 41. What Do We Know When We Know Ourselves? 847
self- knowledge is more adaptive than lack of 
self- knowledge. For example, people whose 
self- perceptions of their behavior align with 
their actual behavior are liked more than 
people whose self-  reports are less aligned, 
an effect that remains when researchers 
control for desirable personality traits (but 
this has yet to be tested in a confirmatory 
study; Tenney, Vazire, & Mehl, 2013). Like -
wise, people who know how they are seen by 
new acquaintances, friends, classmates, or a 
romantic partner are liked more than are 
people who are less aware, independent of 
positivity, and early accuracy seems to fos -
ter greater liking over time (Carlson, 2016a). 
This holds for people with personality disor -
ders as well—being aware of the impression 
one’s romantic partner has of oneself is asso -
ciated with higher relationship satisfaction 
(Carlson & Oltmanns, 2018). Importantly, 
these effects are not due to simply making 
or knowing one makes a positive impres -
sion. Indeed, experimental work suggests 
that people like individuals who express self- 
knowledge of their flaws (Ward & Brenner, 
2006), which suggests that the benefits of 
self- knowledge are not limited to knowledge 
of positive traits. However, in a recent, rig -
orous study, He and Côté (2019) found that 
self- knowledge of emotional and cognitive 
abilities is not linked to better adjustment, 
and in another recent study, Humberg et al. 
(2019) also found that self-  enhancement— 
rather than self-  knowledge—  is associated 
with better adjustment.
Is there evidence that self-  enhancement is 
adaptive? In our view, the research is mixed. 
On the one hand, people with overly posi -
tive self-views are more narcissistic (Carlson 
& Khafagi, 2018; John & Robins, 1994) 
and experience declines in self-  esteem and 
well-being over time in an academic context 
(Robins & Beer, 2001). Thus, poor self- 
knowledge seems to come at a cost to the 
self. Going further, self-  knowledge seems to 
be highly socially valued. People who tend to 
self- enhance are seen as less psychologically 
adjusted by peers (Church et al., 2006; Col -
vin, Block, & Funder, 1995; Kurt & Paulhus, 
2008), and people who have higher meta- 
accuracy are seen as more socially skilled 
than people who are less accurate (Carlson, 
2016b). People higher in narcissism, a trait 
defined by overly positive self-views, tend to be seen in positive ways and have status early 
on but lose their social value over time (Carl -
son & DesJardins, 2015; Paulhus, 1998). 
Thus, there may be some initial benefits to 
enhancement, but over time, people seem to 
like individuals who have self-  knowledge. 
On the other hand, a recent meta-  analytic 
review suggests that self-  enhancement is 
associated with well-being, not only cross- 
sectionally but also longitudinally (Dufner, 
Gebauer, Sedikides, & Denissen, 2019).
Despite the large body of work suggest -
ing that self-  enhancement has a cost, there 
is some evidence that high self-  esteem is 
linked to better mental health (Orth & Rob -
ins, 2013) and that for intellectual traits, 
self- enhancement is linked to greater so -
cial influence (Duftner et al., 2012, 2013). 
Likewise, for meta-  accuracy, it seems that 
people who have less insight into the impres -
sions they make report less psychopathology 
and greater well-being (Carlson, Wright, &, 
Imam, 2017; Mosch & Borkenau, 2016), 
although psychopathology in this research 
was self-  reported. Also, an individual’s 
meta-  accuracy is unrelated to his or her own 
relationship quality with new acquaintanc -
es, friends, classmates, or romantic partners, 
suggesting that meta-  accuracy is not directly 
beneficial in relationships (Carlson, 2016a). 
Thus, self-  knowledge might not always con -
fer immediate benefits to the self. Instead, 
others might reap most of the benefits of 
self- knowledge.
How Can We Improve Self -Knowledge?
Self- knowledge seems to be an important 
component of well-being, so how can we 
improve our understanding of ourselves? 
The best strategy seems to be to overcome 
the informational and motivational barriers 
that keep us from knowing ourselves. Given 
that others seem to know something we do 
not know about ourselves, finding ways to 
elicit and absorb more feedback should im -
prove self-  knowledge. Yet the people who 
know us best rarely provide feedback (De -
Paulo & Bell, 1996), and motivational bar -
riers might prevent us from taking in the 
feedback available to us anyway. For exam -
ple, narcissists are motivated to see them -
selves positively, and as such, become even 