Lecture 6 - Perceived Superiority Flashcards
Feeling holier than though
What do people believe is better about them than others and why?
People falsely believe they are especially:
Cooperative, considerate, fair etc, representing a general level of above-averageness
Also believe they will do specific things (like resist Milgram’s experiment better)
Why?
When making predictions about the self in relation to others, people must:
1 - Evaluate their own traits and behaviors
2 -Evaluate others’ traits and behaviors
Mistakes in either could cause overly flattering self-evaluations
Holier than thou experiments
(a) Daffodil days
Daffodil days experiment
5 weeks before daffodil day (when daffodils are sold for cancer fighting) ptps were asked “Will you buy a daffodil and if so how many”
and
“Will peer buy”
3 days after daffodil days, they were assessed again and asked if they would buy
RESULTS
Participants overrated how many they would buy and predicted that others would buy less.
In reality, they were not better than average
But they were ACCURATE predictors of the amount of daffodils peers bought
CONCLUSION
People can predict accurately other people’s socially desirable behavior but not there own.
EXPLINATIONS
(a) Did they mistake construal - did they imagine it would be sunny/pleasant/better than it was and then act differently because it was not?
(b) Did they contaminate their behavior with their predictions?
Holier than thou experiments
(b) A saint’s dilemma
Used the prisoner’s dilemma method
Asked to predict what percentages of their moves would be cooperative and the percentage of another’s cooperative moves
Again, they overestimated the percentage of cooperative moves they would make but not those of the other. Accurate at predicting other but not self.
Holier than thou experiments
(b) Four other nameless experiments
People overestimate the likelihood that they would chose a kinder action by 32%
but only by 4% for others
People know more about themselves than others, why does this error happen?
Holier than though explanation
Types of info and implications
We have 2 sources of information:
1 Case based information
2 Base rate information (ref. distribution)
People are pretty accurate in perceiving,
learning and reporting distributional information
BUT, they prefer to use case-based information
when making predictions
“personality”»_space; past behavior
Unlikely to use case based info about others
because info lacking (also abstract)
So the predictions of others is more accurate because we lack information about them!
Predicting how much you will donate study (premise)
If people base predictions on case studies and not base rates, then their predictions should not change if base rate information is provided
When predicting peers we use nothing but base rate (as we lack case study information). So we use it more.
Predicting how much you will donate study (experiment)
$5.00 paid to you List of three charities -Salvation Army -Red Cross -Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
How much would you and average peer donate
if in situation?
Learned about ACTUAL donations of 3, 7, then 13
people from earlier study
RESULTS
They go base rate information about 3, 7 and 13 other people. Their estimations for THEMSELVES did not move but their estimations for PEERS dropped at every infusion of information as they adjusted their prediction to fit the new base rate data
THEN
They were given case study information about one peer.
Immediately, their predictions about this peer were not affected (like the self predictions) because they had started using case study data instead of base rate.
When making predictions about self or special other, personality information is used
When making predictions about others in general, the known behavior of others was used.
Information and processing bias
Information processing biases lead to overly
positive self-appraisals
But biases do not always lead to positive biases
Judging comparative abilities (basics)
Below/above average effect
Is an egocentric process:
How skilled am I?
How skilled are my peers?
People’s own skills serve as judgmental anchor,
but we fail to consider skills of others in the model Above average if absolute skills high (easy task)
Below average if absolute skills low (difficult task)
Why
Anchoring and (insufficient) adjustment
People’s own skills serve as judgmental anchor, but
we fail to consider skills of others in the model
Judging comparative abilities (Study 1)
Below/above average effect
Asked to rate how good their skill level
Asked to rate how good they thought others were at the same things
Domain difficulty was very highly correlated with these biases (if it is easy, they rate their ability as high and that they are above average, if it is hard, they rate their ability as low and that they are below average)
BUT
Everyone finds easy things easy so a good absolute score in that should give an average relative score in it. The same is true for hard tasks; absolute score low, relative score average.
People have ignored the abilities of others.
Below/above average effect (Study 1)
Predictions:
1. Ps should see themselves as above average for
easy abilities and below average for difficult ones
2. Ps own abilities should account for more variance in
comparative judgments
People rated their absolute ability and relative ability on 8 domains. 4 were easy, 4 hard.
