illusions about the self 2 Flashcards
how do we know that people’s self views are more positive than warranted/are illusory
they are inconsistent with statistical probabilities for a group and/or objective reality
what are the two self enhancement strategies
advancement: increasing how positively you see yourself
protection: decreasing how negatively you see yourself
give an example of a protection strategy
self handicapping: creating obstacles for yourself that allow you to avoid the responsibility for potential failure that could damage self esteem
when are you more likely to use self advancement/protection
high self esteem: advancement
low self esteem: protection
two reasons for feeling holier than thou
- overly charitable views of self
- overly cynical views of others
daffodil days study
investigating the source of bias for feeling holier than thou
- asked people before and after an event how many daffodils they were planning to buy for charity and how many they actually did
-also asked them to estimate how many other people would buy
found that people greatly overestimated how many they were willing to buy, but were closer when it came to making estimates about their peers
suggests that the bias lies in errors in self judgement rather than views of others
how much do people tend to overestimate the likelihood that they would choose a kind action
they overestimate by 32% - only 4% when they estimate for other people
what are the two types of information we use to make predictions about behaviour
case based: evidence relevant to the specific case or person under consideration
base rate/distributional: evidence about the distribution of behaviour in similar or past situations - people are usually good at estimating this type of information
base rate fallacy
we tend to assign greater value to case based info and often ignore distributional info
what sort of information do we use when we make predictions about our own behaviour, or about people we know
case based info - we have a clearer sense/more access to information about what we are like/how we think of ourselves as a person
what sort of information do we use when we make predictions about an average person’s behaviour?
base rate info - the idea of “average person” is abstract so we don’t have any case based info - forces us to rely on distributional info
base rate fallacy in self perceptions
ps asked to make predictions about how much they would donate and how much an average person would donate - given base rate info
info improved accuracy of their predictions about the average person but not accuracy of predictions about themselves - still used case based info
case based info for judgements about specific others
method of base rate fallacies in self perceptions but added a third prediction about a known peer
found that people also ignored base rate info for the peer
suggests that the better than average effect is due to base rate fallacy, not self enhancement motivation
worse than average effect
there are some domains where most people rate themselves as worse than others:
- concentration
-artistic ability
-acting ability
-mechanical ability
anchor hypothesis
the anchoring bias is responsible for the better than average and worse than average effects
anchoring bias
common human tendency to rely too heavily on first piece of information that comes to mind/is offered (the anchor) when making a decision
judgements tend to be biased towards anchor/info that we can easily retrieve
how does the anchoring bias affect comparisons between the self and others?
our own abilities act as an anchor because they come to use automatically and effortlessly
we insufficiently take information about other’s abilities into account
anchoring bias and better than average/worse than average effects
people’s own skills serve as an anchor but we fail to consider the skills of others
this leads to:
better than average effect in domains that are easy for most people
and
worse than average effect in domains that are hard for most people
better than average effect and difficulty
experimentally manipulated participant’s perceptions of their skills - had them do either a hard or easy test and then rate their ability compared to their peers
found that difficulty of test determined whether people saw themselves as better or worse than average
meta analysis of positive illusions
- positive illusions about the self are good for personal adjustment - higher subjective well being and lower feelings of depression
mixed effects for relationships
- self enhancement is linked to more liking by strangers but no association for longer term relationships
types of traits you self enhance on matter:
collectivistic traits = seen as more likeable/warm
individualistic: - more competent, less likeable/warm
