Study: Self-Images Often Erroneously Inflated

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=1291826

I especially liked this quote at the end:
"...if "flawed self-assessment" is so pervasive, maybe we do it because we need it.
Maybe we've just got to believe we're above average..."

People go around saying X is conceited or Y has a huge ego... like it's a bad thing.
WTF? So what's the alternative, being insecure and mopey?
Being a good little christian who "knows his place"?
Fuck that. Seriously. I've had to put up with insecure people all my life. They are so annoying. They have this huge "can't do" mindset, because "it's just too hard" and "i don't think like that" or "i'm not that kind of person".
If you dont believe in yourself with a passion how will you ever be someone?
Loving yourself is a GOOD THING. Especially if deep down inside you actually know you're not as good as you think you are... because it drives you to BECOME more like you think you are, by working hard towards it.
Unless, of course, you're a fight-club nihilist who thinks self-improvement is masturbation.

If I weren't me, I'd wanna be Eggy Lippmann!

<3 Ditto

Loving yourself is a good thing, sure. But like anything in life I think it's about a balance, about the middle-ground between self-love and egotism. If you have too much confidence, too much ego, ect, a person can come off as a real a$$. Also, many times I've met people who have an inferiority complex and feel really BAD about themselves, so they mask that with a superiority complex and ego... On the inside(and their manorisms, the way they act), they feel terrible about themselves and think themselves very lowly or worthless, but on the outside, and shown in the things they say to other people, they tried real hard to "walk the walk and talk the talk".

In other words, if it's genuine (not insincerely trying to pretend you're OK with yourself when your really not just to fit in), and not too overinflated, I'd agree with you, Eggy.


Edit > WAIT, no fair, how do _I_ sign up to be Eggy, I want a turn!

Eggy,

I'm on to your game........ I think.......
























And I like it

I don't get it
I just posted that because sometimes I get random idiots who barely know me accusing me of random crap that I find perfectly normal. It's a rather nice coincidence that today ABCnews is running articles on those two studies... I perfectly identify myself with them.

Have you ever noticed how many crappy drivers there are out there? They cut you off, they wait forever to accelerate at a light (so that you don't get through it), they brake for no reason - or slow down to make sure their hair looks ok?

It's always been strange to me that while about half of drivers are lousy, I can't find people who thinkt they're lousy....For the longest time I just assumed that they had a secret neighborhood that they all pulled out of at once to spread chaos. This article helped to explain it to me, thank you Eggy.

Taco

p.s. I freely admit that I am a poor driver.

I'm a good driver. I've never been in an accident that went on my insurance. The only moving car I've ever hit was this idiot who started to make a right turn (the way was clear) and then stopped ( ). Then he got out of his car and I immediately started asking him if he was okay and telling him to pull over so we could talk about it. He thought I was going to kick his ass so he hurried back to his car and drove off.

keep telling yourself that.

yeah. definately a good driver.

A good driver learns to avoid the idiots.

One of the most interesting experiments I ever saw about self-images:

They got two groups of people, one group with "low self-esteem" and one group normal. They then showed them a computer program that presented a series of words, one at a time, and asked them if they agreed with them as descriptions of themselves or not. The words were in positive/negative pairs (hardworking/lazy, good-lucking/ugly, etc, etc) but the order they were presented was random, so the two halves of a pair wouldn't be presented together.

They expected that the "low self-esteem" people would choose more negatives, and the others would choose more positives. But, amazingly, they didn't. Well, they did choose SLIGHTLY more negatives, but only by a very, very small margin. The SIGNIFICANT result was that the people with low self-esteem were far more likely to give paradoxical responses - rating themselves with either both the positive and negative of the same trait, or neither of them.

I don't drive... I have people to take care of that for me

All you balloon-heads with over inflated egos can fool yourselves all you want. I know myself inside and out, and when everything is added up and calculated, it boils down to one fact: I am a loser. Wish I COULD fool myself.

All of a sudden I want to watch Driving Miss Daisy...

I agree, Eggy.
When I was in my teens I was on the insecure side. At the time I thought my actions were "being modest" or "being honest" when I put myself down or explained why I couldn't do this or that. Only later did I realize what a pain in the ass I was!
And yes, only when I outgrew the "I'm not as good as other people" and the "If something is difficult for me it means I can't do it" notions did I start acheiving things and having fun.

You're an angel Devlin

So, if Eggy has a large ego, does that mean he'd be Grade-A Jumbo? or Grade-AA Extra Large?

as my signature says....witty, wonderful and wise...I know myself! but every coin is two sided.....so on the otherside i am....worn out, wrinkled and weighty, but what the He__! I like myself and thats whats important, right?

Peaople are always asking me "How did you meet Eggy Lippmann?"

How I met Eggy was I went to a nude beach. This was the very end of summer, and I was asleep. Eggy was naked and sweaty and gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, hanging in his face.
Eggy had been around a long time before we met.
Eggy was pulling driftwood logs out of the surf and dragging them up the beach. In the wet sand, he'd already planted a half circle of logs so they stood a few inches apart and as tall as his eyes. There were four logs, and when I woke up, I watched Eggy pull a fifth log up the beach. Eggy dug a hole under one end of the log, then lifted the other end until the log slid into the hole and stood there at a slight angle.
You wake up at the beach.
We were the only people on the beach.
With a stick, Eggy drew a straight line in the sand several feet away. Eggy went back to straighten the log by stamping around its base.
I was the only person watching this.
Eggy called over, "Do you know what time it is?"
I always wear a watch.
"Do you know what time it is?"
I asked, where?
"Right here," Eggy said. "Right now."
It was 4:06 PM.
After a while, Eggy sat cross-legged in the shadow of the standing logs. Eggy sat for a few minutes, got up and took a swim, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and started to leave.
I had to ask.
I had to know what Eggy was doing while I was asleep.
If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?
I asked if Eggy was an artist.
Eggy shrugged and showed me how the five standing logs were wider at the base. Eggy showed me the line he'd drawn in the sand, and how he'd use the line to gauge the shadow cast by each log.
Sometimes, you wake up and have to ask where you are.
What Eggy had created was the shadow of a giant hand. Only now the fingers were Nosferatu-long and the thumb was too short, but he said how at exactly four-thirty the hand was perfect. The giant shadow hand was perfect for one minute, and for one perfect minute Eggy had sat in the palm of a perfection he'd created herself.
You wake up, and you're nowhere.
One minute was enough, Eggy said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
You wake up, and that's enough.
His name was Eggy Lippmann, and he was a Linden Alt, and he was an egg sandwich at a resturant, downtown, and he gave me his phone number.
And this is how we met.

Eggy, you should take this seriously! Millions of people around the world suffer from happiness and self-importance, and must get treatment right away. When do the pharmaceuticals expect to release their new drugs for this?

I'm flattered, but I'm not. I'm just a regular guy... with a first life...
I did apply though... a couple of times, once for Liaison, another for Online Evangelist. Meh.
Someone at LL must really hate me

So you admit to being an egg sandwich in a resturant downtown!

Hah, same here, I can't even get into LIVE HELP.

I think that's because a large part of having good self-esteem IS recognizing your failings - and loving yourself anyway.

coco