Universal biases in self-perception: Better and more human than average

• Main Authors: LOUGHNAN, Steve, LEIDNER, Bernhard, DORON, Guy, HASLAM, Nick, KASHIMA, Yoshihisa, Jennifer TONG, YEUNG, Victoria
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2010
• Subjects: Applied Behavior Analysis; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research_all/6; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=soss_research_all
• Institution: Singapore Management University

There is a well-established tendency for people to see themselves as better than average (self-enhancement), although the universality of this phenomenon is contested. Much less well-known is the tendency for people to see themselves as more human than average (self-humanizing). We examined these biases in six diverse nations: Australia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Singapore, and the USA. Both biases were found in all nations. The self-humanizing effect was obtained independent of self-enhancement, and was stronger than self-enhancement in two nations (Germany and Japan). Self-humanizing was not specific to Western or English-speaking cultures and its magnitude was less cross-culturally variable than self-enhancement. Implications of these findings for research on the self and its biases are discussed.