MENTAL MODEL · M13037

Excessive Self-Regard Tendency

BehaviorHigh supportPsychology

Included

Updated 2026-08-11

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

One of the psychological tendencies Charlie Munger listed in The Psychology of Human Misjudgment. The core claim is that self-assessment has no external yardstick, so the mind falls back on internal signals that are systematically biased in its own favour, and that admitting error then collides with the consistency tendency. The key qualification is that the bias is unconscious and continuous rather than occasional vanity. Munger treated the endowment effect and the tendency to overvalue one's own conclusions as extensions of the same mechanism.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Baseline check: write the measurable indicator and the comparison group before rating yourself - Reference reset: assume you never owned the asset, then ask what you would pay for it - Error ledger: record one piece of evidence against your own judgment at every review

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Self-evaluation has no external yardstick, so the mind reads its own internal signals, and those signals are biased toward the self by construction. Admitting a wrong judgment conflicts with the consistency tendency, so the discomfort is discharged by raising the self-estimate instead of revising it. When judging possessions, the reference point silently becomes the current state of ownership, so losing the object is coded as a loss and its value is inflated in advance. Munger noted this bias also attaches to a person's own conclusions.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

Before rating yourself, write down the measurable indicator and the group you compare against. 2. On a task you think you are good at, have someone stronger do the same task and compare results. 3. Before selling or dropping an asset, ask what price you would pay to buy it today. 4. In every review, record one concrete piece of evidence that your own judgment was wrong.

Check to track your progress (stored locally)

Learning progress0%

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Source support: Explicit

link
mungermodels.comhttps://mungermodels.com/models/excessive-self-regard-tendencyZH · Explicit
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