Blog cafe Above average

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: Remember all those studies showing that people claim they are above-average drivers? Or above-average at other things they do? It may not just be self-deception. Here is the latest : ...we find it easier to consider the favourable evidence for a single person than we do for a whole group. Consistent with this is the finding that people tend to be biased when comparing any single individual, not just themselves, against a group of others.

There’s also the possibility that we’re biased towards the “target” in any comparison. The “target” is the entity that is being measured up against some benchmark. Following this logic, if I asked you how good all other drivers are compared with you (thus making other drivers the “target” of the comparison and you the benchmark), then this ought to reduce the bias you’d show towards yourself.

A new study has tried to [figure] what causes the “above average effect” by pitching these three explanations against each other. Zlatan Krizan and Jerry Suls asked undergraduates to list a group of friends or acquaintances, to take one member of that group and then compare that individual with the rest of the group on some attribute, say generosity.

Of the three factors, our difficulty in seeing the quality of a group, relative to the quality of an individual, seems to be the primary source of bias in the ranking.