Egocentrism in Social Comparisons

Social comparisons are ubiquitous.  How does my health compare with that of the average person?  How to I stack up against the competition?  How much have I contributed compared with my collaborators? Typically, such judgments are associated with self-enhancement and explained by motivated reasoning. People tend to overestimate how they compare with others, presumably because they are motivated to do so.  The research presented here suggests a different explanation for these biases.  When people compare themselves with others they egocentrically focus on their own ability/contribution and underweight the ability/contribution of the comparison group.  This produces overestimation when absolute abilities/contributions are high and underestimation when absolute abilities/contributions are low.  These data suggest that positive illusions such as the above-average effect, unrealistic optimism, inflated judgments of responsibility, and overconfidence are not as ubiquitous as once thought. They also present a paradox: Some social comparisons, it turns out, are neither social nor comparative.