L08 - Illusions about the Self II Flashcards
why are our self-perceptions biased to be overly positive? are there cases where our self-perceptions are negatively biased? are there cases in which our positive illusions lead to negative outcomes?
Why do we have positively biased views of ourselves?
self-enhancement motive
- self-esteem is a psychological need
cognitive biases in information processing
- base-rate fallacy
- anchoring bias
both motivational and cognitive processes result in biased self-views that serve us well (or do they?)
What does it mean to feel “holier than thou”?
Feelings “holier than thou”: people beleive they are more moral, kind, and altruistic than the average person
- better-than-average effect when it comes to morality
maybe because of cognitive biases?
How do cognitive biases relate to feeling “holier than thou”?
feeling holier than though (seeing self as superior) could be because of:
- overly charitable views of self (and accurate views of their others)?
- over cynical views of others?
across 4 studies, people overestimate likelihood that they would choose the kinder action by an average of 32% (but only by 4% for others)
- means that seeing self as uniquely kind is due to having overly favourable views of self and not due to being overly cynical about others
- strange… since we have so much information about ourselves
Describe Epley & Dunning’s “Daffodil Days” study (2000).
What is the source of bias for feeling holier-than-thou?
- overly charitable views of self (and accurate views of their others)?
- over cynical views of others?
Method: 5 weeks before charity event:
- “Will you buy at least one daffodil and, if so, how many?”
- “Will a peer buy at least one daffodil?”
3 days after event:
- “How many did you buy?”
Results:
- Self-perception: HIGH (~80% that said they’d buy at least one)
- Peer-perception: MEDIUM (~60% that said they’d buy at least one)
- Actual: LOWEST (~40% that said they’d buy at least one)
suggests that feeling “holier-than-thou” is due to errors in judgments about self, not in judgments about others
What is case-based vs. base-rate information?
types of information on which to base predictions of future behaviour:
- case-based: evidence relevant to the specific case or person under consideration
- distributional/base-rate: evidence about the distribution of behaviour in similar or past situations
– people are generally pretty good at estimating the distribution of social behaviour in various domains
What is the base rate fallacy?
(cognitive bias in self-perception?)
Based rate fallacy: we tend to assign greater value to case-based info and often ignore distributional info
when we make predictions about our own behaviour, we use case-based info
- we have a clear sense of what we’re like as a person (e.g., “kind”)
when we make predictions about an average person’s behaviour, we’re more likely to use base-rate info
- idea of “average person” is vague and abstract, so no case-based info is available, and therefore we have to rely on distributional info
Describe Epley & Dunning’s study on the base rate fallacy in self-perceptions (2000).
Do we use case-based info to predict own behaviour and base-rate info to predict others’ behaviour?
Method: Ps received $5.00 for participating in study
received info about 3 charities
- told that future Ps will have a change of donating any or all of their study compensation to one of them
if in this situation, how much would you and average peer donate?
then, learned about ACTUAL donations of 3, 7, then 13 people from earlier study and allowed to revise prediction after each new piece of information
Results
- as more information was given, predictions for average peer got closer to the actual amount of donated $, but the predictions of self remained high
What is the evidence for base-rate fallacy in self-perceptions?
evidence of base-rate fallacy in self-perceptions
- base-rate info imrpoved accuracy of peer’s behaviour
- BUT did not improve accuracy of predictions for own behaviour
– hung on to case-based info and rejected base-rate info
BUT this doesn’t rule out self-enhancement motivation
if really about hanging on to case-based info, and not self-enhancement, then any case-based info should prompt people to ignore distributional info
information processing biases can lead to overly positive self-views
- we use case-based infoto make judgments about the self
Describe Epley & Dunning’s study on using case-based info to judge a specific other (2000).
Does presence of any case-based info prompt ignoring of distributional info?
Method: repeated method of previous study but added third prediction
- Ps read a peer’s self-description
- How much would you donate?
- How much would average peer donate?
- How much would this specific peer donate?
Findings:
- people ignored base-rate info for self AND for specific peer
- feeling holier-than-thou (better-than-average) not necessarily due to self-enhancement motivation, but base-rate fallacy
What is the worse-than-average effect?
are there cases where our self-perceptions are negatively biased?
some better-than-average studies show that there are some domains where people tend to rate themselves as worse than others
- concentration
- artistic ability
- acting ability
- mechanical ability
What was Kruger’s hypothesis on what is responsible for the better-than-average and worse-than-average effects?
hypothesis: anchoring bias is responsible for the better-than-average and worse-than-average effects
What is an anchoring bias?
common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information that comes to mind/is offered (the anchor) when making a decision
- means that judgments will be biased towards anchor/info that we can easily retrieve
How does the anchoring bias affect our views of self and others?
when comparing self and others…
- we first think about our own abilities because they come to us automatically and effortlessly –> anchor
- only think about others’ ability –> effortful and thus we insufficiently take this info into account
- causes our judgments of ourselves to be biased towards how we perceive our own ability in a given domain
How is the anchoring bias responsible for the better-than-average and worse-than-average effects?
(Kruger’s hypothesis (1999))
Better-than-average effect in domains that are easy for most people:
- anchor to own experience of task feeling effortless, failing to take into account that others may feel similarly
worse-than-average affect in domains that are hard for most people
- anchor to own experience of task feeling hard, failing to taking into account that otehrs may feel similarly
Describe Kruger’s study on the better-than-average effect and difficulty (1999).
Experimentally manipulated Ps perceptions of their skills
assessed “integrative ability” using bogus test
Ps either got a hard or easy test
outcomes:
- Ps rated own ability comapred with peers’ ability (0-99 percentile)
predictions:
- easy test: Ps will see own ability as above aberage
- difficult test: Ps will see own ability as below average
difficulty of test determined whether people saw themselvesas better-than- or worse-than-average
