Psychology Today43%
The Self Is a Gift and a Burden 47%
By Marianna Pogosyan Ph.D.65%
7/20/2026, 12:06:54 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Anecdotal, and Negativity Bias, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 20.2% saturation with 214 hits. Analysis detected 1,438 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,058 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 48.7% and a BS Rank of 47% (11,653 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 53.20% of the article peer group.
In the 1960s, psychologist Gordon Gallup conducted a series of now-classic animal experiments.
Gallup marked the foreheads of anesthetized chimpanzees with a red dye.
Upon waking, the chimps looked in a mirror, and just as many humans would have done, touched the red spot on their foreheads.
This recognition of their own reflection became evidence that the chimps possessed rudimentary self-awareness.
Self-awareness is just one piece of the kaleidoscopic construct at the center of our lives – the self.
Nearly everything we do is through it or in the service of it.
An entire industry tells us how to protect, improve, and elevate it.
Yet, the story of the self involves a paradox.
All our devout preoccupation with it is also what fuels our unhappiness.
In fact, some of our most gratifying moments – in leisure, work, relationships, spirituality – occur during hypo-egoic states, when we temporarily forget our self-improvement ambitions.
Social psychologist Mark Leary has studied the self for 50 years.
He defines it as “the cognitive apparatus that underlies conscious self-awareness” – akin to a negotiator mediating the different facets of our thoughts, emotions, motives and behavior.
Among Leary’s biggest insights is that self-awareness – a far more complex version of what Gallup demonstrated with chimps – is what sets us most apart from other animals.
Our capacity to think about ourselves in abstract ways, Leary argues, is what led humans to create a world dramatically different than the one we evolved in.
It’s what has given us all our individual and collective accomplishments.
But it has come at a cost.
People don’t always recognize how nearly non-stop their self-related thoughts are, Leary points out, and how many are unnecessary or even work against their own interests.
Learning how to handle all that self-reflective thinking more effectively, he suggests, could improve the quality of our lives.
Here’s Dr.
Leary, in his own words, on five common myths and beliefs about the self.
**There is a single, authentic true self inside each of us.
**
**False.
** We are multifaceted – there is no single, absolutely true thing that a person is.
We have different parts and pieces, and we change from situation to situation.
We don’t want people to be hypocritical or dishonest – I think that’s what we’re arguing against when we say, “Be authentic.”
But I also think authenticity is often over-glorified.
If someone does something horrible and justifies it as being authentic, that’s not so good.
**We should strive to raise our self-esteem, because high self-esteem is key to success in life.
**
**False**.
While it’s true that high self-esteem is related to many good outcomes, it isn’t always their cause.
It’s often a correlate.
We shouldn’t try to raise self-esteem artificially: if someone is truly awful, do we really want them thinking, “I am a great person, and I feel wonderful about myself”?
Self-esteem is an internal gauge of how valued and accepted we feel.
The analogy I use is a car’s fuel gauge.
Your car stops, and the fuel gauge reads empty.
Would we say, “The car won’t run until we fix that E problem.”
No, E is just the gauge.
The car stopped because it had no fuel.
When you feel accepted and valued, it feels good, so you keep behaving in those ways.
Self-esteem isn’t creating the positive outcomes – your behavior is, by earning you social support.
Even academic motivations are often social ones.
Why should an “A” on my assignment make me feel good unless it brings positive consequences down the road that people value?
The things that raise self-esteem are the things that make us feel more accepted (at least within our peer group).
Self-esteem is a self-evaluation, but it’s related to other people’s reactions.
**Knowing yourself deeply is the path to fulfillment and wisdom.
**
**Neither true nor false**.
Knowing yourself – understanding your strengths, weaknesses and how you cope with life – helps you navigate the world better.
You’ll likely make better decisions when you are well-informed, as opposed to carrying misconceptions about yourself.
But it won’t necessarily create a wonderful or fulfilling life, because so many other factors are involved.
Also, it’s hard to be honest about ourselves, particularly about our weaknesses and liabilities.
**Being happy with who you are is a foundation of the good life.
**
**Mostly true**.
Certainly, people who are more satisfied with themselves have a higher quality of life.
However, the cause-and-effect direction is unclear: Do I have a higher quality of life because I feel good about myself, or do I feel good because my quality of life is high?
If you were really unhappy with every aspect of yourself, I don’t think you’d have a high quality of life.
I think it’s beneficial to strive for a life where you are generally pleased with your situation and characteristics – even if not 100 percent.
When I was young, I used to wonder how much bad I should accept before I was unhappy with a day.
I came back from school, thinking “I had a terrible day!”
but upon reflection, I’d realize that not every minute had been awful.
There were bad parts and good parts.
As long as at least 85 percent of the day was okay, I decided it was a good day.
We can apply the same principle to how we evaluate ourselves.
None of us is satisfied with 100 percent of ourselves, but we all can find some things to be happy with.
**Relentless self-improvement paradoxically makes people suffer more, since it is incompatible with being content.
**
I’ll go with the middle-of-the-road answer.
If you are always trying to improve in every situation, you won’t be very content because you are always focused on deficiency.
Indeed, some of our best moments are when the self goes quiet.
The Stoic philosophers stressed ongoing improvement, but cautioned against becoming obsessive about it, because it can backfire.
There is a happy medium.
I want to be better tomorrow than I am today – but if I worry about it incessantly, I’ll never reach a point where I’m happy or at peace with myself.
*Many thanks to Mark Leary for his time and insights.
Dr.
Leary is Garonzik Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.
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