(from Psych Press) In this book, David Dunning describes many of the cognitive and motivational processes that prevent people from gaining accurate self-insight. For example, he illuminates how people create definitions of social traits and concepts, such as 'intelligence', to ensure that they can claim to have them, irrespective of any objective performance. He discusses why people have so much difficulty in gaining awareness of their own incompetence, while tending to hold lofty, but erroneous, views of their own moral character, even though they are quite good at anticipating the moral character of others. Dunning also describes how difficult it is for people to understand how much their emotions influence their own behavior.

In each chapter of the book, the author takes direct aim at a certain aspect of the self-concept and describes how research - both from his own laboratory and from the wider field - accounts for the observed failures of self-insights. Throughout, Dunning carefully points out the implications of self-insight research for health, psychological adjustment, education, professional success, and social harmony.

The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in social, personality, and cognitive psychology, but, through the accessibility of its writing style, it will also appeal to those outside of academic psychology with an interest in the psychological processes which lead to our self-insight.