Gillovich ch 5

Question 1

definition of Lake Wobegon effect

Answer 1

• The average person purports to believe extremely flattering things about his or herself– beliefs that do not stand up to objective analysis
• We tend to believe that we possess a host of socially desirable characteristics, and that we are free of most of those that are socially undesirable

Question 2

how are peopleself-serving when apportioning responsibility for their success and failures?

Answer 2

• people attribute their success to themselves

- failures to external circumstances

Question 3

Why does Gilovich believe that the motivation-versus-cognition controversy is a false issue?

Answer 3

• Little reason to believe that our self-serving biases result exclusively from one or the other
• Less reason to believe that there will ever be a truly definitive test that will decide between the two accounts
• Our motivations have their effects more subtly through the ways in which we cognitively process information relevant to a given belief
• Cognition and motivation collude to allow our preferences to exert influence over what we believe

Question 4

Ways that our motivations influence our beliefs…How we frame the question we ask of the evidence

Answer 4

• When we prefer to believe something, “what evidence is there to support this belief?”
• This question directs our attention to supportive evidence and away from information that might contradict the desired conclusion
• The way we frame the question makes us overly likely to become convinced of what we hope to be true

Question 5

Ways that our motivations influence our beliefs… How we select the experts that we consult

Answer 5

• We can predict with some accuracy people’s views on a particular question
• By judiciously choosing the right people to consult, we can increase our chances of hearing what we want to hear
• We seek opinions that are likely to support what we want to be true

Question 6

How do people’s preferences influence the amount of information they consider?

Answer 6

• influence not only the kind of information they consider, but also the amount they examine
• When the initial evidence supports our search = we are satisfied and terminate our search
• When the initial evidence is hostile = we dig deeper, hoping to find more comforting information, or to uncover reasons to believe that the original evidence was flawed

Question 7

self-based definition of ability

Answer 7

• Different people use different criteria tot evaluate their standing on a given trait
• By basing our definitions on what constitutes being, say, athletic, intelligent, or generous on our own idiosyncratic strengths on these dimensions, almost all of us can think of ourselves as better than average and have some “objective” justification for doing so

Question 8

What is the evidence that self-based self-definitions might be responsible for the Lake Wobegon effect?

Answer 8

• People are particularly inclined to think of themselves as above average on ambiguous traits
• People rate themselves more favorably on amorphous traits (sensitivity and idealism) than on relatively straightforward traits (like thriftiness and being well-read)
• Students tended to think that the characteristics at which they excelled were most important in determining what constitutes a successful college student
• Tendency for people to think of themselves as above average is reduced– when people are required to use specific definitions of each trait in their judgments