Why Do We Lean In When Someone Tells Us "Who We Are?"

The other night, while playing one of those card games that asks awkwardly deep questions, a prompt came up: “What’s one thing you’d say about the person sitting next to you?"

Without realizing it, I leaned forward.

My whole body wanted to know, what will they say about me?

It’s the same pull I feel when my boyfriend tells me his first impression of me, or when a friend recounts how I once helped them. I could hear those stories again and again.

There’s something intoxicating about seeing yourself reflected through another’s eyes. But it got me thinking: Why do I care so much about how others see me? Am I looking for truth,

validation, or just an easier way to understand myself?

So I did what I always do when something nags at me: I went down a research rabbit hole. And what I found actually surprised me.

What’s actually happening in my brain when someone says, “Can I tell you what I think of you?” I needed to understand this pull. Why does my whole body lean in? Turns out, there are two things happening at once.

First, that itch I can’t ignore

Psychologist George Loewenstein described curiosity as a kind of “cognitive itch.” It shows up when we sense a gap between what we know and what we could know; he calls it the information gap. So when someone says, “Can I tell you what I first thought of you?” I’m hooked because I almost know the answer, but not quite. That tiny gap creates this mental tension, and the only way to ease it is to find out. It’s not vanity, I realized. It’s curiosity. A primal need to fill in the missing pieces of my own story.

Then comes the mirror part

Once I hear what they say, that curiosity shifts into something else: meaning. Their words become a mirror showing me:This is how you land in the world.

Psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron call this self-expansion; we grow by taking in how others see us. A friend’s story can expand my understanding of who I am, how I come across, and what I mean to the people around me. So it’s not curiosity versus reflection. It’s curiosity opening the door, and perspective walking me through it.

Wait, so am I looking for something new, or just confirmation of what I already think?

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This is where it got interesting.

When I ask people how they see me, what am I really hoping to hear?

Something that surprises me? Or something that confirms what I already believe about myself?

Turns out, it’s both. And that contradiction? It tells you everything.

The weird comfort in “yeah, that sounds like me”

I found this researcher, William B. Swann Jr., who developed something called the self-verification theory. Basically, people prefer feedback that matches their existing self-view even if that view is negative, because it feels stable and coherent.

Which kind of blew my mind. Even when I think I’m anxious or awkward, part of me wants to hear “Yeah, you’re definitely the anxious one” because at least it means I know myself. The alternative, not knowing who I am at all, feels way more unsettling.

But I also want the truth, I can’t see

Then there’s Simine Vazire’s research on the Self–Other Knowledge Asymmetry model. She found something fascinating:

• For internal stuff, I can’t really observe myself (like my anxiety levels or self-esteem), I’m usually more accurate

• For how I come across to others (like how extroverted or creative I seem), they often know better than I do

So when I ask others about myself, I’m actually seeking two things:

1. Verification of what I already believe (the comfort of being known)

2. Calibration of how I actually come across (the truth only they can see)

I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m trying to match up the person I feel like on the inside with the person others actually meet.

Here’s what I couldn’t figure out: Why does a specific story hit SO much harder than a compliment?

You know that feeling when someone says “You’re such a good friend" versus when they say “Remember when you drove two hours just to sit with me that night?”

The second one lands completely differently. I wanted to know why.

Because specifics make it real

Generic praise is nice, but specific moments? They hit like proof. Emotional evidence that “I mattered.” Not in theory, in reality, in that exact moment.

Photo by Claire Bracq on Pinterest

Because I finally see how my actions landed

When someone tells me a story about something I did, I don’t just hear what I intended; I see how it actually landed for them. That gap between intention and impact? That’s where I learn how to be a better friend, partner, and human.

Because our brain literally loves this

And here’s the kicker : neuroscience research shows that curiosity actually activates the brain’s reward circuits. So this whole process of hearing how others see me? It feels meaningful because my brain is literally rewarding me for it.

But then I stumbled onto something that made me uncomfortable...

Am I using other people as a shortcut to knowing myself?

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This question stopped me in my tracks.

Because hearing how others see me feels like self-discovery. It feels like I’m getting closer to understanding who I am.

But is it the same as actually knowing myself?

Here’s what made me pause: knowing myself, my real motives, my patterns, the shadow parts I don’t like to look at, that takes time. It takes sitting alone with uncomfortable thoughts. It takes honesty.

Listening to others is faster. Way easier. And I realized it can become a shortcut: a quicker way to feel “in touch” with myself without doing the harder work.

It’s a borrowed mirror, not my own reflection.

And that doesn’t make it bad; it just means it should add to the deeper work, not replace it.

Here’s what I’m learning:

Feedback tells me how I appear.

Reflection tells me who I am.

And as much as others can offer insight, only I can sit long enough with my thoughts, fears, and patterns to figure out what’s really mine, not just what’s been projected onto me.

So... should I just stop asking people how they see me?

I know what you’re thinking: does all this mean I shouldn’t care what others think?

Not quite.

What I’ve come to realize is that the answer isn’t to reject others’ reflections or depend on them entirely. It’s about integrating them.

Researchers have a term for this: meta-insight: the ability to see how you’re seen while staying rooted in your own truth. People with high meta-insight tend to have stronger relationships and a clearer sense of who they are.

That feels right to me.

Here’s the balance I’m trying to find:

Listen to others not to be defined, but to be informed.

Their stories show me angles I can’t see on my own; valuable, but incomplete.

My own reflection is the real map, the ongoing, never-quite-finished work of learning who I am when nobody’s watching.

The mirror that doesn’t talk back

We live in this world that’s obsessed with external reflections: likes, comments, testimonials, “what people say about me.”

But knowing myself? That’s not a group project. It’s intimate work.

So next time someone says, “Let me tell you how I see you,” I’ll lean in. I’ll listen. I’ll learn.

But I’m also reminding myself: that’s not the whole story. It’s just one more mirror in a room full of them.

Because at the end of the day, I’m the only one who can step back, close the door, and look into that quiet mirror, the one that doesn’t speak, the one that just waits for me to see myself as I truly am.

Photo by Stocksy United from Pinterest

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References

• Loewenstein, G. (1994). The Psychology of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 75–98.

• Aron, A., & Aron, E. N. (1986). Love and the Expansion of Self: Understanding Attraction and Satisfaction. Hemisphere.

• Swann, W. B., Jr. (1983). Self-Verification: Bringing Social Reality into Harmony with the Self. In J. Suls & A. G. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological Perspectives on the Self (Vol. 2, pp. 33–66). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

• Vazire, S. (2010). Who Knows What About a Person? The Self–Other Knowledge Asymmetry Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281–300.

• Kang, M. J., Hsu, M., Krajbich, I. M., Loewenstein, G., McClure, S. M., Wang, J. T.-Y., & Camerer, C. F. (2009). The Epistemic Curiosity Activates Reward Circuitry and Enhances Memory. Psychological Science, 20(8), 963–973.

• Carlson, E. N., Vazire, S., & Furr, R. M. (2011). Meta-Insight: Do People Really Know How Others See Them? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 831–846.