Egotistic much?

As humans, we have the internal need to be liked by others. We will do anything to gain approval. Some examples:

In social studies class, our teacher posted the range of marks for our position papers, from 10/30 up to 30/30. All I hear after that is, "I bet I got that 10." A very wise friend of mine once told me/reminded me that this behaviour is self seeking and egotistic. Do we honestly thing that we are going to so astronomically fail that paper? No. Why we say that is we want the people around us to say, "oh no, you'll do great. In fact, you'll probably get 30. I got the 10 I'm sure." And around & around it goes. SO what's happening here is people are subconciously asking for praise, and they get it. It's a har habit to break too. I've been trying, but it's just so natural.
"Just because you fail, doesn't mean you didn't try".
And now an additional note, all those people who said they'd get 10/30 got in the 20's. Ha!

That's my only example right now, but I might come back to it soon.

Graham