Kruger, J., & Gilovich, T. (2004). Actions, intentions, and trait assessment: The road to self-enhancement is paved with good intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 328-339. pdf.pdf)
Actions and intentions do not always align. Individuals often have good intentions that they fail to fulfill. The studies presented here suggest that actors and observers differ in the weight they assign to intentions when deciding whether an individual possesses a desirable trait. Participants were more likely to give themselves credit for their intentions than they were to give others credit for theirs (Studies 1 and 2). This caused individuals to evaluate themselves more favorably than they evaluated others (Studies 3-5). Discussion focuses on the motivational and information-processing roots of this actor-observer difference in the weight assigned to intentions as well as the implications of this tendency for everyday judgment and decision making.
Is that actually true? A lot of authors are their own toughest critics; they’re so close to what they write that they see all its imperfections, and tend to obsess over flaws that aren’t actually that noticeable to most of their readers.
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Secret Miracle”.
“Like every human” would be more correct.
See:
Kruger, J., & Gilovich, T. (2004). Actions, intentions, and trait assessment: The road to self-enhancement is paved with good intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 328-339. pdf.pdf)
Is that actually true? A lot of authors are their own toughest critics; they’re so close to what they write that they see all its imperfections, and tend to obsess over flaws that aren’t actually that noticeable to most of their readers.