'Know thyself' - easier said than done
30 Oct 2005
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his 1750 Poor Richard's Almanac that "There are
three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self." The
problem of achieving accurate self-knowledge hasn't gotten any easier in 250
years; and, as shown in a new research report, there are major real-world
consequences to this very human attribute.
In "Flawed Self-Evaluation: Implications for Health, Education, and the
Workplace," investigators David Dunning (Cornell), Chip Heath (Stanford),
and Jerry M. Suls (University of Iowa) summarized current psychological research
on the accuracy (or rather inaccuracy) of self-knowledge, across a wide range of
studies in a range of spheres. Their report is published in the recent issue of
Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the American
Psychological Society.
A consistent and sobering picture emerged from the team's analysis: On the job,
at school, or even in managing our own health, it is as though we all live in
Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon, "where all the children are
above average." People's opinions of themselves, their abilities, and their
health outlooks are generally skewed quite strongly in a positive direction.
Such errors in self-assessment can have serious consequences, for example in how
people manage their own health. People generally underestimate their own
susceptibility to serious health risks like high blood pressure, cancer, or food
poisoning -- partly because they overestimate how different they are from the
norm in terms of behaviors that might put them at risk. This can influence the
steps people take -- or don't take -- to prevent or treat such problems. On the
other side of the health equation, doctors (being people too) overestimate their
competence to treat problems outside their areas of specialization.
A similar overconfidence is found in education at all levels. Students and
people undergoing professional training show a strong tendency to overestimate
their mastery of new knowledge and skills, and teachers and peers are generally
much better able than a student is to accurately predict the student's
performance on tests.
The work world is full of overconfidence and flawed self-knowledge as well.
Employees underestimate how long they will take to complete tasks. And CEOs and
entrepreneurs are famously (sometimes disastrously) overconfident in making
business decisions, particular when venturing into unfamiliar territory such as
a business startup or an acquisition -- a problem the authors called "the
problem of the new."
Although a degree of self-deception may be just part of human nature,
individuals aren't completely to blame for their lack of accurate
self-knowledge, according to Dunning. There are social and institutional
barriers to self-knowledge, such as the difficulty of giving honest critical
feedback in workplace settings, as well as to the simple fact that people don't
have access to the full range of human competence and skill against which to
evaluate their own. Also, in many areas, what people are striving for --
excellence -- is ill-defined.
Click
here to read the report.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest provides definitive assessments of
topics where psychological science may have the potential to inform and improve
the lives of individuals and the well-being of society. The American
Psychological Society represents psychologists advocating science-based research
in the public's interest.
David Dunning
dad6@cornell.edu
American Psychological Society
psychologicalscience.org
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