Illusory superiority

1.1 Cognitive ability

Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities, relative
to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including
intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits. It
is one of many positive illusions relating to the self, and
is a phenomenon studied in social psychology.

1.1.1 IQ
One of the main eects of illusory superiority in IQ is
the Downing eect. This describes the tendency of people with a below average IQ to overestimate their IQ, and
of people with an above average IQ to underestimate their
IQ. The propensity to predictably misjudge ones own
IQ was rst noted by C. L. Downing who conducted the
rst cross-cultural studies on perceived 'intelligence'. His
studies also evidenced that the ability to accurately estimate others IQ was proportional to ones own IQ. This
means that the lower the IQ of an individual, the less
capable they are of appreciating and accurately appraising others IQ. Therefore individuals with a lower IQ are
more likely to rate themselves as having a higher IQ than
those around them. Conversely, people with a higher IQ,
while better at appraising others IQ overall, are still likely
to rate people of similar IQ as themselves as having higher
IQs.

Illusory superiority is often referred to as the above average eect. Other terms include superiority bias, leniency error, sense of relative superiority, the primus
inter pares eect,[1] and the Lake Wobegon eect
(named after Garrison Keillor's ctional town where all
the children are above average).[2] The phrase illusory
superiority was rst used by Van Yperen and Buunk in
1991.[1]

Eects in dierent situations

Illusory superiority has been found in individuals comparisons of themselves with others in a wide variety of
dierent aspects of life, including performance in academic circumstances (such as class performance, exams
and overall intelligence), in working environments (for
example in job performance), and in social settings (for
example in estimating ones popularity, or the extent to
which one possesses desirable personality traits, such as
honesty or condence), as well as everyday abilities requiring particular skill.[1]

The disparity between actual IQ and perceived IQ has

also been noted between genders by British psychologist
Adrian Furnham, in whose work there was a suggestion
that, on average, men are more likely to overestimate their
intelligence by 5 points, while women are more likely to
underestimate their IQ by a similar margin.[5][6]
1.1.2 Memory

For illusory superiority to be demonstrated by social comparison, two logical hurdles have to be overcome. One is
the ambiguity of the word average. It is logically possible for nearly all of the set to be above the mean if the distribution of abilities is highly skewed. For example, the
mean number of legs per human being is slightly lower
than two, because some people have fewer, but none has
more. Hence experiments usually compare subjects to
the median of the peer group, since by denition it is impossible for a majority to exceed the median.

Illusory superiority has been found in studies comparing

memory self-report, such as Schmidt, Berg & Deelmans
research in older adults. This study involved participants
aged between 46 and 89 years of age comparing their
own memory to that of peers of the same age group, 25year-olds and their own memory at age 25. This research
showed that participants exhibited illusory superiority
when comparing themselves to both peers and younger
adults, however the researchers asserted that these judgements were only slightly related to age.[7]

A further problem in inferring inconsistency is that subjects might interpret the question in dierent ways, so it
is logically possible that a majority of them are, for example, more generous than the rest of the group each on
their own understanding of generosity.[3] This interpretation is conrmed by experiments which varied the amount
of interpretive freedom subjects were given. As subjects
evaluate themselves on a specic, well-dened attribute,
illusory superiority remains.[4]

1.1.3 Cognitive tasks

Main article: DunningKruger eect
In Kruger and Dunnings experiments participants were
given specic tasks (such as solving logic problems, analyzing grammar questions, and determining whether or
1

