You and I can talk, we can reach out and touch each other on the arm and we can see each other, but we can never know exactly what’s going on in the other’s head.
It’s why psychological science is so hard and it’s why understanding others can sometimes be so hard. It’s also why understanding how we are viewed by others is so hard.
Even the least narcissistic of us spend some time trying to work out how others view us: Do they find us attractive, intelligent, trustworthy, funny?
The news may not always be good, but it still would be fascinating to know.
Research shows that we normally try to work out how we are viewed by others by thinking about how we view ourselves, then extrapolating from that. The problem with this approach is that to varying degrees we all suffer from an ‘egocentric bias:’ we think we’re at the center of the world and everything is about us. We shouldn’t be blamed for this — it’s a natural consequence of the fact that we’re locked inside our own heads.
The problem is that other people don’t share our own egocentric view of ourselves. They’re not seeing us filtered through our personal beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Instead they see us filtered through their own perceptions. So we find it difficult to see ourselves through others’ eyes.
Read in Full:Â Â http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/06/01/how-to-see-yourself-through-others-eyes/