 41. What Do We Know When We Know Ourselves? 839
as someone who has deep self-  insight. On 
the other hand, it is unlikely that any of us 
have an accurate view of each of our dozens 
of traits. In other words, even though this 
kind of self-  knowledge may be shallow, it is 
also potentially broad and could be useful 
in many situations (e.g., selecting a room -
mate or a job, deciding whether to get a pet, 
choosing where to live, making promises to 
others).
On a deeper level, a self-aware person 
should be aware of their goals and mo -
tives. To some extent, this requires an un -
derstanding of human nature—  goals and 
motives shared by all humans. For example, 
many people might mistakenly believe they 
are not affected by basic human needs, such 
as the need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 
1995). In addition, self-  knowledge requires 
knowing one’s own idiosyncratic goals and 
motives—  what uniquely drives one. Goals 
and motives can explain a person’s traits; 
therefore, understanding one’s own goals 
and motives can help explain why one is, 
say, disagreeable (McCabe & Fleeson, 
2016). Related to this second level, we can 
also ask whether a person is self-aware of 
the causes of their fluctuations in behavior, 
thoughts, or feelings (Robins, Mendelsohn, 
Connell, & Kwan, 2004). This may be ex -
plained by goals, motives, and social roles, 
or by other causes (e.g., biological states). 
Knowing the triggers of one’s own fluctua -
tions can be thought of, in the language of 
the cognitive–  affective personality system 
(CAPS; Mischel & Shoda, 1998), as knowing 
one’s own cognitive–  affective architecture, 
that is, knowing which external stimuli trig -
ger which thoughts and feelings, and which 
thoughts and feelings reinforce or impede 
one other. This kind of self-  knowledge is in -
credibly useful. For example, a person who 
knows that they are generally introverted 
but acts extraverted when they have a drink 
or two could use this information strategi -
cally to reduce friction in social interactions. 
Or, a person who knows that they are gener -
ally emotionally stable but prone to strong 
emotions when they have not eaten much 
can make sure to fuel up before engaging in 
potentially stressful interactions.
Finally, we can also ask whether a person 
has self-  knowledge of their life story . The narrative approach to personality does not 
typically examine the accuracy of people’s 
life stories and instead focuses on the way 
they make sense of their own lives (cf. Adler, 
2012). However, there could be interesting 
questions that come out of a self-  knowledge 
perspective on life stories. At a basic level, we 
could ask to what extent a person’s life story 
matches the historical record or close others’ 
accounts of the person’s life. A growing body 
of work suggests that false memories are not 
as uncommon as we might believe (Loftus, 
2005), suggesting that self-  knowledge of 
life stories is likely imperfect. Perhaps more 
interestingly, understanding the discrepan -
cies between the self’s and others’ versions 
of one’s life could shed light on the filter 
through which a person sees his or her life, 
as well as the consequences of these discrep -
ancies. For example, having a life story that 
matches external criteria might hampers a 
person’s ability to make more positive mean -
ing out of his or her life, especially if life is 
not inherently meaningful or positive.
Recently, Will Fleeson integrated these 
various levels of personality into the whole 
trait theory (WTT; Fleeson & Jayawick -
reme, 2015). WTT has several components 
and is based on Fleeson’s earlier work con -
ceptualizing personality traits as density 
distributions of personality states (Fleeson, 
2001). According to this model, people’s 
traits (i.e., their typical level of a personal -
ity construct) and their fluctuations around 
that trait (i.e., their state levels of that con -
struct) can be modeled together as a density 
distribution that reflects the frequency with 
which a person experiences each level of a 
construct. The central tendency of a person’s 
density distribution is their typical, or trait, 
level. The spread around that central tenden -
cy reflects within-  person fluctuations. WTT 
goes on to address the causes of those fluc -
tuations, which is also an important aspect 
of self-  knowledge (e.g., understanding when 
and why  one is likely to act more or less 
extraverted than average). Thus, to really 
know oneself, it is important to know one’s 
average state (e.g., how extraverted one typi -
cally is), as well as how often and why one 
deviates from that average state (e.g., how 
often one acts more or less extraverted than 
one’s trait level).