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orthonormal comments on Learned Blankness - Less Wrong
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I think a lot of learned blankness comes about because of fear of being wrong, or more correctly, fear of someone else blaming them for being wrong. In certain social strata, you aren't supposed to think about a problem, or let others know you're thinking about a problem, unless it is your job to think about it. If you think about a problem, and get it wrong, then you are irresponsible for not going to an expert with the problem.
So that's where learned blankness gets it's traction, in my opinion, and this is the reason why you'll find people spending an incredible amount of money, for example, going to Best Buy and having them install an operating system for you. (I'm sure this site could come up with numerous similar examples of this.)
But the alternative to this is inevitably being wrong time and again, but this needs to be understood as a part of learning, and as a part of the process of inquiry. We need to learn how to make mistakes, how to know when you're making a mistake, and how to learn from it. But you'll inevitably hear "Why didn't you call the X-man!"
Most people I've known who have a "learned blankness" about computers are genuinely scared that they'll cause significantly more damage than the expert charges - usually they're worried they'll basically destroy their computer beyond salvaging, which is probably a good $1,000 - $2,000.
For myself, I had a "learned blankness" about languages, because my only source of education was school, and each failed language class seriously hurt my GPA. Now that I have a friend teaching me a bit of Chinese, and am home-studying on sign language, I'm finding it much easier.
I'd expect a lot of these quite possibly start as a fear of genuinely reasonable consequences. Your example strikes me as a definite subset of this, of course :)
I tend to assume that I'm going to make a mistake, especially with new things. It doesn't help fix them, but at least I'm not surprised when it blows up in my face. Once I'm comfortable with it I assume less failure until it fails, usually in the perfect way to make me look totally foolish.
Somehow the really bad failures seem to happen after I brag about them. I brag a lot less now, but that hasn't stopped them either. Meh.
Edit - please disregard this post
That's exactly how I learned to ride a bicycle at age 30.