Neurosciences and the Human Person: New Perspectives on Human Activities

Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 121, Vatican City 2013

www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv121/sv121-wilson.pdf

Self-Knowledge and the Adaptive

Unconscious
Timothy D. Wilson1

At the dawn of human consciousness, when people first gained the ability to reflect upon the world around them, it seems likely that they turned
the spotlight of consciousness inward to try to understand themselves. After
all, throughout recorded human history, self-knowledge has been a highly
valued trait. For thousands of years, Buddhists have sought greater selfawareness through the practice of meditation.The Greeks inscribed Know
Thyself on the wall of the temple at Delphi. Some of the most respected
figures in the Catholic Church extolled the virtue of self-knowledge, such
as St Augustine of Hippo, who in his prayer for self-knowledge wrote,Lord
Jesus, let me know myself and know You (Augustinian Spirituality, n.d.).
Similarly, St Teresa of Avila suggested that, Self-knowledge is of such consequence that I would not have you careless of it (St Teresa of Avila, 1577).
To be sure, different religions and philosophical approaches emphasize
different aspects of self-knowledge. In Buddhism it is a realization of the
transitory nature and unimportance of the self, and a route by which people
can gain awareness of suffering and compassion toward others, as well as a
greater awareness of ones feelings and motives (Flanagan, 2011). In Catholicism, it is gaining a sense of humility and an appreciation of Gods power.
For example, St Augustines prayer goes on to say, Let me banish self and
follow You, and ever desire to follow You (Augustinian Spirituality, n.d.),
and St Teresa of Avila adds, I believe we shall never learn to know ourselves
except by endeavouring to know God, for, beholding His greatness we are
struck by our own baseness (St Teresa of Avila, 1577).
Psychological science shares the idea that self-knowledge is of paramount
importance, but with a somewhat different focus than religious teachings.
Rather than spiritual growth or a sense of humility, psychology has focused
on the value of self-knowledge (e.g., to mental health) and how people attain it. Here I will review research on each of these topics.
1
The preparation of this paper was aided by a grant from the National Science Foundation Grant SES-0951779. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to
Timothy D.Wilson, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400400,
Charlottesville,VA 22904-4400. E-mail: tdw@virginia.edu.

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TIMOTHY D. WILSON

Is There Value to Self-Knowledge?

The simple answer to this question is,Of course. People who are completely out of touch with their abilities, traits, and feelings are likely to be
unhappy with themselves and insufferable around others. Indeed, a common
definition of mental illness is a loss of touch with reality, including ones
own traits and capabilities. A person who believes he can fly after jumping
off of tall buildings is unlikely to live for very long, and a teenager who is
convinced that she will be the next star on the American Idol television show,
despite an inability to carry a tune, is destined for failure and heartache.
But the question of how valuable self-knowledge is turns out to be more
complicated. Taylor and Brown (1988), in a seminal article, suggested that
positive illusions about oneself can be beneficial. Consider two people
who are both talented singers. The one who has greater faith in her ability,
and perhaps even exaggerates it a bit, is likely to work harder and persevere
more in the face of failure, than the one who has a more realistic view. As
long as positive illusions arent too extreme, this argument goes, they confer
motivational and affective benefits.
The Taylor and Brown (1988) argument caused a good deal of controversy
that continues to this day (see Vazire & Wilson, 2012). But a general consensus
has emerged that positive illusions (sometimes called self-enhancement)
can be beneficial or costly, depending on a number of circumstances. One
moderator, as mentioned, is how extreme the illusions are. We have a name
for people who exaggerate their own talents and achievements to extreme
degrees narcissists and research shows that such individuals pay a price
for their self-enhancement: others view them as pompous and unlikeable
(e.g., Colvin, Block, & Funder, 1995; Schriber & Robins, 2012).
There is also evidence that it is best is to keep our self-enhancing tendency to ourselves, because wearing them on our sleeves annoys others.
Support for this hypothesis comes from a study by Dufner (2012), who
found that there was a social benefit to actual self-enhancement but a social
cost to perceived self-enhancement.The more people actually self-enhanced
that is, the extent to which they thought that they were more intelligent
than they actually were the more they were liked by their friends, perhaps
because they were confident and happy people. But the more people were
perceived to be self-enhancers by their friends, the more unpopular they
were. The moral seems to be that it is good to privately believe that we are
better than we are, but not to convey that view to others.
It is also important to consider the value of self-knowledge from a
broader perspective. In addition to overestimating specific abilities, such as
how well we can sing or how intelligent we are, are there key myths about

