The Better-Than-Average Effect Is Observed Because “Average” Is Often Construed as Below-Median Ability

Abstract

Most people rate their abilities as better than “average” even though it is statistically impossible for most people to have better-than-median abilities. Some investigators explained this phenomenon in terms of a self-enhancement bias. The present study complements this motivational explanation with the parsimonious cognitive explanation that the phrase “average ability” may be interpreted as below-median ability rather than median ability. We believe people tend to construe an “average” target that is based on the most representative exemplar, and this result in different levels of “average” in different domains. Participants compared their abilities to those of an average person, typical person, and a person whose abilities are at the 40th, 50th, or 60th percentile. We found that participants’ interpretation of “average” ability depended on the perceived difficulty of the ability. For abilities perceived as easy (e.g., spoken and written expression), participants construed an “average” target at the 40th percentile (i.e., below-median ability) and showed a marked better-than-average effect. On the contrary, for abilities perceived to be difficult, participants construed an “average” target at the median or even above the median.

Understanding the Better Than Average Effect on Altruism

“…The finding that shows Class 4 populations to be more likely to display stronger BTA effects is supported by the vast literature, which suggests this group to endorse stronger altruistic values. It is also consistent with the previous conceptualization of the BTA effect (Kim et al, 2017), which posits that people who exhibit stronger BTA effects may accurately perceive their actual altruistic behaviors. Earlier studies also proposed that while skilled performers are not always accurate in self-perceptions, they are generally less likely to greatly under-or overestimate their performance than less skilled persons (Ehrlinger et al, 2008).…”

“…Furthermore, our results suggest that people who hold BTA altruistic self-perceptions are more likely to behave altruistically. People with BTA may perceive the tasks of acting altruistic behaviors as easy given their ability ( Kim et al, 2017 ), and they are financially prepared and emotionally motivated to engage in actual altruistic behaviors. For instance, Class 4 is more educated with high-income status, allowing their choices to formally particulate in volunteering, suggesting that altruistic self-perceptions are important in predicting altruistic behaviors and shed light on policymakers’ potential direction in promoting altruistic behaviors.…”

“…Most people view themselves BTA across characteristics, ranging from driving skills ( Roy and Liersch, 2013 ) to grammar ability ( Kruger and Dunning, 1999 ), and to morality ( Tappin and Mckay, 2017 ). Theoretical and motivational accounts often regard the BTA effect as a cognitive and judgment bias, as it is statistically impossible for most to be BTA across different dimensions ( Kim et al, 2017 ). Theoretically, the “self-centrality breeds self-enhancement” principle postulates that people will perceive themselves BTA on traits that they deem to be more personally important ( Sedikides and Strube, 1997 ; Sedikides et al, 2013 ).…”

Cognitive biases policy (CBP) in performance improvements – the example of benchmarking

“…left for implementation by individual employees. Although Heath et al (1998), proposing their sets of cognitive repairs, seem to favour repairs that originate bottom-up, those developed by employees themselves, we suggest that as individuals have limited capacity of recognize their own cognitive biases (Scopelliti et al , 2015, see also Tavris and Aronson, 2007) and see themselves as above-average performers (Kim et al , 2017), it might be difficult to encourage individuals to invent and implement their own strategies protecting them against cognitive biases. Recent studies also suggest that as cognitive bias is relatively stable, some promising results in debiasing decisions come from special top-down designed training programmes (Thompson et al , 2000; Morewedge et al , 2015; Sellier et al , 2019) or from choice architectures, i.e.…”

Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students

“…People rate their behaviour as better than the norm, though it is mathematically impossible for most people to have better-than-median abilities. 44 The BTAE exists across humans [44][45][46][47] and health professionals are no exception.…”