People's capacity to evaluate themselves is often much more meagre than common intuition would lead one to believe. Complete strangers armed only with scant information can predict a person's skills and abilities almost as well as he or she can. Acquaintances may actually predict a person's abilities and performance better than the person him- or herself.
I'm not sure that it would surprise Christians who have made a habit of self-examination, though. Certainly I suspect that confession is not only good for the soul but in honing an ever more accurate self image -provided it is supplemented by checking out with trustworthy [=honest and compassionate] sigificant others. Of course there is the opposite tendency among the over-scrupulous of seeing ourselves as less capable or 'good' than we are. The trick is to be aware of both and find which areas of our life we need to apply which to. I also wonder about the conditions of testing this: I know a lot of people who seriously underestimate their abilities in key areas. Yet our systems of appraisal and development in workplaces do not encourage people to share what they perceive to be their weaknesses.
Maybe I'm missing something ...
Guardian Unlimited Money | Work | Ignorance is bliss: Filed in: social, self-evaluation, self-image
1 comment:
Hi there
Tried to post a comment on thegreening...would not let me...said I had to be a team member...could nto find your email address so am posting comment here for you.
Like thegreening and have added to my list of green blogs...you might be interested in something recently set up called the Carnival of the Green.
Check out:
http://cityhippy.blogspot.com/2005/10/feature-carnival-of-green.html
Feel free to submit posts...maybe even sign up to host.
Namaste
Al
Post a Comment