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SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE ADAPTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

ourselves and the social world that increase our well-being? I believe that
there are a small number of essential myths that human beings share.
Whether they are adaptive is open to debate, though I suspect they are, at
least in moderation. I offer four candidates of such myths here. Warning:
Discussing these myths is tantamount to dispelling them, at least temporarily, so read on at your own risk!
Essential Myth 1: We Are Immortal

Everyone knows that they are mortal beings who have an expiration
date. Some people believe in the immortality of the soul or in reincarnation,
of course, but no one can deny that our existence in our current bodies
will end sooner or later. Did you experience a ping of anxiety when you
read that sentence? I confess that I experienced such a ping when I wrote
it. Knowledge of our own mortality is the ultimate existential threat and
people have developed all sorts of strategies to avoid thinking about the inevitability of their deaths (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 2004). As a
result, we live much of our lives avoiding the knowledge of our ultimate
demise, or at least avoiding to think about it. Is such denial adaptive? The
answer is no if it leads to behaviors that will hasten our demise, such as
smoking cigarettes and overeating. But constant reminders of our ultimate
end are paralyzing and I suspect that there is a happy medium, where it is
best to live each hour without dwelling too much on the fact that it might
be our last one, while at the same time trying to maximize our number of
hours by adopting a healthy lifestyle.
Essential Myth 2: We Are Important

There is no one that we spend more time with than ourselves. As a result, it is hard to avoid the impression that we are an important force in the
world, individuals who make a difference and are of great consequence to
many other people. For most of us, this impression is probably not as true
as we think it is. Suppose, for example, that I gave a questionnaire to your
friends and family that asked them to (a) rank how important you are to
them, in comparison to their other loved ones, and (b) to keep track of how
often they think about you when you are not around. Next I ask you to
guess what your average importance ranking is among your friends and
family, and to guess how often you are in their thoughts.To my knowledge
such a study has not been done, but if it were, I would bet that most of us
would overestimate our importance and salience to others.
This myth probably helps us get out of bed in the morning, work hard
at our jobs, and strike up conversations with strangers at parties. After all,

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TIMOTHY D. WILSON

why do any of these things if we are just one insignificant speck in the universe? Of course, this myth can be taken too far, resulting in narcissism. And
showing people that they are not as important as they think they are might
have the benefits of reducing the number of inane posts they make on social
media sites, shorten the length of their boring stories at parties, and increase
the likelihood that they focus less on themselves and more on helping others. In this regard, it is interesting to note that many religions stress the insignificance of any one of us on earth, stressing humbleness over
self-importance. But again, exaggerating our importance a tad probably has
motivational benefits.
Essential Myth 3: The World Is as We See It

When we observe the social world and form impressions of other people, we are often surprised to learn that other people saw things differently
from us.The reason we are surprised is because of a pervasive phenomenon
called nave realism, which is the assumption that we observe the world as
it actually is, rather than interpreting, construing, or selecting the information that reaches our senses (Ross & Ward, 1996). Because we believe that
we see things as they are, when others disagree with us, we believe that it
can only be because they are wrong and we are right.
Nave realism is not simply a motivational strategy that people adopt in
order to feel good; rather, it results from the fact that people are not consciously aware of the mental processes that select and interpret information
as it hits our senses. Because we cannot directly observe this process of construal, our interpretations of the world appear to us simple observations
(Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004). It is also clear that nave realism has many
negative consequences. For example, it is a roadblock to resolving conflicts
between adversaries; often, the two sides cannot even agree on the facts,
given that each side believes that it is viewing them accurately while the
other is twisting the facts to suit its own purposes. But is nave realism also
adaptive in some way? In small doses it may have some benefits. People
who are never sure what the world is really like, and are constantly aware
that theirs is but one of hundreds of interpretations, are likely to spend more
time equivocating than acting.
Essential Myth 4: Other People are Predictable

Think of a close friend that you know really well. Now suppose that
your friend found a $20 dollar bill on the floor of a bookstore. Would he
or she pocket the money or try to find the person who lost it? How confident are you in your guess? Research shows that we are overconfident

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when making such predictions we are not as accurate as we think we are

