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ChangingMinds Blog! > Blog Archive > 03-Sep-10

Friday 03-September-10

Realism works

When things go wrong, what do you do? Do you sulk or make excuses? Do you accept, learn and move on? This is one of those personality things where some people are open enough to accept that they are not perfect, whilst others feel bad and stick their heads in the ground or otherwise avoid the truth.

It's a lot to do with self-knowledge. This was demonstrated recently by Sander Thomaes and colleagues in an assessment of children's view of their popularity where they used a 'Survival' game where random individuals were 'failed'. Measuring their mood drops after this disappointment, the researchers found that those who were more accurate at assessing their own mood were less likely to be upset by the 'failure' message than those who had inflated or negative views of themselves.

It seems those who are vulnerable to disappointment either downgrade their expectations or put on a positive face, yet neither of these are particularly effective. If you can accept your limitations, then disappointment will hurt you less.

Reference:
Thomaes, S., Reijntjes, A., Orobio de Castro, B., & Bushman, B. (2009). Reality Bites-or Does It? Realistic Self-Views Buffer Negative Mood Following Social Threat. Psychological Science, 20, 9, 1079-80

Your comments

Very true knowing your self first always help us deal best with most situations we find ourselves in. You have to be aware of yourself and values before you can have your self and be able to deal with things in life. THE WHOLE TRUTH OF OUR LIVING PIVOTS ON SELF AWARENESS AND SELF RECOGNITION!!

-- DEGRAFTMOM