good, they’re likely to introduce you to
someone who does have a good answer for you. Remember your days in grade
school, and the embarrassment a student felt when he or she had to admit to the
teacher, ‘I don’t know?’ Real experts have overcome that reluctance.
3. Real experts demonstrate intellectual
honesty.
They
can put their own expertise in perspective – in terms of its importance in the
world, and the quality of the evidence supporting their points of view.
Crucially, real experts aren’t afraid of evidence that contradicts their
beliefs or their work. They recognize that the role of experts is to
engage in debate, not to suppress it. Real experts can be skeptical about
not only others’ ideas, but also about their own.
4. Real experts show
intellectual curiosity.
They
keep themselves learning. Fake experts are like intellectual
slumlords: They keep renting the same worn-out ideas, making virtually no
improvements to those ideas over time. But real experts know that in
order to stay sharp, they need to keep learning. That retired professor
who pays his own way to attend conferences in his field, uncertain of any
financial benefit from attending? He’s doing so because he can’t help
it—he simply has to keep up
with the latest developments in his field.
5. Real experts know
when and how to share.
They’re
not afraid to give you some initial insights without getting anything in
return. They’re quietly confident that you’re going to see their value,
and that you’re likely to offer to pay them for their time without their having
to ask. Fake experts, on the other hand, tend to insist upon getting
something from you before they share anything.
6. Real experts know
when and how to improvise.
They
can throw out the standard operating procedure and still function
effectively. They don’t fear going off script. Think of a master
chef in a restaurant: She can create amazing dishes regardless of how
much or little is in the pantry, and knows how to keep the kitchen running even
if the ovens break. Fake experts tend to have a narrow comfort zone –
different approaches and unforeseen problems scare them, because their fakery
may be revealed. However, real experts’ knowledge and abilities are
robust, allowing them to remain cool under pressure while rolling with changes.
7. Real experts cannot
help but teach.
If
you meet a real expert in a topic that interests you, you cannot help but find
their insights and ideas stimulating, regardless of how polished (or
not-polished) their delivery. Teaching effectively, of course, requires
years of practice, which many experts don’t yet have. However, real
experts tend to show the instinct to teach. They get asked a lot of questions,
and so they may proceed cautiously and ‘size you up’ before showing interest in
teaching you—like anyone else, they don’t want to waste time. But if you
demonstrate your desire to learn, odds are that they’ll be willing to teach
you, because building peoples’ understanding is part of what drives real
experts.
You
may regularly need to meet and size up experts in various roles—as advisors,
business partners, providers, employees, beneficiaries or clients. Doing
so is never simple. Sometimes we spot the fakes too late. But by
paying close attention to how experts conduct themselves in early discussions,
and keeping in mind the ways to spot the real ones, you improve your odds of
benefitting from this Golden Age of Expertise.”
Caprino, K., (2014, May 19). Are
you dealing with a real expert or a fake? 7 ways to tell. Retrieved from
Forbes.com https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2014/05/19/are-you-dealing-with-a-real-expert-or-a-fake-7-ways-to-tell/?sh=6b3c3f396dba
Jessica Schmerler
wrote about fake experts in Scientific Mind in 2016 and instead of using the
term “overstating their abilities,” she identified “overclaiming.” It means the
self-ordained experts claim to have expertise but don’t have the education or
credentials but give expert advice anyway. Schmerler (2016) also asserts that
sometimes it is not intentional. However, the fake aging experts on the
internet are deliberately overstating their abilities for one reason and that
is profit motive. I have excerpted her article below:
“It is only logical to trust our instincts if we think we know a
lot about a subject, right? New research suggests the opposite: self-proclaimed
experts are more likely to fall victim to a phenomenon known as overclaiming,
professing to know things they really do not.
People
overclaim for a host of reasons, including a desire to influence others'
opinions—when people think they are being judged, they will try to appear
smarter. Yet sometimes overclaiming is not deliberate; rather it is an honest
overestimation of knowledge.
In a series of experiments published in July in Psychological Science,
researchers at Cornell University tested people's likelihood to overclaim in a
variety of scenarios. In the first two experiments, participants rated how
knowledgeable they believed themselves to be about a variety of topics, then
rated how well they knew each of 15 terms, three of which were fake. The more
knowledgeable people rated themselves to be on a particular topic, the more
likely they were to claim knowledge of the fake terms in that field. In a third
experiment, additional participants took the same tests, but half were warned
that some terms would be fake. The warning reduced overclaiming in general but
did not change the positive correlation between self-perceived knowledge and
overclaiming.
In a
final experiment, the researchers manipulated participants' self-perceived
knowledge by giving one group a difficult geography quiz, one group an easy
quiz and one group no quiz. Participants who took the easy quiz then rated
themselves as knowing more about geography than did participants in the other
groups and consequently were more likely to overclaim knowledge of fake terms
on a subsequent test.
The results suggest that if you think you know a lot about something, you might want to double-check, lest you fall into the trap of skimming over words and concepts that seem familiar. In addition, the researchers point out that people who believe they know more than they do may be less inclined to pursue further education, or they may give advice about topics they do not fully understand. So the next time you are offered advice from a self-professed expert, you may want to take it with a grain of salt.”
Schmerler, J. (2016, January
1). You don’t know as much as you think: False expertise. Scientific Mind, 27(1). Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-don-t-know-as-much-as-you-think-false-expertise/
Here
is another great resource I used to compose this blog post:
Sisco, J. (2019, September
16). The truth about fake experts. Retrieved from Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/truth-fake-experts-james-sisco
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