we often find comfort when we think others are similar to us, there are times when we’d prefer to stand out from the crowd. This primarily occurs with respect to one’s abilities or competencies, because we’d like to think that we are uncommonly talented. As in the case with false consensus, we are often mistaken about how we compare to others, except that here we inaccurately believe that we are different from them. For instance, people who engage in socially desirable behaviors, like giving blood, may underestimate how many others would do the same (Goethals, 1986). When we hold incorrect beliefs about how different we are, we demonstrate the false uniqueness effect, and as with the false consensus effect, this tendency serves to enhance our self-esteem (Goethals, 1986; Monin & Norton, 2003; H. S. Park, 2012). Both the false consensus and false uniqueness effects stem in part from our lack of knowledge of the true attitudes or attributes of others.
Are you more or less socially skilled than the average person? More ethical? A better driver? Well, most people believe that they are more ethical and are better-than-average drivers, even if they have a history of auto accidents (Guerin, 1994; Lovett, 1997). In fact, you probably think that you are better-than-average on most desirable characteristics, which is called the better-than-average effect (see Research box 4.1) (Gilovich, 1991; Guenther & Alicke, 2010). This effect is also known in the United States as the Lake Wobegon effect, because in Lake Wobegon, the fictional community invented by Garrison Keilor, “the women are strong and the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.” When do people prefer to see themselves as distinct versus similar to others? It depends on the desirability of the behavior in question. If the behavior is seen as positive, then people overestimate their uniqueness; however, for our negative behaviors, we’d rather believe that many others do them as well (Marks, 1984).
False Consensus Effect: Believing that one’s opinions or behaviors are more common than they actually are
False Uniqueness Effect: Holding incorrect beliefs about how different one is from others
Better-Than-Average Effect: Judging that one is above average on most desirable characteristics
Self-Serving Judgments
When you do well on a psychology exam, what is the reason? Did you work hard? Or are you simply smart? What if you fail? Were the professor’s questions incomprehensible? Or were you deathly sick the night before? People often answer questions like these with judgments that enhance their self-esteem (Gilovich, 1991; Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004). If, like many of us, you take credit for your successes but blame outside factors for your failures, you are demonstrating one type of self-serving belief known as the self-serving attributional bias or, more simply, the self-serving bias (Shepperd, Malone, & Sweeny, 2008). Attributions are explanations that people give for their own or others’ behavior; when you attribute your high grade to hard work, you are claiming that your grade was a result of your personal effort. The self-serving bias helps us maintain our self-esteem by bolstering us when things go well and buffering us against negative events by blaming outside factors. Basically, you feel good when you succeed, and you feel good when you fail (because it wasn’t your fault).
Research Box 4.1
The Better-Than-Average Effect
Hypothesis: Participants will rate themselves as better or higher than their college peers across a range of personality traits.
Research Method: As part of a larger testing situation, participants rated themselves or their average college peer on twenty-three traits, including cooperativeness, intelligence, truthfulness, kindness, attractiveness, and athleticism. Participants in a control condition did not complete these ratings. Eight weeks later, participants who initially rated themselves now rated the average peer, and those who initially rated their average peer now rated themselves. Control participants rated both themselves and their average peer.
Results: The results confirmed the hypothesis. Regardless of whether participants rated themselves before, after, or simultaneously with the ratings of their peers, their self-ratings were typically higher than their peer ratings.
Conclusion: College students continue to believe that they are better than the average college student.
Source: Adapted from Guenther, C. L., & Alicke, M. D. (2010). Deconstructing the better-than-average effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 755–770.
Self-Serving Attributional Bias: Taking credit for one’s successes but blaming outside factors for one’s failures
The Bias Blind Spot: Being Biased About Being Biased
One of the most interesting self-serving biases is the bias people have about being biased. While acknowledging that the average American exhibits many of the biases described in this section, people tend to believe they and they alone are somehow immune to those very same biases, including the self-serving bias! Pronin, Lin, and Ross (2002) found that people exhibit this bias blind spot for several different types of cognitive biases. Instances of this blindness often occur in the context of negotiations, wherein the conflicting parties are unable to identify their own biases but are quick to do so in their adversaries (Frantz, 2006). Even when people admit to having biases in theory, they tend to deny them in specific situations (West, Meserve, & Stanovich, 2012).
Think Again!
1 How is self-esteem different from self-concept?
2 What are two ways do you enhance your self-esteem?
3 What is the bias blind spot? Do you think you have this bias?
SELF-PRESENTATION: DISPLAYING ONESELF
We’ve already seen that the self-concept is the sum total of what you believe about yourself—your attributes, qualities, competencies, and so forth—and how self-esteem represents your evaluation of your self-concept. There is a third aspect to the self that is also important in building and shaping who we are: our interpersonal self, which is the self we present to others (Burusic & Ribar, 2014). We manage our self-image and protect our self-esteem through tactical self-presentation or impression management. Impression management represents our efforts to project the image that we wish others to have of us (Bourdage, Wiltshire, & Lee, 2015; Ogunfowora, Bourdage, & Nguyen, 2013; Schlenker, 2000). The specific tactics that we choose will partially depend on how we imagine other people perceive and judge us, which in turn can affect our sense of self. We engage in self-presentational strategies so that others will see us as we see ourselves, which of course requires that we attempt to take the perspective of others to gain insight into our self-presentation (Leary & Allen, 2011). There are several goals of self-presentation: We want others to like us, to see us as competent, and to verify or affirm the self (Jones, 1990; Swann, 1990; Uziel, 2010).
Self-Monitoring
When you walk into class or a party, how much do you think about the impressions you are making on others? Do you wonder how others perceive your actions and appearance? If you do this a lot, then you are probably high in self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is the extent to which people chronically think about how they appear to others and, as a consequence, change their appearance and behavior to fit the circumstances (Abell & Brewer, 2014; Choi, Moon, & Chun, 2015; Gangestad
