Metacognician

Kennebec Captain linked this article in another thread. It’s got everything to do with getting along with people, leading, being lead, and all the social things we do, particularly the face-to-fact ones.

The article says: people estimate their ability to read people at a fairly constant value regardless of what that ability really is. Surprisingly (perhaps), it says that men and women do this, and that people on the autistic spectrum do it. Super interesting, but I’d like to ask the authors how do they know that their subjects are not lieing to them with their self assessment?

If my ability to model in my head what other people are thinking and feeling is quite bad; I am not going to admit that it is bad, because you might use that information to manipulate me. Likewise, if my mental models are pretty good; I’m going to tell you that they aren’t, because I don’t want to give up the advantage that having a good model gives me. If your mental models are very bad, people can tell… But other than that it’s quite difficult to gauge other people’s ability in this regard. This is why we’re curious about other people’s estimates about themselves, because (unless we have designed an experiment like this), their estimate of themself is the best data we can get.

I understand that personality tests have questions that people lying will answer wrong. Ted Bundy was familiar with the test he was given which was how he was able to appear normal.

[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;188782]I understand that personality tests have questions that people lying will answer wrong. Ted Bundy was familiar with the test he was given which was how he was able to appear normal.[/QUOTE]

Do we call this metametacognicician? The ability to model in your head what the model that others have in their head of what is in your head? I don’t want to think about it, it’s like a hydra-headed oroboros.