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 :)