Know Thyself

Does Obama know how we see him?

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:10:45 +0000

Mickey Kaus recently decided that he doesn't like Obama. It's not his policies that bother him, but his pompous attitude when he gives speeches, and his general lack of warmth. (I, for one, disagree - look at that smile!). Kaus admits that likeability may not be all that important in a president, but he wonders whether it might be a problem if Obama thinks he's likeable.

This caught my attention because we've been studying exactly this topic in my lab. Not with Obama (he won't return our calls) but with regular people. Do we know how others see us, and does it matter if we're wrong? My graduate student, Erika Carlson, just wrote a paper that was accepted for publication (co-authors are Mike Furr and myself) in which she showed that not only do people have a clue about how they're seen by others, but they even know when they don't know. That is, when we asked people what impression they made on a person they had just met, they were more often right than wrong, and when they were wrong they were more likely to be uncertain about the impression they made.

Of course people do make plenty of mistakes about the impressions they make on others, and these mistakes can be quite costly. Cameron Anderson, Dan Ames, and Sam Gosling recently published a paper that showed that people who overestimate their status in a group suffer the consequences: they are less well-liked by their group members and their work is valued less. And indeed both Anderson's paper and a more recent paper by Hillary Anger Elfenbein and her colleagues show that people are pretty good at estimating their status and value in a group. Of course, these were business school students, but presumably the rest of us are pretty good, too.

So maybe Mickey Kaus was onto something. Knowing how popular you are is pretty important - we don't like people who think they're more popular than they really are. Like Beyonce, if you talk like that, you'd better back it up.

You're not the kind of man who...

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:17:37 +0000

"Because the truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own. [...] Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say "I know you, Al. You're not the kind of man who.""
-From Straight Man by Richard Russo, pp. 373-374

I recently watched the Frontline documentary "Storm over Everest" about the 1996 tragedy. I had also read Krakauer's account, and read a little about it online. Regardless of who actually did what, I found it fascinating to think about how it must have felt for those people up there to find out how they would act under such dire circumstances.

In the Frontline documentary, Beck Weathers (who was left for dead twice and climbed down with completely frostbitten hands, feet, and nose) claims that in that awful situation, people's true character was revealed. I'm not sure I agree that we are what we do in the most stressful situations, but I do think those actions revealed a small part of those people's characters, and a part that they could not have seen of themselves otherwise.

Many of us have probably had similar experiences on a much smaller scale. I remember when I was in graduate school my friends played a trick on me to see whether I would conform (similar to the famous Asch experiment in which a group of confederates claimed that a short line was longer than a long line and then the experimenter watched to see whether the only real participant would go along with the group). I could have punched them for doing it to me, but it was interesting to find out how I would behave under that kind of peer pressure. Perhaps more common, we've all been on turbulent plane rides where we find out how courageous (or uncourageous) our friends and colleagues really are.

Luckily, most of us haven't been in situations that truly tested our courage, but I think many of us wonder how we would act. In the case of the Everest disaster, I don't have to wonder too hard - I know I would probably be cowering in the tents. But I suspect I'm not alone in wondering, for example, whether I would have "gone all the way" if I had been a participant in the Milgram experiment and a Yale professor was breathing down my neck telling me to shock another human being at dangerous levels.

When I was a graduate student my advisor had a very creative way of teaching students this lesson - that you can't know what you'll do until you do it. A week before the lecture on the bystander effect (the tendency for people not to act in the face of obvious harm to others), we asked my brother to lie face down, with his backpack on, just outside the only door to the lecture hall. He was sprawled out and the door hit his leg every time it opened - there was no doubt that he was not simply taking a little nap. Semester after semester, the students would file out, step over him, and go on to their next class. Once in a while someone would shout something at him or give him a little kick, but in my time in graduate school not more than one or two people (out of close to a thousand) ever came to us (the professor or the TA) to report the incident.

The next week, the professor discussed experimental findings and real life examples of people standing by as other people were suffering or in danger. He then asked the class to raise their hand if they think they would have intervened. Naturally most people raised their hands. Then he showed a slide of my brother, lying face down outside their classroom. The look on their faces at the moment of self-awareness was priceless.

This is not to condemn anyone who didn't help, or those who obeyed Milgram, etc. I'm fairly confident I would have failed all those tests myself. I am simply fascinated by that moment of self-insight. That moment when you realize "I'm (not) the kind of person who...".

So your mom thinks you're beautiful...

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:37:50 +0000

"Every one of them thought his disparaging remarks were aimed at someone else."

-Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, p. 11

During today's online chat with Dear Prudence, a woman asked why she can't find a boyfriend even though "people always tell me I'm really pretty, smart, fun, nice, and adventurous". It's one thing if strangers are coming up to you randomly and telling you you are the most beautiful person they've ever seen, but it's another if your mother and best friend tell you you're beautiful. I am always amazed at people who, with a straight face, point to the fact that their parents or friends have told them that they're wonderful as evidence that they must be.

