Читать книгу Social Psychology - Daniel W. Barrett - Страница 168

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