EFFECTS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

not jokes were funny), and were asked to evaluate their 1.2 Self, friends and peers
performance on these tasks relative to the rest of the
group, enabling a direct comparison of their actual and One of the rst studies that found the eect of illusory
perceived performance.[8]
superiority was carried out in 1976 by the College Board
[18]
Results were divided into four groups depending on actual in the USA. A survey was attached to the SAT exams
performance and it was found that all four groups eval- (taken by approximately one million students per year),
uated their performance as above average, meaning that asking the students to rate themselves relative to the methe lowest-scoring group (the bottom 25%) showed a very dian of the sample (rather than the average peer) on a
large illusory superiority bias. The researchers attributed number of vague positive characteristics. In ratings of
this to the fact that the individuals who were worst at per- leadership ability, 70% of the students put themselves
forming the tasks were also worst at recognizing skill in above the median. In ability to get on well with others,
those tasks. This was supported by the fact that, given 85% put themselves above the median, and 25% rated
training, the worst subjects improved their estimate of themselves in the top 1%.
their rank as well as getting better at the tasks.[8]
The paper, titled Unskilled and Unaware of It: How
Diculties in Recognizing Ones Own Incompetence
Lead to Inated Self-Assessments, won a 2000 Ig Nobel Prize.[9]
In 2003 Dunning and Joyce Ehrlinger, also of Cornell
University, published a study that detailed a shift in peoples views of themselves inuenced by external cues.
Participants in the study (Cornell University undergraduates) were given tests of their knowledge of geography,
some intended to positively aect their self-views, some
intended to aect them negatively. They were then asked
to rate their performance, and those given the positive
tests reported signicantly better performance than those
given the negative.[10]

More recent research[19] has found illusory superiority in

a social context, with participants comparing themselves
to friends and other peers on positive characteristics (such
as punctuality and sensitivity) and negative characteristics
(such as naivety or inconsistency). This study found that
participants rated themselves more favorably than their
friends, but rated their friends more favorably than other
peers. These ndings were, however, aected by several
moderating factors.
Research by Perlo and Fetzer,[20] Brown,[21] and Tajfel
and Turner[22] also found similar eects of participants
rating friends higher than other peers. Tajfel and Turner
attributed this to an ingroup bias and suggested that this
was motivated by the individuals desire for a positive
social identity.

Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work

to sensitivity to others, and the subjects perception of 1.2.1 Popularity
how sensitive they were.[11] Work by Burson Larrick and
Joshua Klayman has suggested that the eect is not so In Zuckerman and Josts study, participants were given
obvious and may be due to noise and bias levels.[12]
detailed questionnaires about their friendships and asked
Dunning, Kruger, and coauthors latest paper on this sub- to assess their own popularity. By using social network
ject comes to qualitatively similar conclusions after mak- analysis, they were able to show that the participants generally had exaggerated perceptions of their own popularing some attempt to test alternative explanations.[13]
ity, particularly in comparison to their own friends.[23]
1.2.2 Relationship happiness
1.1.4

Academic ability and job performance

In a survey of faculty at the University of Nebraska, 68%

rated themselves in the top 25% for teaching ability.[14]
In a similar survey, 87% of MBA students at Stanford
University rated their academic performance as above the
median.[15]
Findings of illusory superiority in research have also explained phenomena such as the large amount of stock
market trading (as each trader thinks they are the best,
and most likely to succeed),[16] and the number of lawsuits that go to trial (because, due to illusory superiority,
many lawyers have an inated belief that they will win a
case).[17]

Researchers have also found the eects of illusory superiority in studies into relationship satisfaction. For example, one study found that participants perceived their own
relationships as better than others relationships on average, but thought that the majority of people were happy
with their relationships. Also, this study found evidence
that the higher the participants rated their own relationship happiness, the more superior they believed their relationship was. The illusory superiority exhibited by the
participants in this study also served to increase their own
relationship satisfaction, as it was found that in men especially satisfaction was particularly related to the perception that ones own relationship was superior as well
as to the assumption that few others were unhappy with
their relationship, whereas womens satisfaction was particularly related to the assumption that most others were

