There are few things in the world that are more mysterious than how we come off to other
people.
Well, beside sex.
And black holes...those have always confused me.
Hey everyone, Laci Green here for DNews.
Self awareness can only take you so far in life, since everyone that you're interacting
with will interpret you differently.
Now a new study coming out of Columbia University is casting light on just how out-of-touch
we really are.
The researchers were looking specifically at the issue of assertiveness; are you as
assertive as you think you are?
Participants were paired up to make a deal with each other, then they were surveyed about
their own assertiveness as well as their partners.
For those that *came off as under assertive*, most of them thought they were appropriately
pushy, or maybe even too pushy, during the negotiations.
For the participants that *came off as overly pushy*, most of them thought they came off
us just the right amount or not assertive enough.
So, the odds of you correctly assessing how you come off to others(?) is 50/50.
Which basically means you could be a JERK or a PUSHOVER and you'd never know it!
There's one other important finding though: those who came off as just the right amount
of assertive tended to think that they had been a little too assertive.
So, when in doubt, be a little more assertive than you think you should be, and you may
get closer to striking that golden balance.
Cash money in the bank baby.
Assertiveness isn't the only area where our self perception is a little off.
Other studies have also found that we tend to perceive ourselves as more attractive than
we really are -- something called "self enhancement bias".
For the study, researchers took pictures of participants and subtly photo shopped them
into several versions.
When asked to select their original photo, people selected the one that was enhanced
to look more attractive.
When they were selecting photos of a stranger they had briefly met, the participants picked
the unmodified photo.
Self enhancement bias comes into play with our perception of our own *goodness* as well.
A study at Cornell found that we overestimate how charitable we are.
We consistently estimate that we'll give more to charity than we actually do.
We predict others' donations pretty well though.
Same for our self-perception of voting behavior: we overestimate our likelihood of do that
good citizen duty of voting.
It kind of makes you question your life and the universe and everything you once knew.
WHO ARE YOU, IN THIS WORLD?
I guess you'll never know.
Thanks for joining me for DNews everyone, we'll be back later with more science updates.