Humble Self-Enhancement: Religiosity and the Better-than-Average Effect

Eriksson, Kimmo; Funcke, Alexander

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2160752

Cited by 11 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Still, Eriksson and Funcke's (2014) cross-cultural results are more consistent with the SCP-universal view than the ego-quieting view. 4 Taken together, two studies favor the SCP-universal view, two the ego-quieting view.…”

Section: Religiosity and Better-than-average Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 53%

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Christian self-enhancement.

Gebauer

Sedikides

Schrade

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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People overestimate themselves in domains that are central to their self-concept. Critically, the psychological status of this “self-centrality principle” remains unclear. One view regards the principle as an inextricable part of human nature and, thus, as universal and resistant to normative pressure. A contrasting view regards the principle as liable to pressure (and subsequent modification) from self-effacement norms, thus questioning its universality. Advocates of the latter view point to Christianity’s robust self-effacement norms, which they consider particularly effective in curbing self-enhancement, and ascribe Christianity an ego-quieting function. Three sets of studies examined the self-centrality principle among Christians. Studies 1A and 1B (N = 2,118) operationalized self-enhancement as better-than-average perceptions on the domains of commandments of faith (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers) and commandments of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers). Studies 2A–2H (N = 1,779) operationalized self-enhancement as knowledge overclaiming on the domains of Christianity (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers), communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers), and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). Studies 3A–3J (N = 1,956) operationalized self-enhancement as grandiose narcissism on the domains of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers) and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). The results converged across studies, yielding consistent evidence for Christian self-enhancement. Relative to nonbelievers, Christians self-enhanced strongly in domains central to the Christian self-concept. The results also generalized across countries with differing levels of religiosity. Christianity does not quiet the ego. The self-centrality principle is resistant to normative pressure, universal, and rooted in human nature.

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Section: Religiosity and Better-than-average Perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…4 Eriksson and Funcke (2014) reported a third study in which religious and non-religious MTurkers compared themselves with the "average person." Relative to non-religious MTurkers, religious MTurkers showed a pronounced better-than-average effect on communion/warmth, but not on agency/competence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Christian self-enhancement.

Gebauer

Sedikides

Schrade

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…Some studies have found that a link between self-reported religiosity and self-reported altruism remains even when social desirability concerns are measured and controlled for (e.g., Saroglou, Pichon, Trompette, Verschueren, & Dernelle, 2005 ). However, to the extent that the relationship between religiosity and self-enhancement stems from self-stereotyping rather than from concerns with projecting a positive image ( Eriksson & Funcke, 2014 ), attempts to control for socially desirable responding may not eliminate all relevant sources of response bias in self-report measures. Accordingly, experiments with behavioral measures should be consulted wherever possible ( Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008 ).…”

Section: The Religion–morality Relationship In Biological Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and morality.

McKay¹,

Whitehouse²

2015

Psychological Bulletin

251

140

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The relationship between religion and morality has long been hotly debated. Does religion make us more moral? Is it necessary for morality? Do moral inclinations emerge independently of religious intuitions? These debates, which nowadays rumble on in scientific journals as well as in public life, have frequently been marred by a series of conceptual confusions and limitations. Many scientific investigations have failed to decompose “religion” and “morality” into theoretically grounded elements; have adopted parochial conceptions of key concepts—in particular, sanitized conceptions of “prosocial” behavior; and have neglected to consider the complex interplay between cognition and culture. We argue that to make progress, the categories “religion” and “morality” must be fractionated into a set of biologically and psychologically cogent traits, revealing the cognitive foundations that shape and constrain relevant cultural variants. We adopt this fractionating strategy, setting out an encompassing evolutionary framework within which to situate and evaluate relevant evidence. Our goals are twofold: to produce a detailed picture of the current state of the field, and to provide a road map for future research on the relationship between religion and morality.

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“…Once the compression is made, the constituent perceptions of self and other are lost. Although the direct measure enjoys continued use (e.g., Eriksson & Funcke, 2014), we consider it no further because of these difficulties. We turn instead to the indirect measurement of self-enhancement, which requires respondents to make separate judgments of the self, S, and the average other, O, which the investigator then converts to a difference score, S-O (Klar & Giladi, 1999).…”

Section: Traditional Measures Of Self-enhancementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-enhancement diminished.

Heck¹,

Krueger²

2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Self-enhancement is a positive bias in self-perception, which may imply error. However, conventional measures of self-enhancement are difference scores that do not distinguish a positive bias from a self-enhancement error, that is, they fail to identify those individuals who hold an irrationally or inaccurately positive view of themselves. We propose 2 new measures to separate error from bias. In the domain of personality judgment, we estimate a defensible bias and an enhancement error from individuals' actual and perceived similarity with others. In the domain of performance, we adapt a decision-theoretic framework to distinguish those who falsely believe to be better than average from those who actually are better. We illustrate the properties of these measures in 3 empirical studies and computer simulations. Implausibly high majorities of people consider themselves to be above average on various dimensions.

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Humble Self-Enhancement: Religiosity and the Better-than-Average Effect

Cited by 11 publications

References 25 publications

Christian self-enhancement.

Christian self-enhancement.

Religion and morality.

Self-enhancement diminished.

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