Self-Knowledge

How well do we actually know ourselves? We think we know ourselves, but our inside information is wrong.

Asked why we have felt or acted as we have, we produce plausible answers (Если нас спросят, почему мы испытывали те чувства, которые испытывали, или поступили так, как поступили, мы дадим вполне правдоподобные ответы). Yet, when causes are subtle (когда причины не очевидны), our self-explanations are often wrong (наши объяснения - зачастую ошибочны). We may dismiss factors that matter and inflate others that don’t. People may misattribute (ошибочно объяснять) their rainy-day gloom (мрачное настроение, вызванное дождливой погодой) to life’s emptiness (пустотой собственной жизни) (Schwarz & Clore, 1983).

One of the most common errors in behavior prediction is underestimating how long it will take to complete a task (called the planning fallacy.) The Big Dig freeway construction project in Boston was supposed to take 10 years and actually took 20 years. The Sydney Opera House was supposed to be completed in 6 years; it took 16. In one study, college students writing a senior thesis paper were asked to predict when they would complete the project. On average, students finished three weeks later than their “most realistic” estimate —and a week later than their “worst-case scenario” estimate (Buehler & others, 2002)!

We are unaware of much that goes on in our minds. Perception and memory studies show that we are more aware of the results of our thinking than of its process.

For example, we experience the results of our mind’s unconscious workings when we set a mental clock to awaken us at an appointed hour, or when we somehow achieve a spontaneous creative insight (понимание) after a problem has unconsciously “incubated.”

Similarly, creative scientists and artists often cannot report the thought processes that produced their insights, although they have superb knowledge of the results.

 

Timothy Wilson (1985, 2002) offers a bold idea: The mental processes (мыслительные процессы) that control our social behavior are distinct from the mental processes through which we explain our behavior. Our rational explanations (разумные объяснения) may therefore omit the unconscious attitudes (инстинктивные установки) that actually guide our behavior.

In nine experiments, Wilson and his colleagues (1989, 2008) found that the attitudes (установки) people consciously expressed toward things or people usually predicted their subsequent behavior reasonably well. Their attitude reports became useless, however, if the participants were first asked to analyze their feelings.

For example, dating couples’ level of happiness with their relationship accurately predicted whether they would still be dating several months later. But participants who first listed all the reasons they could think of why their relationship was good or bad before rating their happiness were misled—their happiness ratings were useless in predicting the future of the relationship!

Apparently, the process of dissecting the relationship drew attention to easily verbalized factors that were actually not as important as harder-to-verbalize happiness. We are often “strangers to ourselves,” Wilson concluded (2002).

 

Such findings illustrate that we have a dual attitude system, say Wilson and his colleagues (2000). Dual attitudes (двойственная система установок) - differing implicit (automatic) and explicit (consciously controlled) attitudes toward the same object (наши имплицитные установки нередко отличаются от сознательно контролируемых эксплицитных установок). Verbalized explicit attitudes may change with education and persuasion; implicit attitudes change slowly, with practice that forms new habits.

Our automatic implicit attitudes regarding someone or something often differ from our consciously controlled, explicit attitudes (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Nosek, 2007). From childhood, for example, we may retain a habitual, automatic fear or dislike of people for whom we now consciously verbalize respect and appreciation. Although explicit attitudes may change with relative ease, notes Wilson, “ implicit attitudes, like old habits, change more slowly. ” With repeated practice, however, new habitual attitudes can replace old ones.

Worth to remember:

· Self-reports are often untrustworthy. Errors in self-understanding limit the scientific usefulness of subjective personal reports.

· The second implication is for our everyday lives. The sincerity with which people report and interpret their experiences is no guarantee of the validity of those reports. Keeping this potential for error in mind can help us feel less intimidated by others and be less gullible.

 

Self-Esteem (Самоуважение)

Self-esteem is a person’s overall self-evaluationor sense of self-worth.

Is self-esteem —our overall self-evaluation—the sum of all our self-schemas and possible selves? If we see ourselves as attractive, athletic, smart, and destined to be rich and loved, will we have high self-esteem? Yes, say Jennifer Crocker and Connie Wolfe (2001)— when we feel good about the domains (looks, smarts, or whatever) important to our self-esteem.

Specific self-perceptions do have some influence, however. If you think you’re good at math, you will be more likely to do well at math. Although general self-esteem does not predict academic performance very well, academic self-concept— whether you think you are good in school—does predict performance (Marsh & O’Mara, 2008). Of course, each causes the other: Doing well at math makes you think you are good at math, which then motivates you to do even better.

So if you want to encourage someone (or yourself!), it’s better if your praise is specific

(“you’re good at math”)

instead of general

(“you’re great”)

and if your kind words reflect true ability and performance

(“you really improved on your last test”)

rather than unrealistic optimism

(“You can do anything”).

Feedback is best when it is true and specific (Swann & others, 2007).

 

Abraham Tesser (1988) reported that a “self-esteem maintenance ” (поддержание самоуважения) motive predicts a variety of interesting findings, even friction among brothers and sisters. Tesser presumes that people’s perceiving one of you (if you have a brother or a sister who is close to you in age) as more capable than the other will motivate the less able one to act in ways that maintain self-esteem.

(Tesser thinks the threat to self-esteem is greatest for an older child with a highly capable younger sibling.)

Men with a brother with markedly different ability levels typically recall not getting along well with him; men with a similarly able brother are more likely to recall very little friction.

The threat to self-esteem can occur among married partners. Although shared interests are healthy, identical career goals may produce tension or jealousy (Clark & Bennett, 1992).

Mark Leary (1998, 2004, 2007) believes that our self-esteem feelings are like a fuel gauge (индикатор уровня топлива). Relationships (отношения с окружающими) enable surviving and thriving (выживание и процветание). Thus, the self-esteem gauge (индикатор уровня самоуважения) alerts us to threatened social rejection (не позволяет нам пропустить угрозу социального отторжения), motivating us to act with greater sensitivity to others’ expectations. Studies confirm that social rejection lowers our self-esteem and makes us more eager for approval. Spurned or jilted (отвергнутые или обманутые), we feel unattractive or inadequate. Like a blinking dashboard light (мигающая на приборной доске лампочка), this pain can motivate action—self-improvement and a search for acceptance and inclusion elsewhere (к поиску, готового нас принять, окружения).

People with low self-esteem often have problems in life—they make less money, abuse drugs, and are more likely to be depressed (Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 2007; Trzesniewski & others, 2006).

As you have already learned, a correlation between two variables is sometimes caused by a third factor. Maybe people low in self-esteem also faced poverty as children, experienced sexual abuse, or had parents who used drugs, all possible causes of later struggling. Sure enough, a study that controlled for these factors found that the link between self-esteem and negative outcomes disappeared (Boden & others, 2008).

In other words, low self-esteem was not the cause of these young adults’ problems —the seeming cause, instead, was that many could not escape their tough childhoods.