It's not really their fault -- psychologists and self-help books alike suggest that one way for us to learn about ourselves is to listen to what other people tell us. The idea is that by getting feedback about how other people see us, we can learn more about what we're really like, or at least how we come across to others. Although in principle I think this is great advice, there are a number of obstacles.

First, people will rarely tell us what our most annoying characteristics are (except maybe through facebook's Honesty Box). This is not because they are trying to be uncooperative, it's just extremely difficult to criticize someone you care about and will continue to see every day. It's too much to ask. This is one of the reasons why our friends and family constantly give us positive feedback - they're not necessarily lying, they're just taking the easy way out and focusing on (or exaggerating) the positive to avoid telling you what you really want (need) to know.

Second, even when people do give us a nugget of valuable negative feedback, we probably don't pay enough attention to it. It usually comes sugar-coated, which makes it go down smoother, but also makes it easier to forget or minimize. If someone who cares about you takes the not-insignificant risk of telling you something negative about yourself (unless it's in the middle of a shouting match), chances are it's a big thing, and other people are thinking the same thing. The scene in Nancy Horan's book -- in which Frank Lloyd Wright disparages the tastes of housewives to a group of housewives who are all nodding and smiling, thinking his comments don't apply to them -- is familiar to all of us, albeit in slightly different forms. Many of us would do well to stop and ask ourselves if the complaints and criticisms we hear from our friends, boss, employees, and siblings, might not apply to us.

So what are we to do in a world full of false positives, and almost no negative feedback? One solution is to pay better attention - listen for the slight hints of criticism, watch for the signs that we're putting people off. Of course the danger with this approach is that one could go too far, and in the process become quite neurotic. Alternatively, we could more actively seek blunt feedback, but this is not for the faint-hearted. For a fascinating story about a guy who did just that, listen to act two of this episode of "This American Life." Finally, when it comes to positive feedback we can try to separate the wheat from the chaff - an unsolicited compliment from someone who has nothing to gain from flattering you can be meaningful, but if your mom tells you you're great, don't let it go to your head.

A case of national self-deception?

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:07:56 +0000

The U.S. media is in a frenzy over the election in Iran. I agree that the results were probably rigged, that it was not a fair election, and I, too, would have liked to see Ahmadinejad defeated. But what amazes me is how un-self-aware we Americans are in the face of a stolen election.

Many articles I am reading seem to be encouraging Iranians to revolt. Journalists seem more interested in egging on angry Iranians than trying to understand the problems with the system that led to this situation. One article describes it this way: "the possibility of choice did inspire what had seemed to be a passive society to protest". There is no doubt about it, the American media wants Iranians to protest. The words "revolution" and "coup d'etat" are not far from their lips.

This strikes me as rash for two reasons, one of which is obvious: Revolutions do not have a history of producing the intended outcome, and Iran is no exception. The second reason is that we seem to have forgotten that not nine years ago, we as a nation calmly rolled over and accepted the results of an election that many of us believe was unfair. In fact, most of the country seems to agree that Gore won the popular vote, that the vote recount in Florida would have given Gore that state's electoral votes, and that the supreme court decision was a political one (reported to have contributed to Sandra Day O'Connor's dissatisfaction with her job and colleagues). Is that very different from what is happening in Iran today? In the end, our election was decided by a handful of people in black robes, too. So why are Iranians being encouraged to put their system of government, their economic and political stability, and even their lives, on the line? Did any of us call for that kind of reaction here in 2000? Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle "a passive society"?

It seems to me that if the American media paused for a moment of self-reflection, they might think twice about encouraging protests and upheaval. In the end I don't know what the right reaction would be - to the current situation in Iran or to our own situation in 2000. But what I do know is that it's probably easier to see a speck in another country's electoral system than a branch in our own.

Supreme court acknowledges existence of unconscious bias

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:20:25 +0000

In a 5-4 ruling this week, the supreme court ruled that a judge should recuse himself if there is a risk of actual bias, even if the judge himself has searched his soul and concluded that he has no bias.

The case was eerily similar to the plot of John Grisham's recent novel, The Appeal. In the real-life case, a large coal company was found liable for $50 million in a jury trial in West Virginia. While their appeal was pending in the state surpreme court, the company's CEO spent millions of dollars to help Brent Benjamin, a candidate for state supreme court justice, win his election against the not-so-friendly-to-big-business incumbent.

Benjamin won the election in time to cast a deciding vote in the 3-2 ruling overturning the jury's decision and thus saving the large coal company millions of dollars and the danger of a precedent. The large corporation was happy. The plaintiff, not so much.

At issue in the US supreme court case was whether Benjamin should have recused himself due to the coal company's large financial contribution to his campaign. Benjamin did some soul-searching and concluded that he had no conflict of interest. The supreme court (or 5 of the justices, anyway), disagreed. According to the ruling, what matters for recusal is not the judge's own self-perception of his or her bias, but the actual probability of bias.

What is fascinating to me about this case is the supreme court's acknowledgment that there is such as thing as unconscious bias. As I wrote about in my last entry, there is plenty of evidence that we are not aware of all of our own biases, and it is preposterous to trust other people's (or your own) self-perception of their own bias. Of course my own skepticism about self-reports does not stop at bias - I believe that we can be wrong about all kinds of things about ourselves. However, it seems to me that the first thing we should doubt about people's claims about themselves is their claim to neutrality, or their insight into their own biases. I'm not accusing Benjamin of outright lying - he may very well have believed that he could be objective (then again, he may not). But I agree with the supreme court that on issues like this, the judge should not be the judge of his own bias.

Does Sotomayor know her own biases?

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:58:50 +0000

Prominent Republicans have been calling for senators to ask Sotomayor how her ethnic identity influences her judgment during her upcoming confirmation hearings. Some have even gone as far as accusing her of racism. Others have argued that we don't ask straight white men how their identity biases their judgments, so it would be a double-standard to ask Sotomayor.

The question that comes to my mind is, is there any point in asking, anyway? Can Sotomayor, or anyone, really tell us how her identity biases her judgment? Do we know our own biases and prejudices?

Certainly some of us do. We may happily endorse prejudiced views about certain groups, or reluctantly admit that we hold prejudices of which we're not proud. But for many kinds of biases, research suggests that we're not very good at knowing we have them, or how strong they are.

Research shows that while levels of explicit prejudice (e.g., racism and sexism) have gone down, implicit prejudice - our unconscious associations between certain groups of people and negative attributes - is alive and well. What's more, the two are often unrelated. What you think you think about African Americans may not match your automatic reactions or unconscious assocations.

According to the findings, implicit biases are quite common and robust (many people show larger differences in their implicit associations with elderly vs. young people, for example). In addition, these biases are present even in people who honestly believe they have no bias or prejudice towards that group. Most importantly, these biases are not harmless. Research shows that they predict subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) acts of discrimination, such as being less friendly or warm towards a person, or evaluating their work more harshly.

Of course not everybody has negative implicit associations about other ethnic groups. But many do. And they don't know it. So unless Sotomayor harbors explicit prejudices that she is willing to parade in front of the whole senate, we probably won't learn much about her biases by asking her. And even if she does have implicit biases, there is no reason to think all the other justices don't as well.

The limits of self-knowledge

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:53:25 +0000

"There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought, 'Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?' If I don't know such basic things about myself, who does?"
-Phyllis Rose, Women's Lives, Introduction, p. 36

It's pretty uncontroversial to say that there are some things people are not very good at knowing about themselves. It's not easy to know how funny you are, or whether people find you charming. But surely there are some things you know beyond a doubt, like how happy you are or how you're feeling right now. Or do you?

Most of us probably believe that if we know anything about ourselves, we know what we're feeling and thinking. I believed that, too, until I read the work of some philosophers and psychologists who argue otherwise. First, Dan Haybron argues in his new book "The Pursuit of Unhappiness" that we may be wrong not only about what makes us happy but even about how happy we are, right now. His argument is based on very convincing examples and solid psychological research. For example, Tim Wilson and Dan Gilbert, two psychologists who study "affective forecasting", have shown that people often make incorrect predictions about what will make them happy.

In an even more extreme move, philospher Eric Schwitzgebel argues that when we introspect about what we're thinking or feeling, we often get it wrong. He also provides extremely compelling examples of times when individuals or entire societies have been woefully mistaken about their own subjective experience. For example, why is it that the common wisdom in the 1950s was that we dream in black and white? How could so many people have been so wrong about their own subjective experience? If we can be wrong about what we're imagining or dreaming, we can probably also be wrong about what we're feeling.

The empirical evidence is also pretty strong. On of the most interesting examples is a study by Shedler et al. (1993, American Psychologist) who asked people to fill out self-report questionnaires of mental health, and then had clinicians assess each person's mental health. For some people, their self-reports matched the clinicians' ratings. That is, some people described themselves as distressed and were rated as distressed by the clinicans, and some described themselves as mentally healthy and were also rated that way by the clinicians. But the interesting group is the group that claimed to be mentally healthy but was described as distressed by the clinicians. This group showed strong physiological signs of distress, and the more they denied being distressed in their self-reports, the more physiogical signs they exhibited. The authors refer to these people as "defensive deniers."

Of course we could argue about whether these people actually knew, deep down, that they were distressed, but just didn't want to admit it to researchers on a questionnaire. But we can all think of people who seem deeply unaware of their own emotional states - people who think they are fine when in fact they are suffering. I think we can probably even think of the reverse - people who think they are suffering when in fact they are relatively happy. It's strange to me that I can believe I know someone's happiness levels better than they do.

