Γνώρισε τους άλλους μπας και γνωρίσεις τον εαυτό σου

Since at least the days of Socrates, humans have been advised to "know thyself." And through all the years, many, including many personality and social psychologists, have believed the individual is the best judge of his or her own personality.

Now a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis has shown that we are not the know-it-alls that we think we are.

Simine Vazire, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, has found that the individual is more accurate in assessing one's own internal, or neurotic traits, such as anxiety, while friends are better barometers of intellect-related traits, such as intelligence and creativity, and even strangers are equally adept as our friends and ourselves at spotting the extrovert in us all, a psychology domain known as "extroversion."

"I think that it's important to really question this knee-jerk reaction that we are our own best experts," says Vazire. "Personality is not who you think you are, it's who you are. Some people think by definition that we are the experts on our personality because we get to write the story, but personality is not the story -- it's the reality. So, you do get to write your own story about how you think you are, and what you tell people about yourself, but there still is reality out there, and, guess what? Other people are going to see the reality, regardless of what story you believe."

Personality, Vazire says, is pervasive in many things that we do -- clothing choice, bedroom arrangement, Web site and Facebook profiles, for example. "Everything you touch you leave a mark of your personality," she says. "You leave traces unintentionally. You give off hints of your personality that you don't even see yourself."

Vazire's study is published in the February 2010 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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Δεν είμαι επιστήμονας αλλά κάτι τέτοιο το φώναζα από το γυμνάσιο. Έριχνα μπουνιές γι αυτή την άποψη στο κολέγιο.

Αν θέλεις να γνωρίσεις τον εαυτό σου θα πρέπει να γνωρίσεις τους άλλους. Τα πάντα γύρω από εσένα. Κι αν είσαι τυχερός, τότε και μόνο τότε, θα γνωρίσεις και τον εαυτό σου.