On Seeing Oneself as Less Self-Serving than Others: The Ultimate Self-Serving Bias?

Abstract

A common form of self-serving bias in judgment is the tendency for people to see themselves as being better than average in terms of socially desirable qualities, particularly those that are defined subjectively and that have ethical or moral overtones. A logical implication of this tendency is that people should also see themselves as being less likely than others to exhibit such a self-serving bias (Myers, 1990). This article describes two forms of a classroom demonstration designed to illustrate this effect. In both studies, students who had been informed of the research on self-serving biases in judgment nevertheless saw themselves as engaging in such distortions less often than the average person. Several contexts in which the demonstration may be useful are discussed.