The SelfIntroductionSelf-knowledge Our behaviour is governed very much by how others view us. People base many decisions in their everyday life on the internal picture they have of their ability, skills, aptitude, and personality. Self-knowledge determines the accuracy of the impression that people hold of themselves. Individuals often overrate themselves: We often over-predict the likelihood of favorable outcomes We are overly optimistic about our ability to complete projects. We are too confident with our judgment and decisions. Research has shown that how we see ourselves is not exactly accurate i.e. inaccurate in self-assessment/knowledge. According to a study done by David Dunning, there is only modest to meagre and sometimes no correlation (0.2 0.3 very low correlation) between people's rating of their intelligence and their IQ scores and performance in other intellectual tasks. For example, college students who scored at the bottom 25% in a test often walked out of the exam room thinking that they had outperformed a majority of their peers. In the realm of complex social skills, where feedback might be occasional and is often delayed and ambiguous, the correlation between self-perception of knowledge and objective performance tend to be much lower (e.g., 0.04 for managerial competence and 0.17 for interpersonal skills).Motivations for seeking self-knowledge Important to assess ourselves to know whether we are capable or not Three reasons why people seek self-knowledge:1. Appraisal motive Simple desire to learn the truth about oneself, whatever it is For example, many people are very interested in reading up on star signs, in hope of discovering hidden positive qualities. If you were asked to choose among a few tasks of varying difficulty (easy, moderate or difficult), which would you pick? Most people would choose moderate as they feel moderate tasks would allow one to get most info about themselves. They feel that moderate tasks give them a higher chance of success but not too easy to feel discredited. 2. Self-enhancement motive We like to learn favorable or flattering things about ourselves and reverse existing unfavourable views How we show self-enhancement:1. Take credit for successes but deny blame for failure self-serving bias2. Forget criticisms more easily than praise3. Accept praise uncritically but receive criticisms more skeptically4. Place favorable opinions on ambiguous traits that define self5. Persuade self that flaws are widely shared and common among others Self-enhancement motive may steer people towards self-handicapping behaviour This is done to invalidate feedback so that one cannot attribute poor performance to lack of ability. People try to pre-empt the chances of failures by predicting what can cause failures Typical self-handicapping behaviours: Procrastinate Take drugs or alcohol Set a very difficult (impossible) goal Publicly announce that you will fail (sandbagging)3. Consistency (self-verification) motive We like feedback that confirms (is consistent with) ones self-concept. Self-affirmation theory: Strive to affirm publicly positive aspects of who we are especially when an aspect of self-esteem is damaged Sedikides (1993) compared the three motives and found self-enhancement motive to be the strongest and appraisal motive to be the weakest. When others see you positively, it makes you feel good and more accepted by others very good self-reinforcement Ways to gain self-knowledgeSelf-esteem