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Top 10 Reasons You Are Not Who You Say You Are
Ask most people to name the universe’s greatest mystery and they’ll probably answer “Donald Trump’s hair.” But for all that it’s fun to make snide remarks about national laughingstocks, the real answer is something far, far stranger—you. Yes, you. Even though you may think you know yourself completely, the truth is that you’ve been sharing valuable existence-space with a total stranger for decades. A stranger who is more fascinating, more interesting, and more unpleasant than you could possibly imagine.
Inflated perceptions of one’s physical appearance is a part of what psychologists term “self-enhancement.” Researchers have shown that people overestimate the likelihood that they would engage in a desirable behavior, but are very accurate when it comes to predicting the behavioral patterns of a stranger. For example, people overestimate the amount of money they would donate to charity while accurately predicting others’ donations. Similarly, people overestimate their likelihood of losing weight, while accurately predicting others’ tendency to do the same.
10. You’re Uglier Than You Think
Quick: what score would you give yourself for attractiveness? If you said seven or higher, congratulations! You’re probably lying. But don’t worry, you’re not the only one. According to science, nearly all of us overrate our attractiveness to an almost hilarious degree.
In a famous experiment, a couple of scientists got hold of a bunch of volunteers and took pictures of them. They then modified those pictures to create a sequence ranging from what we’re gonna call “super uglified,” through “normal” and on into “supermodel hot.” The next step was to present the volunteers with these new photos and ask them to pick out the unmodified one. Want to guess how that went?
Almost every time, people picked the “hot” version as the unmodified photo of themselves. But this wasn’t just some sort of general face-blindness; when asked to sort through the photos of other volunteers they’d only briefly met, the subjects tended to pick the “normal” one without hesitation. The depressing conclusion is that we all think we’re either a seven or an eight, when the reality is probably that everyone sees us as a distinctly average five. And while we’re on the subject of averages.
In Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” advertisement, a couple of women were asked to partake in an experiment. Each woman had to describe what they think they looked like to an FBI-trained sketch artist, who can’t see the women, and wold draw them based solely on their detailed descriptions. Then each woman chats with a benevolent stranger, who adoringly would described that same woman to the artist. The twist — okay, it’s not really a twist — is that the second portrait, based on a stranger’s description, is always more attractive than the one created from each woman describing herself. Dramatic piano! Tears flow! You are your own worst enemy! It’s a reality check.
But strangely enough, it might not be entirely true. Scientific American reports that a new study finds that “most of us think that we are better looking than we actually are —in every way that counts. Hmmm…
9. You’re Significantly More Average Than You Think
Time and again, studies have shown that we all tend to think of ourselves as above average at just about everything. As Scientific American amusingly pointed out, 93 percent of drivers think they’re above average, as do 94 percent of college professors, which you may recognize as statistically impossible. Even in some high-paying, qualification-heavy jobs, people are basically much worse than they think. A recent study found that stock brokers are literally worse at their jobs than random monkeys, yet brokers also tend to believe they’re worth the money. So what’s going on?
Well, T.S. Eliot once wrote “humankind cannot stand very much reality.” And it turns out he was bang on the money. Scientists think that if we didn’t have delusions of superiority then our ego would go into meltdown—with devastating consequences for our mental health. See, the only people who don’t constantly overrate themselves are people with depression. They tend to score way under; giving themselves, say, a three, where most of us would give them a six or seven. This suggests our self-delusion is vital to our well-being. So yeah, maybe forget everything I’ve just said, huh?
8. You’re Probably In The One Percent
We’ve all heard of the One Percent: the guys who take our bailouts, pay no taxes, and generally act like the sort of supervillains Walt Disney would reject as “too cartoonish.” And here’s the kicker—you’re probably one of them.
See, there’s a couple of ways of looking at the One Percent. The first, most common one, is as the top-earners of developed Western economies—the guys with mega yachts and offshore tax havens. The other is as the top earners of the entire globe. And this is where you come in.
According to the UN, around half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. About one-third live on less than $1. Thanks to all these starving people, the entry barrier into the global one percent is actually pretty low. As in $34,000 a year. If you’re American and middle class, you’re almost certainly earning, or will one day earn, that amount. The average McDonald’s store manager earns more. Even if, like me, you can only dream of the dizzying heights of $34,000 a year, it still likely works out that you’re in the top 3–5 percent. In short, you’re not only richer than you think, you’re richer than nearly every other human being in existence.
7. You Might Be Immortal
After all that mostly bad (and slightly weird) news, here’s one to cheer you up: There’s a possibility that you’re immortal. Seriously, you may very well be the one person who will never, ever die. And, even better, it won’t be long before you find out.
I’m talking about the theory of quantum immortality, a quirk of the quantum universe that might allow you to perpetually cheat death. We’ve all heard of the multiple worlds theory, which posits that every choice we make results in the universe splitting into two parallel universes, one where we ate in Chick-fil-A and one where we retained our self-respect (or whatever). Now for the slightly tricky bit: The quantum world relies on an “observer” who causes all possible outcomes to collapse into one, actual outcome, just by being there. In the case of the myriad possibilities that encompass your sprawling parallel lives, that “observer” may well be you.
If that’s true, it has some bizarre implications. Since you wouldn’t be able to observe a universe where you die (for obvious reasons), you pretty much by default have to observe one where you survive. This means your life will always branch out into a parallel universe where you’re still alive—at least as far as you’re concerned. In the parallel universes of your friends and family, they’ll see you die a trillion times over while they go on to live forever. It sounds insane, and it probably is, but there’s the slightest chance it’s also true.
6. You’re Less Rational Than You Think
Do you care passionately about something? Do the words “gun control” make you want to punch the nearest liberal/conservative? Do you have any political or religious or otherwise deep beliefs? Then you can kiss any illusion of rationality goodbye. According to science, your beliefs have clouded your mind to the point where you literally won’t believe that two and two makes four.
Earlier this year, researchers questioned 1,111 study participants about their political views, then asked them to do some simple mathematical questions. Once they’d gauged the numerical ability of each subject, they gave them one of two fake scientific studies and asked them to draw conclusions from the data. One was about the effectiveness of facial cream, the other was about the effectiveness of gun control. But here’s the kicker: They both used thesame fake numbers, pointing toward an inescapable conclusion. Want to guess what happened next?
The self-proclaimed liberals and conservatives given the gun control study literally forgot how to do math. Faced with what appeared to be hard facts that contradicted their deepest beliefs, they subconsciously decided that mathematics must be wrong instead, and engaged in all sorts of hilarious mental contortions to arrive at the answer they wanted. In short, anyone with a strong opinion is almost certainly an illogical, borderline dangerous, charlatan who should never, ever be trusted.
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