Journal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/1 (2008): 382–398, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00047.x Skill Level, Self-Views and Self-Theories as Sources of Error in Self-Assessment

People’s impressions of the quality of their performances are often surprisingly inaccurate. In this paper, I discuss three specific factors that contribute to error in self-assessment. First, at a most basic level, individuals must possess a certain level of knowledge to simply distinguish weak from strong performances. Thus, a lack of skill can contribute to erroneous self-assessments. Second, even those who possess skill might rely on the wrong information to evaluate their perform-ances. I discuss how relying on preexisting self-views can lead estimates of one’s performance astray. Third, I discuss how motivational forces can play an indirect role in overconfidence. In particular, theories of intelligence that inspire people to think well of themselves also inspire behaviors that contribute to overconfident impressions of how well one has performed on a task. Finally, I discuss how we can draw on this research to improve accuracy in self-assessments. A common challenge faced by teachers is finding a way to help those students who are shocked by their poor performances on examinations