Can people really change? When asked, we say, “Yes!” We are obviously not the same person we were 10 years ago.

But surveys say: “Not so much.”

When researchers ask people if they’ve changed in the past 10 years, people usually say they’ve changed quite a lot. However, when those researchers ask their family and friends, they report seeing little or no change.

What’s going on? Why the mismatch between our view of ourselves and others’ view of us?

Aren’t we the experts on who we are? Or do others see us more accurately than we see ourselves? As the Irish poet Robert Burns wrote, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us!”

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