PSYC 333 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Risk Assessment, Egocentrism, Affective Forecasting
9 Jun 2016
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Document Summary
Most people have illusions about the self: Positively biased self evaluations (better than average) Such illusions are adaptive and associated with more positive outcomes (adjustment to college, more effective coping, symptom onset and course of aids) Feeling holier than thou (epley & dunning, 2000) Also true of specific behaviours (ie likelihood of rebelling in milgram obedience studies) When making predictions about the self in relation to others, people must: Evaluate their own traits, dispositions and likely behaviour. And evaluate others" traits, dispositions and likely behavior. An error on either side could produce overly flattering self assessments. Result: 83% of students predicted that they would buy, when in actuality less than 50% actually bought. Predicted that peers 60% of peers would buy, when actually less than 50% bought. Therefore the source of the bias does not come from having overly cynical critical views of peers, rather it was due to the fact that they had an overly optimistic view of themselves.
