Meta-insight: Do people really know how others see them?

Abstract

Although people can accurately guess how others see them, many studies have suggested that this may only be because people generally assume that others see them as they see themselves. These findings raise the question: In their everyday lives, do people understand the distinction between how they see their own personality and how others see their personality? We examined whether people make this distinction, or whether people possess what we call meta-insight. In 3 studies, we assessed meta-insight for a broad range of traits (e.g., Big Five, intelligent, funny) across several naturalistic social contexts (e.g., first impression, friends). Our findings suggest that people can make valid distinctions between how they see themselves and how others see them. Thus, people seem to have some genuine insight into their reputation and do not achieve meta-accuracy only by capitalizing on the fact that others see them similarly to how they see themselves.Keywords: meta-perception, interpersonal perception, personality I've always known that there's more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn't regret that he isn't more fully understood?-Richard Russo, Bridge of Sighs Like Richard Russo's character, many people have likely had the experience of feeling that others do not see them the way they see themselves. People's beliefs about how others see them, called meta-perceptions, guide their behavior and affect their relationships. Given the significance of these beliefs, an important issue is whether meta-perceptions are accurate, or whether people achieve meta-accuracy (Kenny, 1994). Although there are several ways to conceptualize and measure meta-accuracy, overall it appears that people do have some insight into the personality impressions they make on others (e.g., Carlson & Furr, 2009; Carlson & Kenny, in press;Levesque, 1997;Malloy, Albright, Kenny, Agatstein, & Winquist, 1997). Intuitively, such findings suggest that people are capable of perspective taking or even mind reading. However, there is convincing evidence that instead of picking up on cues from others, people base their meta-perceptions primarily on their self-perceptions (e.g., Chambers, Epley, Savitsky, & Windschitl, 2008;Kaplan, Santuzzi, & Ruscher, 2009;Kenny & DePaulo, 1993;Shrauger & Schoeneman, 1979). In other words, metaaccuracy can be achieved without ever looking outside of the self. Such findings raise the question, Do people know the difference between how they see themselves and how others see them?The goal of the present research was to investigate whether people understand the distinction between how they see their own personality and how others see their personality, a new form of self-knowledge we call meta-insight. Specifically, meta-insight reflects the relationship between the beliefs people have about the impressions they make on others (i.e., their meta-perceptions) and others' actual impressions, independent of how people see themselves. To our knowledge, no study has sy...

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