3
happy with their relationship.[24] One study found that 2 Cultural dierences
participants became defensive when their spouse/partner
were perceived by others to be more successful in any as- A vast majority of the literature on illusory superiorpect of their life, and had the tendency to exaggerate their ity originates from studies on participants in the United
success and understate their spouse/partners success.
States. However, research that only investigates the effects in one specic population is severely limited as this
may not be a true representation of human psychology as
1.3 Health
a whole. As a result, more recent research has focused
on investigating quantities and qualities of self-esteem
Illusory superiority eects have been found in a self- around the globe. The ndings of such studies suggest
report study of health behaviors (Hoorens & Harris, that illusory superiority varies between cultures.[29]
1998). The study involved asking participants to estimate how often they, and their peers, carried out healthy
and unhealthy behaviors. Participants reported that they
carried out healthy behaviors more often than the aver- 3 Self-esteem
age peer, and unhealthy behaviors less often, as would be
expected given the eect of illusory superiority. These Main article: Self-esteem
ndings were for both past self-report of behaviors and
expected future behaviors.[25]
While a great deal of evidence suggests that we compare ourselves favorably to others on a wide variety of
traits, the links to self-esteem are uncertain. The theory
1.4 Driving ability
that those with high self-esteem maintain this high level
by rating themselves over and above others does carry
Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in Sweden and the some evidence behind it; it has been reported that nonUnited States, asking them to compare their driving safety depressed subjects rate their control over positive outand skill to the other people in the experiment. For driv- comes higher than that of a peer; despite an identical level
ing skill, 93% of the US sample and 69% of the Swedish in performance between the two individuals.[30]
sample put themselves in the top 50% (above the median). For safety, 88% of the US group and 77% of the Furthermore, it has been found that non-depressed students will also actively rate peers below themselves, as
Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%.[26]
opposed to rating themselves higher; students were able
McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar re- to recall a great deal more negative personality traits about
sults in their study, asking 178 participants to evaluate others than about themselves.[31]
their position on eight dierent dimensions relating to
driving skill (examples include the dangerous-safe di- It should be noted though, that in these studies there was
mension and the considerate-inconsiderate dimension). no distinction made between people with legitimate and
Only a small minority rated themselves as below aver- illegitimate high self-esteem, as other studies have found
age (the midpoint of the dimension scale) at any point, that absence of positive illusions may coexist with high
[32]
and when all eight dimensions were considered together self-esteem and that self-determined individuals with
it was found that almost 80% of participants had evalu- personality oriented towards growth and learning are less
prone to these illusions.[33] Thus it may be likely that
ated themselves as being above the average driver.[27]
while illusory superiority is associated with illegitimate
A survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates high self-esteem, people with legitimate high self-esteem
showed that 36% of drivers believe they are an above av- don't exhibit it.
erage driver while using a phone for things like texting
or email compared to other drivers who are using their
phones for things like texting or email, while 44% considered themselves average, and 18% below average.[28] 4 Relation to mental health
Main article: Depressive realism

1.5

Immunity to bias

Main article: Bias blind spot

Subjects describe themselves in positive terms compared
to other people, and this includes describing themselves
as less susceptible to bias than other people. This eect
is called the bias blind spot and has been demonstrated
independently.

Psychology has traditionally assumed that generally accurate self-perceptions are essential to good mental
health.[3] This was challenged by a 1988 paper by Taylor
and Brown, who argued that mentally healthy individuals
typically manifest three cognitive illusions, namely illusory superiority, illusion of control and optimism bias.[3]
This idea rapidly became very inuential, with some authorities concluding that it would be therapeutic to de-

EXPLANATIONS

liberately induce these biases.[34] Since then, further research has both undermined that conclusion and oered
new evidence associating illusory superiority with negative eects on the individual.[3]

