How you see
yourself
Let’s start the story of psychology with you and what you know about
yourself. You’ve known you your whole life. In fact, you spend every
waking minute with yourself, so you’d think that by now you’d have
a pretty accurate picture of the kind of person you are. Actually, I’m
afraid to say, you probably don’t. Research shows consistently that our
view of ourselves is subject to such an overwhelming array of distor-
tions and delusions it’s amazing we even recognize ourselves in the
mirror each morning. Most of us seem to have an uncanny inability to
predict what we will and won’t enjoy. And, with the exception of those
who are depressed or suffering chronic low self-esteem, we exhibit a
ludicrously inflated sense of our own abilities. No doubt these positive
distortions serve an adaptive evolutionary purpose, equipping us
with a psychological suit of armour with which to face the dog-eat-
dog world.
The Lake Wobegon Effect
Would you say you’re among the best drivers on the road? Research
shows that most people think so, although logic dictates we can’t all be
better than most. In one oft-quoted study, for example, Ola Svenson
found that 88 percent of US student participants and 77 percent of
Swedish students rated themselves as among the top 50 percent of their
peers for driving safety. Ninety-three percent and 63 percent, respectively,
rated themselves as among the most skilful. Even more damning though
is a study by Caroline Preston and Stanley Harris published in 1965.
They interviewed fifty drivers who were in hospital following a car crash.
Despite the fact that 35 of these calamitous characters were deemed by
police as responsible for the crash, they nonetheless rated their own
driving just as highly as did 50 comparison drivers who’d never had an
accident.