It is very impressive the article, makes me think about the perfect description for both my mother in law and my grandmother.

But it makes me also think that being too straight with people affects in the end one's social image. People would not take you as an honest person who plays truth with them, but as the mean one who is obviously gealous or has some frustrations to put on the wall.

i think its the combination of narcissism and the belief that you have the right to tell people what to do or to get into their business that shapes such a personality, i wouldn't want to meet someone like that

Thanks for commenting Farouk. Me too, and even if we don't meet them sometimes their way of doing things still impinges on our lives. Such people's certainty and pushiness sometimes gains them enough power that they can influence our lives at enormous distance. Throughout history there have been huge numbers of people who never met the tyrants who ruined their lives. Even today.

I admit it - up until now Obama's criticisms of John McCain have been less than zealous. But he is turning up the heat and boy, it's a powerful heat! Let's just hope that it hasn't arrived too late.

Are americans so in love with power and greed that we will not question their tactics. Accumulating such immense status as our country's requires might AND temperance.

When somebody informs me that something I believed to be true for so long is actually false, and shows supportive evidence for why I have been wrong, even if they don't provide me with the right answer I generally feel silly for about a second, then I feel thankful. I enjoy being informed of my mistakes or the inconsistencies within my beliefs, because that steers me back towards the road to truth and enlightenment. A lifelong journey that never seems to end. But even though I may never reach my destination, thus-far it has been one hell of a trip. People insecure about being mistaken, mostly, have invested too much in what they believe without taking into consideration that we are all limitted in what we can perceive. If you think of your life, experiences and beliefs as a piece of a puzzle, you begin to realize how much conversing with others and taking in other points of view allows for a greater understanding of the big picture that we all have found ourselves in. Sorry, now I'm getting philosophical on a psychology article.

Dear BL,

Thanks for writing and I agree and cultivate a similar state... to the extent I can. You're right about getting philosophical but I don't see how you can do psychology without getting philosophical, or at least I believe that all psychological research is based on philosophical commitments whether the researcher knows it or not.

Here's one that pertains. Descartes attempted what he called "hyperbolic skepticism" an attempt to doubt everything. Thing is, as philosopher C.S. Peirce (one of my favorites) points out you can't do this because most assumptions are so deeply assumed you can't even see them as assumptions that could be doubted. So though I practice what you preach here, I also have to stay open to the possibility that it only looks to me like I'm receptive when people challenge me on things because half them time when they challenge me, I don't even hear them or recognize what they're saying enough to feel challenged. Yes, every time I perceive contrary valid evidence I change my mind But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm as open minded as I think or that I'm more open than people I perceive as "insecure" about being mistaken.

Notice I slipped another caveat in there just now. Yes I change my mind in the face of "valid" contradictory evidence. There might be times however when I claim evidence is invalid when it isn't. In other words declaring that "when I think it's right to change my mind, I always change my mind" means the same thing as "I always change my mind when the world contradicts me" is at least for the carefully self-doubtful, a dubious proposition. Does that make sense?

Jeremy