Department of Psychology, The New School for Social Research.
Department of Psychology, Cornell University.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2019 Mar;148(3):570-587. doi: 10.1037/xge0000580.
People's tendency to rate themselves as above average is often taken as evidence of undue self-regard. Yet, everyday experience is occasioned with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. How can these 2 experiences be reconciled? Across 12 studies (N = 2,474; including 4 preregistered studies) we argue that although people do indeed believe that they are above average they also hold themselves to standards of comparison that are well above average. Across a host of domains, we find that people's typical standards of comparison are significantly above the level of the "average" person (Studies 1A, 1B, 2A, and 3). We further show that people's tendency to measure themselves against above-average others is due to the increased mental availability of such high-performing standards of comparison (Studies 4A and 4B). Finally, we present evidence that this is not simply the result of self-enhancement by showing that people measure themselves against above-average others even when they feel subjectively inadequate (Study 5A), receive objective information about their poor performance (Study 5B), or evaluate themselves on domains in which they chronically underperform (Study 5C). Even in domains where being above average is undesirable (e.g., rudeness), people bring to mind and compare themselves with above average targets (Studies 2B and 2C). We discuss the implications for self-enhancement research and the importance of examining who people compare themselves to in addition to how people believe they compare with others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
人们倾向于认为自己高于平均水平，这通常被视为自我重视过度的证据。然而，日常生活中也会不时感到不称职和不安全。这两种体验如何调和呢？在 12 项研究中（N=2474，包括 4 项预先注册的研究），我们认为，尽管人们确实相信自己高于平均水平，但他们也将自己与远高于平均水平的比较标准进行对比。在许多领域，我们发现人们的典型比较标准明显高于“平均”水平（研究 1A、1B、2A 和 3）。我们进一步表明，人们倾向于将自己与高于平均水平的他人进行衡量，是因为这些高表现的比较标准在思维上更加容易出现（研究 4A 和 4B）。最后，我们通过证明即使人们感到主观上不称职（研究 5A）、收到有关其表现不佳的客观信息（研究 5B）或在他们长期表现不佳的领域评估自己（研究 5C），他们也会将自己与高于平均水平的他人进行衡量，从而表明这不仅仅是自我增强的结果。即使在高于平均水平不受欢迎的领域（例如，粗鲁），人们也会想到并将自己与高于平均水平的目标进行比较（研究 2B 和 2C）。我们讨论了这对自我增强研究的影响，以及除了人们如何相信自己与他人相比之外，研究人们与谁进行比较的重要性。（APA 心理学数据库记录（c）2019，保留所有权利）。