to create illusory superiority. Since mental noise is a sufcient explanation that is much simpler and straightforward than any other explanation involving heuristics, behavior, or social interaction,[18] Occams razor would arOne line of argument was that in the Taylor and Brown gue in its favor as the underlying generative mechanism
paper, the classication of people as mentally healthy (it is the hypothesis which makes the fewest assumptions).
or unhealthy was based on self-reports rather than objective criteria.[34] Hence it was not surprising that peo6.2 Selective recruitment
ple prone to self-enhancement would exaggerate how
well-adjusted they are. One study claimed that menThis is the idea that, when making a comparison with a
tally normal groups were contaminated by defensive depeer, an individual will select their own strengths and the
niers who are the most subject to positive illusions.[34]
others weaknesses in order that they appear better on the
A longitudinal study found that self-enhancement biases
whole. This theory was rst tested by Weinstein (1980);
were associated with poor social skills and psychologhowever, this was in an experiment relating to optimistic
ical maladjustment.[3] In a separate experiment where
bias, rather than the better-than-average eect. The study
videotaped conversations between men and women were
involved participants rating certain behaviors as likely to
rated by independent observers, self-enhancing individincrease or decrease the chance of a series of life events
uals were more likely to show socially problematic behappening to them. It was found that individuals showed
haviors such as hostility or irritability.[3] A 2007 study
less optimistic bias when they were allowed to see others
found that self-enhancement biases were associated with
answers.[38]
psychological benets (such as subjective well-being) but
also inter- and intra-personal costs (such as anti-social Perlo and Fetzer (1986) suggested that, when comparing themselves to an average peer on a particular ability
behavior).[35]
or characteristic, an individual would choose a comparison target (the peer being compared) that scored less well
on that ability or characteristic, in order that the individ5 Neuroimaging
ual would appear to be better than average. To test this
theory, Perlo and Fetzer asked participants to compare
The degree to which people view themselves as more de- themselves to specic comparison targets (a close friend),
sirable than the average person links to reduced activation and found that illusory superiority decreased when spein their orbitofrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cic targets were given, rather than vague constructs such
cortex. This is suggested to link to the role of these areas as the average peer. However these results are not completely reliable and could be aected by the fact that inin processing cognitive control.[36]
dividuals like their close friends more than an average
peer and may as a result rate their friend as being higher
than average, therefore the friend would not be an objec6 Explanations
tive comparison target.[20]

6.1

Noisy mental information processing

A recent Psychological Bulletin suggests that illusory superiority (as well as other biases) can be explained by a
simple information-theoretic generative mechanism that
assumes a noisy conversion of objective evidence (observation) into subjective estimates (judgment).[37] The
study suggests that the underlying cognitive mechanism is
essentially similar to the noisy mixing of memories that
can cause the conservatism bias or overcondence: after
our own performance, we readjust our estimates of our
own performance more than we readjust our estimates of
others performances. This implies that our estimates of
the scores of others are even more conservative (more inuenced by the previous expectation) than our estimates
of our own performance (more inuenced by the new evidence received after giving the test). The dierence in
the conservative bias of both estimates (conservative estimate of our own performance, and even more conservative estimate of the performance of others) is enough

6.3 Egocentrism
Main article: Egocentrism
The second explanation for how the better-than-average
eect works is egocentrism. This is the idea that an individual places greater importance and signicance on
their own abilities, characteristics, and behaviors than
those of others. Egocentrism is therefore a less overtly
self-serving bias. According to egocentrism, individuals
will overestimate themselves in relation to others because
they believe that they have an advantage that others do
not have, as an individual considering their own performance and anothers performance will consider their performance to be better, even when they are in fact equal.
Kruger (1999) found support for the egocentrism explanation in his research involving participant ratings of their
ability on easy and dicult tasks. It was found that individuals were consistent in their ratings of themselves as

6.6

Better-than-average heuristic

above the median in the tasks classied as easy and below the median in the tasks classied as dicult, regardless of their actual ability. In this experiment the
better-than-average eect was observed when it was suggested to participants that they would be successful, but
also a worse-than-average eect was found when it was
suggested that participants would be unsuccessful.[39]

5
volving themselves.[44] Findings of this research therefore
suggest that rather than individuals evaluating themselves
as above average in a self-serving manner, the betterthan-average eect is actually due to a general tendency
to evaluate any single person or object as better than average.