There was a strong correlation between their relative estimates and the domain difficulty
This showed strong below and above average effects
Their assessments of their own absolute ability correlated strongly to their proposed relative ability scores.
Their assessments of others absolute ability did not.
Hence, they are using information about their abilities to assess their ability in domains relative to others and neglecting their assessments of their abilities.
Below/above average effect (Study 2)
Experimentally manipulate ps perceptions of their
absolute skills:
Tell then you want to assess “integrative ability”
Administer one group a hard and another an easy test
Ask them too:
(x) Compare ability w/peers (0-99 percentile)
(a) Estimate absolute ability for self (1-10)
(b) And another person (1-10)
Predictions:
Easy test, then ability above average
Difficult test, then ability below average
The two measurements (a) and (b) should be equally related to (x). They are not. (a) correlates much higher.
WHY?
More information about self (vs. others)
Self-information is more accessible/automatically retrieved (anchoring)
More difficult to retrieve info about others (req. effort)
Anchoring and adjustment
Anchoring is automatic and effortless; adjustment
requires resources
If this is true then cognitive load should exacerbate the difference between the two things according to dual systems theory
Dual process theories (System I & II)
Dual Process Theories System I -Automatic -Unconscious -Implicit -Low effort -Large capacity -Rapid -Independent of WM -Parallel
System II
- Controlled
- Conscious
- Explicit
- High effort
- Small capacity
- Slow
- Limited by WM capacity
- Serial
How can we tell if a process is system I or II?
System II (vs. I) processes:
- Slow
- Require high effort
- Limited by working memory (WM) capacity
- Serial
Introducing cognitive load (e.g., memorize a 9-
digit #) should interfere with system II processes
BUT load should NOT interfere with system I
processes (low effort, parallel, independent of
WM)
Anchoring and adjustment (ecpermient)
When we do similar assessment tasks as done to assess below/above average effects as before we see a much bigger effect both for below and above average effects under cognitive load
This is evidence that the adjustment part (that would fight against this bias) is running on system II and hence, when cognitive load is applies, cannot function as well whilst the anchoring is under system I and so no affected at all by cognitive load.
Below/above average effects (Summary)
-If we are not good at something AND we realize
that we are not good–below average effect
-But we tend to think we are good at most things–
better than average effect
Wy do we have a biased view of ourselves?
Mini-summary
Self-enhancement
- Viewing self in positive light feels good
- Self-esteem is psychological need
AND
Egocentrism
-Case vs. base rate
-Focalism: Greater emphasis on the object that is the focus of attention
As research says usually “how are you” it orientates us to the self as a focal point and so we emphasize this in these studies
BOTH motivational and cognitive processes
contribute to the effect
-Effect is functional, for the most part
-Cognitively adaptive biases that serve us well
Do self-enhancing biases really serve us well (yes)
Some say positive illusions aid us:
Subjective well-being
-Beget success
-Via confident
-Esp. for moderately difficult activities
-Relationship illusions associated with relationship
satisfaction and commitment
-Coping with challenges
Do self-enhancing biases really serve us well (no)
Positive illusions are bad
-Set unrealistically high goals, leading to frequent
failure and, consequently, low well-being
-Or, no reason to self-improve and, consequently,
miss opportunities to advance skills
-Also, more likely to engage in boasting,
presumptuous behavior and, consequently,
alienate others, which leads to loneliness in the
long run
Meta Analysis about whether positive illusions are good or bad
200 studies; > 10,000 participants
Are positive illusions good for:
-Personal adjustment (feel happy)
Interpersonal
adjustment (i.e., being valued by others)
-Especially adaptive for adverse life events?
-Does social normativeness matter (PI good for men,
younger people and people from western cultures;
also present versus past)?
-Moderation by sex and/or culture (b/c of
normativeness)
RESULTS FOR PERSONAL ADJUSTMENT
Self enhancement good for personal adjustment
(i.e., proclivity to feel happy rather than sad or
depressed)
-Evidence for longitudinal effects (suggesting
causality)
-No difference for adverse and normal
circumstances
-No moderation by sex, age, culture, and historical
period
RESULTS FOR INTERPERSONAL ADJUSTMENT
-Association between self enhancement and
interpersonal adjustment (being valued by
others) nuanced:
-Positive association for zero-acquaintance
relationships, but not longer-term relationships…
