My research examines how well people know what they're like (e.g., their own personalities and behavior). Psychologists have shown that people sometimes aren't aware of how they behave, what makes them happy, and how other people see them. In my lab, we're studying what people do and don't know about themselves -- what are the strengths and limits of self-knowledge? We're also looking at whether other people who know us well (e.g., our friends, family members, dating partners) sometimes know us better than we know ourselves.

Learning what people do and don't know about themselves is interesting in itself, but it can also help us make personality measurement more accurate. By knowing what people can and can't tell us about their personalities, we'll know when to believe what people say about themselves and when to get our information from other people who know the person well. However, I've found that some "other people" are better than others. For example, descriptions of people from their parents are not very accurate, but descriptions from friends, siblings, and dating partners can be very accurate.

Finally, if other people know things about us that we don't know about ourselves, this might help us improve self-knowledge. That is, perhaps we can learn something about ourselves from how other people see us. This raises a lot of questions about whether we should try to see ourselves accurately (maybe self-deception is a good thing sometimes), but if we do want to become more self-aware, asking others what they think of us might be a good first step.