ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explores areas in which self-understanding is a poor guide to self-knowledge. He sketches a potentially fruitful direction of theory construction by identifying several research areas that point to processes of self-misunderstanding or self-mystification, and that question the commonsense ability to make the inexplicable explicable. For Dr. John Money, gender identity is created through experience, and it follows from the child’s sexual self-perception, and parental reinforcement. Medical experts predicted that the boy would never be able to consummate marriage or have normal sexual relations resulting in children. The theory of excitation transfer advanced by Dolf Zillmann argues that the neural pathways that excite the central nervous system are relatively nonspecific as to the sensations they report. The identification of the neural mechanisms that underlie hypnosis moves social psychological theory beyond common sense. The phenomenon of misattribution is evident in a whole range of the social settings.
