Know-It-Alls

No one wants advice, only corroboration.

— John Steinbeck

My vice is advice. 

I give it freely—often unsolicited.

People say it's due to my "executive personality," and always add their own advice—also unsolicited—about what I can do with it.

The English word advice, meaning a "worthy opinion," dates to the late 14th-century and was borrowed from the Latin visum, meaning "viewpoint."

Advice is simply another's viewpoint.

But no one welcomes advice.

No one.

The reason it is so detested, I believe, is explained by a remark of the late painter Malcolm Morley: "Any artist who asks advice is already a failure."

No one welcomes advice, because to do so is to admit to incompetence. 

And no one wants to admit to incompetence, even secretly.

Psychologists say that dispensers of advice are often "alpha personalities," know-it-alls who are assured of their views and assured of their right to dispense them.

Know-it-alls are also highly compulsive.

"If you know any unsolicited advice-givers," says psychologist Seth Meyers, "you know they can’t stop themselves from giving advice. At root, they are compelled to give it."

Advice-giving is a compulsion among alpha personalities—always anxious to solve everyone's problems.

They rarely, if ever, consider whether solutions are sought after. 

When they offer advice and are met with hostility, they're constantly surprised; even startled. What's the big deal?

Psychologists think that know-it-alls, at bottom, are power-mad.

Studies published in 2018 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

proved that people who dispense advice, whether welcomed or not, feel a strong sense of dominance and control afterwards. They give no thought to appearing a stuffed shirt know-it-all.

At the risk of appearing once again a know-it-all, let me offer advice to the recipients of unsolicited advice: Be patient with know-it-alls; they don't know they're annoying.

Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich said it best: "Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth."