Self-Insight

by David Dunning

People base thousands of choices across a lifetime on the views they hold of their skill and moral character, yet a growing body of research in psychology shows that such self-views are often misguided or misinformed. Anyone who has dealt with others in the classroom, in the workplace, in the medical office, or on the therapist’s couch has probably experienced people whose opinions of themselves depart from the objectively possible. This book outlines some of the common errors that people make when they evaluate themselves. It also describes the many psychological barriers - some that people build by their own hand - that prevent individuals from achieving self-insight about their ability and character. The first section of the book focuses on mistaken views of competence, and explores why people often remain blissfully unaware of their incompetence and personality flaws. The second section focuses on faulty views of character, and explores why people tend to perceive they are more unique and special than they really are, why people tend to possess inflated opinions of their moral fiber that are not matched by their deeds, and why people fail to anticipate the impact that emotions have on their choices and actions. The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in social, personality, and cognitive psychology, but, through the accessibility of its writing style, it will also appeal to those outside of academic psychology with an interest in the psychological processes that lead to our self-insight.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Self Help, Science, Health

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Henry Barry]

A short social psychology book from 2005 that gets into the research about cognitive biases. Unlike many nonfiction books, this is short on anecdotes and heavy on references to individual studies, making it a bit more boring sometimes but more brief. A fascinating read. Some key findings that stick in my mind: many people overestimate their ability at something because they have no idea what skill at that thing looks like (thinking you're a great dancer when you have no idea what good dance even looks like), we rarely get true feedback in life because no one wants to give us bad news, we constantly overestimate our abilities (but that isn't always a bad thing) and morals, our moods effect our predicted abilities to do things in the future, people can be influenced by being labelled (if you want someone to clean up after themselves, remark about how neat they are).

[Shicheng Huang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Self-evaluation is hard. One should keep in mind that terrible self-evaluation doesn’t not affect a happy life much. To improve self-judgment, one could not overlook his or her past data, also others’ data. One should keep in mind that any other person has very similar mental and biological complexities as ourselves. If you see others feel lazy to finish their new year resolution, the chance that you will feel like that is not low(even though you think you have more control).

Optimism often leads to action and pessimism often leads to the opposite. Both attitude has pros and cons. The important part is to have a good judgment or mechanisms to determine what is good to take actions or not.

[Leonardo]

Citado en el artículo de Pugno en Capabilities and Happiness.

[Ed Terrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Self-knowledge is very, very hard and the challenges are numerous and formidable”.

This is the conclusion of Dunning’s fascinating book about how we look at ourselves and how often self-analysis is quite different from reality. Its like being in Lake Woebegone where "all the children are above average". It turns out that judging our skills in a certain specific domain requires the same cognitive expertise that it takes to be “good” in that domain. Think about all the drivers you know that are absolutely terrible, yet judge themselves “above average”. They lack the toolset to be good at the task and its the same toolset needed to evaluate the task. Now trying thinking how this might apply to yourself!

Dunning refers to this as a metacognitive predicament. It being one, well expressed by Socrates:"The only true wisdom is to know that you know nothing.” One of my favorite chapters, is the one on Education (The Dearest Teacher-Why Experience and Feedback Do Not Necessarily Confer Insight). The problem is twofold: feedback can be inaccurate, ambiguous, absent, biased, etc, and secondly, when hearing the feedback, we do such things as focus on the positive, reject the negative and preferentially seek feedback consistent with our self image. To quote FP Jones: “experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again"

Self-Insight is a powerful book and extremely well documented. I judge books on whether or not they make me think and on how often I feel the need to go to the original sources, simply because the examples are so interesting. While certainly not a self-help book, Dunning does mention tools that we can use to better understand ourselves. For example, using a data driven perspective for planning is better than using a scenario perspective. Also, understanding that we are all more alike than we are different is part of the solution. Predicting how others would respond to a specific situation, may give us a better clue as to how we would respond. In short, get this book. It will linger with you, long after you have put it down

Ambrose Bierce (Devils Dictionary): "Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding"

[Carol Sorensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've ever read. Dunning sums up a career's worth of work in social psychology, and translates it into knowledge that we can all take away. The book is so worthwhile that I keep re-reading and referring to bits of it in my daily life.

If you thought you knew yourself, well - you're likely wrong!

I wish everyone who has a huge body of knowledge would do this for the rest of us. Thank you, Dr. Dunning!

[Mehrdad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I have read! David Dunning is a knowledgeable and reflective professor (of Psychology) and an author who is sharing "his life-long study and work" with the world through this book!
Thanks Prof Dunning!