How well do you know yourself? It's a question many of us struggle with, as we try to figure out how close we are to who we actually want to be. In a new report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologist Timothy D. Wilson from the University of Virginia describes theories behind self-knowledge （that is, how people form beliefs about themselves）, cites challenges psychologists encounter while studying it, and offers ways we can get to know ourselves a little better.

    The study of self-knowledge has tended to focus on how accurate we are at determining our own internal states, such as our emotions, personality, and attitudes. However, Wilson notes that self-knowledge can be broadened to include memory, like recalling how we felt in the past, and prospection, predicting how we will feel in the future. Knowing who we were and who we will be are as important to self-knowledge as knowing who we are in the present. And while a number of researchers are conducting studies that are applicable to those various facets of self-knowledge, Wilson observes that there is not much communication between them, one reason this field is challenging to investigate.

    Although it can be fairly simple to assess how people's attitudes change over time--that is, have them predict how they will feel at certain time and then actually measure their feelings at that time-- it is more difficult to measure people's current self-knowledge accurately. Some methods of acquiring accurate information on a person's feelings or their personality are to compare reports from their peers and study their nonverbal behavior. However, Wilson has "great faith in the methodological creativity" of his "fellow social psychologists" and is confident that questions raised by these types of experiments will be answered in the next few years.

    Although Wilson acknowledges all the interesting findings that have come out of new technologies, such as fMRI, he cautions that those type of studies may not be very relevant to studying issues associated with self-knowledge.

    There are a number of theories that aim to describe self-knowledge by a dual-process model, pitting the unconscious against the conscious. Wilson notes that these theories are pessimistic in that they view the unconscious as something that cannot be breached. However, he remarks that "self-knowledge is less a matter of careful introspection than of becoming an excellent observer of oneself."

    Wilson suggests some ways that can help us learn more about ourselves, such as really attempting to be objective when considering our behaviors and trying to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. Another way of knowing ourselves better is to become more aware of findings from psychological science. Wilson concludes, "Most of us pay attention to medical findings that inform us about our bodies （e.g., that smoking tobacco is harmful）, and can learn about our psychological selves in the same way."

    我們到底有多了解自己？當(dāng)我們試圖弄清"我是誰"和"我想成為誰"之間的距離時，這就成為我們許多人時常糾結(jié)的問題。美國弗吉尼亞大學(xué)心理學(xué)家蒂莫西·威爾遜在《心理科學(xué)透視》（心理學(xué)科協(xié)會期刊）上發(fā)表一份新的報告，其將自我認(rèn)識原理概述為自我信念的形成過程，并列舉心理學(xué)家在這一領(lǐng)域的研究中遇到的挑戰(zhàn)，以及提及一些進一步了解自我的方法。

    自我認(rèn)知的研究重點放在對內(nèi)在自我狀況的確定感上，比如，我們的情感，人格以及態(tài)度。而威爾遜同時也指出，自我認(rèn)知可以延展到記憶以及自我預(yù)期方面，比如回憶過往的自我感受，和預(yù)測我們未來的感受。了解過去的自己以及預(yù)期的自己與了解現(xiàn)在的自己，對研究自我認(rèn)知來說是同等重要的。雖然，現(xiàn)在有一些研究人員對上述幾個方面進行了應(yīng)用研究，但威爾遜指出他們之間沒有多少交流，其原因之一是這一領(lǐng)域研究調(diào)查是頗具有挑戰(zhàn)性的。

    雖然，通過使被試預(yù)測他們未來某時的感受并實際測量他們正在那時的心情，就能相當(dāng)簡單的評估人的態(tài)度是如何隨時間不斷變化的。但對人們當(dāng)前對自我認(rèn)知的精確測量卻是較困難的。為了獲取被試感受和人格方面的準(zhǔn)確信息，研究人員運用了將其報告與其同伴報告對比以及非語言行為等研究方法。不過，老威對其" 同道的社會心理家"在"方法創(chuàng)新方面"有"足夠的信心",其相信這類研究中的一些疑問和困難將在未來幾年內(nèi)得到解答。

    盡管威爾遜承認(rèn)幾乎所有有趣的發(fā)現(xiàn)都是通過新技術(shù)找到，如功能磁共振成像（fMRI）,但他提醒到，這類研究不一定同自我認(rèn)知的研究相關(guān)。

    現(xiàn)在有很多的理論旨在通過雙重加工模型解釋自我認(rèn)知，更側(cè)重于無意識。威爾遜指出，這些理論是悲觀的，因為他們把無意識當(dāng)做是不能被違背的東西。他說，"自我認(rèn)識最重要的是做一個出色的自我觀察者而不是一個細(xì)心的內(nèi)省者。"

    為了幫助我們進一步了解自己，老威提供了一些建議。比如，在審慎我們自己的行為時做到盡量客觀，并嘗試用他人的視角來看待自己。另一條了解的自己的途徑是，關(guān)注心理學(xué)科的發(fā)現(xiàn)和研究成果。老威總結(jié)到："我們大多數(shù)人都很關(guān)心醫(yī)學(xué)上的發(fā)現(xiàn)，如吸煙有害健康等。我們也可以用同樣的方式來關(guān)注自己的內(nèi)心。"