6.6 Better-than-average heuristic

6.4

Focalism

Main article: Focalism

Alicke and Govorun proposed the idea that, rather than

individuals consciously reviewing and thinking about
their own abilities, behaviors and characteristics and
comparing them to those of others, it is likely that people instead have what they describe as an automatic tendency to assimilate positively-evaluated social objects toward ideal trait conceptions.[18] For example, if an individual evaluated themselves as honest, they would be
likely to then exaggerate their characteristic towards their
perceived ideal position on a scale of honesty. Importantly, Alicke has noted that this ideal position is not always the top of the scale, for example, in the case of honesty, someone who is always brutally honest may be regarded as rude. Instead, the ideal is a balance perceived
dierently by dierent individuals.

The third explanation for the better-than-average eect

is focalism, the idea that greater signicance is placed
on the object that is the focus of attention. Most studies
of the better-than-average eect place greater focus on
the self when asking participants to make comparisons
(the question will often be phrased with the self being
presented before the comparison target e.g. compare
yourself to the average person...). According to focalism
this means that the individual will place greater signicance on their own ability or characteristic than that of
the comparison target. This also means that in theory if,
in an experiment on the better-than-average eect, the
questions were phrased so that the self and other were
switched (e.g. compare the average peer to yourself) 6.7
the better-than-average eect should be lessened.[40]

Non-social explanations

Research into focalism has focused primarily on opti- The better-than-average eect may not have wholly somistic bias rather than the better-than-average eect. cial origins: judgements about inanimate objects suer
However, two studies found a decreased eect of opti- similar distortions.[44]
mistic bias when participants were asked to compare an
average peer to themselves, rather than themselves to an
average peer.[41][42]
7 Moderating factors
Windschitl, Kruger & Simms (2003) have conducted research into focalism, focusing specically on the betterthan-average eect, and found that asking participants to
estimate their ability and likelihood of success in a task
produced results of decreased estimations when they were
asked about others chances of success rather than their
own.[43]

While illusory superiority has been found to be somewhat

self-serving, this does not mean that it will predictably
occur: it is not constant. Instead the strength of the effect is moderated by many factors, the main examples
of which have been summarized by Alicke and Govorun
(2005).[18]

6.5

7.1 Interpretability/ambiguity of trait

Self versus aggregate comparisons

This idea, put forward by Giladi and Klar, suggests that

when making comparisons any single member of a group
will tend to evaluate themselves to rank above that groups
statistical mean performance level or the median performance level of its members for example, if an individual is asked to assess his or her own skill at driving compared to the rest of the group, he or she is likely to rate
him/herself as an above-average driver. Furthermore, the
majority of the group is likely to rate themselves as aboveaverage. Research has found this eect in many dierent areas of human performance and has even generalized
it beyond individuals attempts to draw comparisons in-

This is a phenomenon that Alicke and Govorun have described as the nature of the judgement dimension and
refers to how subjective (abstract) or objective (concrete)
the ability or characteristic being evaluated is.[18] Research by Sedikides & Strube (1997) has found that people are more self-serving (the eect of illusory superiority is stronger) when the event in question is more open
to interpretation,[45] for example social constructs such
as popularity and attractiveness are more interpretable
than characteristics such as intelligence and physical
ability.[46] This has been partly attributed also to the need
for a believable self-view.[47]

The idea that ambiguity moderates illusory superiority

has empirical research support from a study involving two
conditions: in one, participants were given criteria for assessing a trait as ambiguous or unambiguous, and in the
other participants were free to assess the traits according
to their own criteria. It was found that the eect of illusory superiority was greater in the condition where participants were free to assess the traits.[48]

MODERATING FACTORS

fect of illusory superiority was still present but was significantly reduced when participants compared themselves
with real people (also participants in the experiment, who
were seated in the same room), as opposed to when participants compared themselves with an average peer. This
suggests that research into illusory superiority may itself
be biasing results and nding a greater eect than would
actually occur in real life.[49]

The eects of illusory superiority have also been found

to be strongest when people rate themselves on abilities at
which they are totally incompetent. These subjects have
the greatest disparity between their actual performance
(at the low end of the distribution) and their self-rating
(placing themselves above average). This Dunning
Kruger eect is interpreted as a lack of metacognitive
ability to recognize their own incompetence.[8]

Further research into the dierences between comparison targets involved four conditions where participants
were at varying proximity to an interview with the comparison target: watching live in the same room; watching
on tape; reading a written transcript; or making self-other
comparisons with an average peer. It was found that when
the participant was further removed from the interview
situation (in the tape observation and transcript conditions) the eect of illusory superiority was found to be
greater. Researchers asserted that these ndings suggest
that the eect of illusory superiority is reduced by two
7.2 Method of comparison
main factors, individuation of the target and live contact
The method used in research into illusory superiority has with the target.
been found to have an implication on the strength of the Second, Alicke et al.'s (1995) studies investigated
eect found. Most studies into illusory superiority in- whether the negative connotations to the word average
volve a comparison between an individual and an aver- may have an eect on the extent to which individuals
age peer, of which there are two methods: direct com- exhibit illusory superiority, namely whether the use of
parison and indirect comparison. A direct comparison the word average increases illusory superiority. Par which is more commonly used involves the partici- ticipants were asked to evaluate themselves, the average
pant rating themselves and the average peer on the same peer and a person whom they had sat next to in the prescale, from below average to above average[49] and vious experiment, on various dimensions. It was found
results in participants being far more self-serving.[50] Re- that they placed themselves highest, followed by the real
searchers have suggested that this occurs due to the closer person, followed by the average peer, however the avercomparison between the individual and the average peer, age peer was consistently placed above the mean point on
however use of this method means that it is impossible the scale, suggesting that the word average did not have
to know whether a participant has overestimated them- a negative eect on the participants view of the average
selves, underestimated the average peer, or both.
peer.[49]
The indirect method of comparison involves participants
rating themselves and the average peer on separate scales
and the illusory superiority eect is found by taking the
average peer score away from the individuals score (with
a higher score indicating a greater eect). While the indirect comparison method is used less often it is more
informative in terms of whether participants have overestimated themselves or underestimated the average peer,
and can therefore provide more information about the nature of illusory superiority.[49]

7.3

Comparison target

The nature of the comparison target is one of the most

fundamental moderating factors of the eect of illusory
superiority, and there are two main issues relating to the
comparison target that need to be considered.
First, research into illusory superiority is distinct in terms
of the comparison target because an individual compares
themselves with a hypothetical average peer rather than
a tangible person. Alicke et al. (1995) found that the ef-

7.4 Controllability
An important moderating factor of the eect of illusory superiority is the extent to which an individual believes they are able to control and change their position on
the dimension concerned. According to Alicke & Govorun positive characteristics that an individual believes
are within their control are more self-serving, and negative characteristics that are seen as uncontrollable are
less detrimental to self-enhancement.[18] This theory was
supported by Alickes (1985) research, which found that
individuals rated themselves as higher than an average
peer on positive controllable traits and lower than an average peer on negative uncontrollable traits. The idea, suggested by these ndings, that individuals believe that they
are responsible for their success and some other factor is
responsible for their failure is known as the self-serving
bias.

7.5

Individual dierences of judge

Personality characteristics vary widely between people

and have been found to moderate the eects of illusory superiority, one of the main examples of this is
self-esteem. Brown (1986) found that in self-evaluations
of positive characteristics participants with higher selfesteem showed greater illusory superiority bias than
participants with lower self-esteem.[51] Similar ndings
come from a study by Suls, Lemos & Stewart (2002), but
in addition they found that participants pre-classied as
having high self-esteem interpreted ambiguous traits in
a self-serving way, whereas participants who were preclassied as having low self-esteem did not do this.[19]

[7] Schmidt, I.W.; I.J. Berg, B.G. Deelman (1999). Illusory superiority in self-reported memory of older
adults. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition (Neuropsychology, Development and Cognition) 6 (4): 288
301. doi:10.1076/1382-5585(199912)06:04;1-B;FT288.
[8] Kruger, Justin; David Dunning (1999). Unskilled and
Unaware of It: How Diculties in Recognizing Ones
Own Incompetence Lead to Inated Self-Assessments.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (6):
112134. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121. PMID
10626367.
[9] The 2000 Ig Nobel Prize Winners. Improbable Research. Retrieved 2008-05-27.

Main article: Worse-than-average eect

[10] Joyce Ehrlinger; David Dunning (January 2003). How

Chronic Self-Views Inuence (and Potentially Mislead)
Estimates of Performance. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology (American Psychological Association)
84 (1): 517. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.1.5. PMID
12518967.

In contrast to what is commonly believed, research has

found that better-than-average eects are not universal.
In fact, much recent research has found the opposite eect
in many, especially more dicult, tasks.[52]

[11] Daniel R. Ames; Lara K. Kammrath (September 2004).

Mind-Reading and Metacognition: Narcissism, not Actual Competence, Predicts Self-Estimated Ability. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Springer Netherlands) 28 (3):
187209. doi:10.1023/B:JONB.0000039649.20015.0e.

Worse-than-average eect

See also

10

Notes

[1] Hoorens, Vera (1993). Self-enhancement and Superiority Biases in Social Comparison. European Review
of Social Psychology (Psychology Press) 4 (1): 113139.
doi:10.1080/14792779343000040.
[2] Pinker, Steven (2011). The Better Angels Of Our Nature.
P.590: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-141-03464-5.
[3] Colvin, C. Randall; Jack Block; David C. Funder (1995).
Overly Positive Self-Evaluations and Personality: Negative Implications for Mental Health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association) 68 (6): 11521162. doi:10.1037/00223514.68.6.1152. PMID 7608859.
[4] Dunning, David; Judith A. Meyerowitz; Amy D. Holzberg
(1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of
idiosyncratic trait denitions in self-serving assessments
of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association) 57 (6): 1082
1090. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1082. ISSN 19391315.
[5] Davidson, J. E. & C. L. Downing: Contemporary models
of intelligence, in: Handbook of Intelligence, edited by:
Robert J. Sternberg, 2000
[6] International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol.
13, No. 1, pp. 1124, March 2005

[12] Katherine A. Burson; Richard P. Larrick; Joshua Klayman; YUTAO (2006). Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It: How Perceptions of Diculty Drive Miscalibration in Relative Comparisons. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 90 (1): 6077. doi:10.1037/00223514.90.1.60. PMID 16448310.
[13] Ehrlinger, Joyce; Johnson, Kerri; Banner, Matthew; Dunning, David; Kruger, Justin (2008). Why the unskilled are unaware: Further explorations of (absent)
self-insight among the incompetent (PDF). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 105: 98
121. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.05.002. PMC 2702783.
PMID 19568317.
[14] Cross, P. (1977). Not can but will college teachers be
improved?". New Directions for Higher Education 17: 1
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11

References

Alicke, Mark D.; David A. Dunning; Joachim I.

Kruger (2005). The Self in Social Judgment. Psychology Press. pp. 85106. ISBN 978-1-84169418-4. especially chapters 5 and 4

Myers, David G. (1980). The inated self: human

illusions and the Biblical call to hope. New York:
Seabury Press. ISBN 978-0-8164-0459-9
Sedikides, Constantine; Aiden P. Gregg. (2003).
Portraits of the Self in Sage handbook of social
psychology

12 Further reading
Dunning, David; Kerri Johnson, Joyce Ehrlinger
and Justin Kruger (2003). Why people fail to
recognize their own incompetence. Current Directions in Psychological Science 12 (3): 8387.
doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01235.
E.E. Giladi & Y. Klar (2002). When standards are
wide of the mark: Nonselective superiority and inferiority biases in comparative judgments of objects
and concepts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 131 (4): 538551. doi:10.1037/00963445.131.4.538.

10

13

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