A long tradition of research in psychology confirms commonsense
beliefs about the relationship between risk and reward. If we want
something very much, we are willing to take more of a chance-a long
shot-to get it. Thus, the chances of losing will usually be greater in
situations where we place a very high value on our goal. It follows that
a given person will have different risk levels for various situations,
depending on how much one values success in them. One person will be more
risk-oriented in love affairs but less so in purely monetary matters.
Another person will be just the opposite.
Here is another approach to identifying the level of just
manageable difficulty. The economist H. F. Clark has reported that no
matter what level of income Americans reach, we want, on the average,
about 25 percent more. When we have that, we want another 25 percent.
People in all social classes, regardless of their income, set goals for
about 25 percent more than they have. Research in economics shows that
when we get tax cuts, we put more into savings at first but gradually
increase our spending. We react the same way to wage increases: instead
of putting money away in savings, we spend it. Riches enlarge rather than
satisfy appetites.
The third and best way to get at the meaning of levels of just
manageable difficulty is to consider the relationship between the effort
we put into the performance of a task and our actual capacity to do
it-our "performance/capacity ratio." In some situations, one may have an
easy time, drawing little on one's capacity. At other times, one draws on
one's reserves, pushing oneself to the limit. If one is expending a lot
of effort in one sector of life over a long period-in a situation
demanding a high performance/capacity ratio-one is likely to ease up in
some other area of life during the same span.
Beliefs About Our Capacities
We set our levels of effort to accord with our beliefs about our
capacities-how intelligent, strong, healthy, vigorous, wealthy, creative,
physically attractive, sexually virile, and so on, we think we are. For
example, one friend who, though slight in stature and subject to attacks
of flu, has intense desires of many kinds, describes himself as a
Rolls-Royce engine in a beat-up chassis. He is aware that his physical
strength will not support the burden of his strong ambitions.
The psychologist Deborah Phillips has made studies of third-,
fifth-, and ninth-grade students, concentrating on those who
underestimate their actual abilities. Approximately 20 percent had
beliefs about themselves that were significant underestimates (what she
calls the "illusion of incompetence").
Why should we have these mistaken beliefs about ourselves? First,
although we usually want to know as much as we can about our abilities,
in fact there are occasions when the information hurts. Rather than deal
with the knowledge and change our plans for achievement accordingly, we
sometimes try to screen it out and hide from it as long as possible. As a
result, some of our beliefs about our capacities are unconscious and have
never been examined critically.
Second, although we sometimes underrate our capacities, most often
we overestimate. Ninety-five percent of American men, for example,
estimate that they are in the top 50 percent in social skills. National
surveys report that we feel about nine years younger than we really are,
and that we believe we look about five years younger than we are.
Some psychologists describe this as denial or repression, assuming
that we do know our capacities but that we inflate our estimates to gain
self-respect. Another explanation is that optimism is a human
characteristic, a built-in inflation factor that says, 'I am better than
they think," and is linked with the drive for growth and mastery.
Because even the scientific measures of various capacities and
personality characteristics are themselves imperfect; in the end we must
still face the question of how much faith we should have in ourselves. We
can stand apart from ourselves and analyze our beliefs about our
capacities. We can think about why we think the way we do-die way we get
confused. We can have knowledge about our knowledge-about how little we
know. We have emotions about our emotions, as when we are ashamed of
being shy, or get angry because of having gotten angry. We have motives
about our motives, as when we want to overcome the desire for food,
drink, or another person.
In the same way, we can think about our beliefs about capacities.
We might respond by saying yes to the personality test item "I seldom
have any doubts about my abilities; I know my strengths and I know my
weaknesses," and even say, "There isn't much a psychiatrist could tell me
about myself that I don't already know." But other people will agree with
"I often wonder' what kind of person I really am.'
Is it foolish to believe we can achieve a particular goal without
some firm basis for the belief? When should one throw in the towel? What
is courage in this sense? When we see people who persist in the face of
contrary evidence and succeed, we think of them as heroes overcoming
impossible obstacles. But when one of them fails, we think of that person
as headstrong, foolhardy, and bent on self-destruction.
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