After considering these pieces of evidence, I am less sure that we are such experts about our own mental and emotional states. I still think that most of the time, we know our own thoughts and feelings better than other people do, but it is definitely shocking how often we can be wrong.

Seeing the forest for the trees

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Fri, 15 May 2009 13:55:01 +0000

"How can you not know yourself?" Perry said.
Mr. Berg threw up his hands in mock despair. "Too much evidence. Too much information. Most of it contradictory. Evidence here suggests one thing; other information suggests the opposite. No clear picture emerges. Won't hold steady."
-From Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo, p. 378

I suspect most of us feel that our own behavior is incredibly variable. Sometimes you act like an extreme extravert, sometimes you're the paragon of introversion, right? All of us feel that way to some extent, like there is no clear pattern. Won't hold steady.

Some research supports this intuition. Will Fleeson's work on within-person variability in personality and behavior suggests that each person's personality fluctuates quite dramatically over time, even within the span of just a few weeks or even days. So all of us are right, in a way, we do not have just one personality.

However, there is also evidence that we might be exaggerating our own flexibility. Research on actor-observer asymmetries (that is, the difference between observing yourself and observing someone else) suggests that we are much more sensitive to fluctuations in our own behavior than in others', but we're better at detecting general patterns in others than in ourselves. That is, we have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to our own behavior.

This research is usually taken to show that we overestimate the consistency in other people's behavior (e.g., Schwarz and Wellens, 1997, make the point that polling data based on observer reports (e.g., spouses' ratings of each other) probably overestimate the consistency in people's behavior). This is a very good point - if you want to know how someone's behavior fluctuates from one situation to another, it's probably best to ask them, not their friends or family. We are much more attuned to the situational influences on our own behavior than others are. For example, I can tell you that the reason I was grumpy last night is because the Celtics lost, not necessarily because I'm always a grumpy person.

However, there is also a flip side to this story. If others are worse at seeing the fluctuations in our behavior, they are also better at seeing the generalities. I may notice that I'm more pleasant when the Celtics win and grumpier when they lose, but those around me have a better sense than I do about whether I'm generally a pleasant or grumpy person. They're not plagued by knowledge of my thoughts, feelings, intentions, moods, etc., and can just look at my behavior and see a trend.

Why is it so hard for us to calculate an average based on all the specific information we have? I suspect, as Russo's character does, that it's because we are overwhelmed by the numerous examples and counterexamples. Ask me if I'm a grumpy person, and I can think of ten examples supporting either answer. But I don't think it's just that. As I implied above, I also think that our awareness of our internal states (moods, intentions, thoughts, etc.) can lead us astray - we forget how we actually behaved because we are so wrapped in how we felt, how we meant to behave, etc.

In addition to these informational burdens, we are also less motivated to do the arithmetic for a variety of reasons. For the person living in the body of the grumpy person, it's more important to know what will make us more or less grumpy, so we can choose the right situations, than to know whether we're overall more grumpy than the average person. And of course there's the potential cost of finding out something negative about ourselves - maybe not knowing is safer than doing the calculation and coming up short. Finally, there's the danger that even if we try to count all the trees, we'll get it wrong, and then we'll end up thinking that we have self-knowledge when we don't. In a world with so much contradictory evidence, sometimes it seems wisest to do as Socrates did and just admit that we know very little.

Would you want to know?

Simine Vazire, Ph.D. — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:22:42 +0000

"No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it."
-Bertrand Russell

Is self-knowledge necessary for happiness? Bertrand Russell apparently thought so. So did the Oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece, where the phrase "Know Thyself" was purportedly etched into the temple. More recently, the Dalai Lama co-authored a book titled "How to See Yourself as You Really Are", so presumably he thinks self-knowledge is important for happiness, too.

I'm not so sure. It's not that I think self-deception is good, I just think it's an empirical question whether self-aware people are happier. I can think of many reasons why self-knowledge might lead to greater happiness. For example, self-aware people might make better decisions (e.g., where to live, what career to pursue, whether to have kids) and they are probably more pleasant to be around as friends, coworkers, and family members. But I have to admit that I often find myself envying the blissfully ignorant, and I can't help but wonder whether self-knowledge is worth it.

Of course there might be other reasons to value self-knowledge, besides happiness. Maybe self-aware people aren't happier but they are better off, in some other sense. It's hard to shake the feeling that we should all strive to know ourselves better, even if it doesn't make us happier. But if we do want to become more self-aware, how should we go about it?

In this blog I plan to examine these questions, focusing particularly on the scientific research that might help us answer them. How well do people know themselves? Is self-knowledge or self-deception associated with happiness? How can self-knowledge be improved?