Greater self-knowledge was not associated with better psychological adjustment, but at least with nicer personality traits

Self as both target and judge: Who has an easier time knowing their own personality? Elizabeth U. Long, Erika N. Carlson, Lauren J. Human. Journal of Personality, January 1 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12806

Abstract: The past two decades have established that people generally have insight into their personalities, but less is known about how and why self-knowledge might vary between individuals. Using the Realistic Accuracy Model as a framework, we investigate whether some people make better “targets” of self-perception by behaving more consistently in everyday life, and whether these differences have benefits for psychological adjustment.

Methods: Using data from the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR, n=286), we indexed self-knowledge as the link between self-reports of personality and actual daily behaviour measured over one week. We then tested if consistency in daily behaviour as well as psychological adjustment predicted stronger self-knowledge.

Results: We found that behaving more consistently in everyday life was associated with more accurate self-reports, but that psychological adjustment was not.

Conclusion: Analogous to interpersonal perception, self-knowledge of personality might be affected by “target-side” factors, like the quality of information provided through one's behaviour. However, unlike being a good target of interpersonal perception, self-knowledge does not seem to be related to psychological adjustment.