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Do People Know What They're Like in the Moment?
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis.
Psychological Science
|January 18, 2019
Summary
People can accurately know their momentary personality states for extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. However, self-insight into agreeableness fluctuations is limited, potentially causing interpersonal issues.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Personality Psychology
Background:
- Self-knowledge encompasses both general traits and moment-to-moment personality states.
- Understanding state self-knowledge is crucial for a comprehensive view of the self.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate individuals' ability to accurately perceive their fluctuating personality states.
- To examine self-insight into specific personality dimensions in real-time.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) for unobtrusive audio recording.
- Employed experience-sampling methodology with frequent personality state self-reports.
- Compared self-reported states with observer-coded states from EAR recordings for criterion validation.
Main Results:
- Individuals demonstrated accurate self-insight into momentary states of extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.
- Self-knowledge regarding fluctuations in agreeableness was notably weaker.
- Limited insight into agreeableness may contribute to interpersonal difficulties.
Conclusions:
- People possess a degree of accurate self-awareness regarding dynamic changes in certain personality aspects.
- Deficits in state self-knowledge, particularly for agreeableness, may underlie interpersonal challenges and trait self-ignorance.
Keywords:
experience-sampling methodnaturalistic observationopen dataopen materialspersonality statesself-knowledgesocial behaviorMore Related Videos
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