2) Admit your weakness. Leads to low status, and then opposition from outsiders.
That sounds similar to a standard job interview question “What is your greatest weakness?”. In that situation, perhaps a standard advice how to answer this question—emphasize how one intends to overcome that weakness and what weaknesses one has conquered in the past—is applicable here as well?
Edit. Although perhaps you meant that the very act of letting outsiders to define what is and what is not a weakness leads to low status.
It is suicidal to admit an actual serious weakness. For multiple reasons. One is that admitting a serious weakness will leave a very bad impressions that is hard to overcome. See the research that people will frequently pay more for a single intact set of objects then two sets of the same objects where one set is damaged.
The other problem is that admitting an actual error is going off the social script. It either paints you as clueless or a “weirdo.” This is also a very serious problem.
I don’t think this is right. I talk pretty publicly about whatever problems/insecurities I have, but I do so in a pretty self-confident manner. It may help that I’m visibly competent at what I do and I don’t claim that it is a universally good strategy, but it works for me and helps me to stay in a fairly constant state of growth mindset which I’ve found to be beneficial.
In the job interview, you are explicitly given the task to describe your weakness. And you probably choose one that is relatively harmless. Something like “I am very rational, but sometimes I am underconfident”. So that’s different.
That sounds similar to a standard job interview question “What is your greatest weakness?”. In that situation, perhaps a standard advice how to answer this question—emphasize how one intends to overcome that weakness and what weaknesses one has conquered in the past—is applicable here as well?
Edit. Although perhaps you meant that the very act of letting outsiders to define what is and what is not a weakness leads to low status.
It is suicidal to admit an actual serious weakness. For multiple reasons. One is that admitting a serious weakness will leave a very bad impressions that is hard to overcome. See the research that people will frequently pay more for a single intact set of objects then two sets of the same objects where one set is damaged.
The other problem is that admitting an actual error is going off the social script. It either paints you as clueless or a “weirdo.” This is also a very serious problem.
I don’t think this is right. I talk pretty publicly about whatever problems/insecurities I have, but I do so in a pretty self-confident manner. It may help that I’m visibly competent at what I do and I don’t claim that it is a universally good strategy, but it works for me and helps me to stay in a fairly constant state of growth mindset which I’ve found to be beneficial.
In the job interview, you are explicitly given the task to describe your weakness. And you probably choose one that is relatively harmless. Something like “I am very rational, but sometimes I am underconfident”. So that’s different.