(e.g., Dunning, Griffin, Milojovic, & Ross, 1990). One reason for overconfidence in predicting other peoples behavior is nave realism (e.g., the assumption that our interpretation of the lost money situation is the same as
how our friend would interpret it). Another is a phenomenon called the
fundamental attribution error, which is the tendency to attribute other peoples behavior to stable personality traits and to underestimate the role of
situational factors in influencing behavior (Jones, 1979; Ross, 1977). We
might be sure that our friend would return the money because we believe
that he or she is an honest person. But we would likely be overestimating
the extent to which honesty is the sole determinant of behavior in this situation, and underestimate the role of such situational factors as how much
of a hurry our friend is in and how crowded the store is.
Are overconfident predictions adaptive in some way? As with the other
myths we have discussed, it may be helpful in small doses. Obviously we
dont want to be so overconfident that we are constantly surprised by what
other people do. But it might be to our advantage to exaggerate our ability
to predict, to some small degree. It is reassuring to believe that we can predict what our loved ones will do tomorrow, next month, and next year,
rather than knowing that they might well surprise us in unsettling ways.
In sum, it is likely that the Goldilocks principle applies to each of the
four myths I have just reviewed: We dont want too little or too much of
them, but a level that is just right. The happiest, most effective people are
probably those who dont dwell too much on their mortality, overestimate
their importance to others just a little, think that they are astute observers
of the world and yet can also appreciate others points of view, and believe
that they are excellent predictors of what their friends will do, while also
recognizing that they are not always right.
How Do People Attain Self-Knowledge?
Although there may be benefits to some forms of positive illusions, the
fact remains that it is critical to have some awareness of our own abilities,
preferences, and traits. If we were clueless about what we liked, or where
our talents lie, it would be difficult to accomplish much or achieve happiness. As Tennyson noted, Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control
these three alone lead life to sovereign power. How, then, should we go
about discovering ourselves?
Throughout most of human history, the path to self-knowledge has been
thought to lie inward.Via introspection, prayer, or meditation, people focus
inwardly on their own thoughts and feelings. And yet, in the past few

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TIMOTHY D. WILSON

decades, psychological research has demonstrated the limits of introspection.

As powerful as human consciousness is, it is not a powerful beam that, when
turned inward, illuminates all of our motives and traits.
Sigmund Freud, of course, was one of the first to point out the limits of
the conscious mind. Consciousness is the mere tip of the mental iceberg,
he argued, such that most of our mental lives, including our deepest wishes,
motives, and feelings, are hidden from view. And, we devote quite a bit of
psychic energy to keeping them hidden, because it would be upsetting to
acknowledge to ourselves how base and animal-like many of our urges are.
The modern view of the unconscious is different.While not denying the
existence of the Freudian unconscious, the emphasis is more on the extent
to which the everyday operations of the mind are unavailable to introspection.
There is a vast adaptive unconscious, according to this view, that evolved over
thousands of years, and includes most of the way in which the mind works
(Wilson, 2002). Consciousness evolved much later, and although it is an amazing evolutionary achievement, it is not fully integrated with the rest of the
mind. Put differently, human beings were probably sophisticated information
processors before the dawn of consciousness, with the ability to learn, interpret
incoming information, set goals, and form preferences. We have retained the
ability to perform these mental feats unconsciously, without the involvement
of consciousness. As a consequence, consciousness is limited not only by what
we dont want to know, as Freud argued, but also by what we cant know.This
is not to say that everything is unconscious. People are obviously aware of a
rich set of thoughts and feelings especially feelings, which seem to have
priority in consciousness. But the point is that there is much more to the
mind than what we can be aware of (Wilson, 2002).
People as Story Tellers
That doesnt mean we cant figure it out. Just as we are astute observers
of other people, and make good inferences about who they are and what
they are likely to do next, so can we be astute observers of ourselves. After
all, we have a great deal of information to go by, more than we have about
anyone else knowledge of how we have acted in countless situations, how
other people react to us, and how we feel (because, as mentioned, emotions
seem especially likely to rise up into consciousness). In addition to this raw
material, we can try to see ourselves through the eyes of others, comparing
our view to theirs and revising our views accordingly (Cooley, 1902; Mead,
1934;Vazire & Carlson, 2010).
In my view, self-knowledge is all about the way we integrate this raw
material into stories about ourselves. Like narrative interpretations of a text,

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SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE ADAPTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

there is not a single true story. Narratives are arbitrary to a degree; given
the same raw data about others and ourselves, we can arrive at radically
different interpretations. A person could view her spouse as the love of her
life who should be forgiven his minor foibles and flaws, such as the fact that
he once had an affair and was not the best father in the world. Or, she could
weave a quite different story, ruing the day she met such a cad. Similarly,
there is considerable latitude on the narratives that we construct about ourselves. Based on the same data, a woman could view herself as a talented
professional who, despite some setbacks, has become a star in her field, or
as an imposter who has succeeded through blind luck and will be drummed
out of her discipline as soon as people catch on.
This raises the important question of how we can judge the goodness
of a self-story. At one extreme, postmodern psychologists have argued that
no story is truer than another, and that we should avoid accuracy as a criterion (e.g., Gergen & Kaye, 1992). But surely this argument goes too far.
Even postmodernists would agree, I presume, that it is not adaptive for people to believe that if they jumped off of a tall building they could fly. Indeed,
research shows that the more peoples conscious beliefs about their goals
match their nonconscious goals, the happier they are. Consider, for example,
two people who are deciding on a career. One believes that he is a people
person and thus chooses a career that involves a lot of social interaction,
such as sales. In fact, though, he has a low implicit need for affiliation, and
is unlikely to be happy or successful in career that is mismatched to his implicit goals. The other person knows that she is not a people person, and
chooses a career more suited to her goals, such as becoming an accountant.
Research shows that the latter person will be happier than the former
(Schultheiss & Strasser, 2012).
Thus, a good self-story should capture who we are, at least to some
extent and by that I mean that it should correspond to our unconscious
traits, needs, and goals. This doesnt mean that there is only way of telling
that story, however. Indeed, late in his life, even Freud came to view the
process of psychotherapy not as uncovering truths, but rather the construction of a narrative that provides people with healthy, coherent explanations of who they are (Spence, 1982). But regardless of how the story is
told, it should correspond to the persons adaptive unconscious.
Which brings us to another sign of a good self-story, namely what I have
called the peace of mind criterion (Wilson, 2002). Our stories should
provide us with a meaningful narrative that allows us to gain closure on
negative episodes in our lives, instead of ruminating about them (Wilson &
Gilbert, 2008). Writing exercises have been developed to help people find

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TIMOTHY D. WILSON

meaning in traumatic events, which, in the current terminology, allows them

to revise their stories in ways that make sense of their lives and allow them
to move on (Pennebaker, 2004; Kross, 2009).
Finally, good self-stories should meet a believability criterion. Regardless of how true the story is, it should be convincing to the one who tells
it. One wonders how dedicated postmodernists get through their day, if
they really believe that the self-story they have adopted at noon is completely arbitrary and likely to be different from the one they adopt by dinner
time. As Freud noted, in discussing the process of psychoanalysis,an assured
conviction of the truth of the construction ... achieves the same therapeutic
result as a recaptured memory (Freud, 1937/1976, p. 266).
Unanswered Questions
I have drawn a sharp line between the adaptive unconscious and peoples
conscious stories about themselves. But the distinction is probably not as
sharp as I have implied. Peoples self stories are undoubtedly a complex
mixture of conscious inferences and implicit assumptions that are not easy
to verbalize. Consider first-year college students who unexpectedly receive
a bad grade in a course. The way that they explain this to themselves is
likely to be crucial to what happens next. If they construct a story that they
are hopeless failures who will never succeed in college, they will not fare as
well as if they infer that they simply need to try harder.
Many studies have assumed that peoples self-stories are crucial in situations such as this, and that relatively minimal interventions can succeed in
getting people to redirect their story in a more positive direction (Cohen,
Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustoski, 2009;Walton & Cohen, 2011;
Bugental et al., 2002;Wilson, Shelton, & Damiani, 2002). And many of these
studies have had spectacular success in doing so, helping to improve academic achievement, reduce child abuse, and alleviate stereotype threat (Wilson, 2012). But, evidence for the proposed mediating processes namely
that peoples stories changes in the ways that the researchers assumed has
been hard to come by. Some studies find evidence for story change (e.g.,
Walton & Cohen, 2011), whereas others do not (e.g., Wilson & Linville,
1982). Of course, this could be because the researchers are wrong about
what is driving the change in peoples behavior. I suspect that they are right,
but that peoples stories are a complex mixture of conscious and unconscious assumptions that are not easy to measure.
Second, the pendulum may have swung too far toward the study of unconscious processing. Consciousness has gotten a bad name in some quarters, as researchers (including myself) have investigated its limits and the

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SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE ADAPTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

problems that result from too much introspection (e.g.,Wilson, Dunn, Kraft,
& Lisle, 1989). There is a rich tradition of studying the contents of consciousness, dating back at least to James (1890/1950), followed by such endeavors as the study of daydreams (Klinger, 1990; Singer, 1975) and mind
wandering (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Many of these research programs
examine important questions of mental control, or the extent to which
people can consciously direct their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Wegner & Pennebaker, 1993). Again, much of this work involves the complex
interplay of conscious and unconscious processes, such as the extent to
which people can keep their mind on a task, and the conditions under
which their attention wanders involuntarily from one topic to another.
Clearly the interweaving of conscious and unconscious processes is a rich
topic to study, though one that requires clever experimental methods.
Summary
Self-knowledge has been a central topic of study for philosophers, religious scholars, and psychologists, as well as for all human beings who have
paused for a moment and directed their attention inward. Modern psychology has made considerable strides in understanding the limits of introspection, how self-knowledge can be obtained indirectly through the
development of self-stories, and the value of self-knowledge.There is much
to be learned about the complex interplay of conscious and unconscious
mental processes, and psychological scientists are uniquely equipped to advance this learning.
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