When standards are wide of the mark: Nonselective superiority and inferiority biases in comparative judgments of objects and concepts

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Volumn 131, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 538-551

  Giladi, Eilath E ^a   Klar, Yechiel ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ARTICLE; CLASSIFICATION; CLINICAL TRIAL; CONCEPT FORMATION; CONTROLLED CLINICAL TRIAL; CONTROLLED STUDY; DECISION MAKING; DISCRIMINATION LEARNING; FEMALE; FOOD PREFERENCE; HUMAN; INDIVIDUALITY; MALE; MUSIC; OCCUPATION; ODOR; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; CHOICE BEHAVIOR; CONCEPT FORMATION; DISCRIMINATION LEARNING; FEMALE; FOOD PREFERENCES; HUMANS; INDIVIDUALITY; JUDGMENT; MALE; MUSIC; OCCUPATIONS; SMELL;

EID: 85047671815     PISSN: 00963445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.131.4.538     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Barker, L. M., & Weaver, C. A., III. (1983). Rapid, permanent, loss of memory for absolute intensity of taste and smell. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 21, 281-284.
2. Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
3. Becker, G. S. (1971). Economic theory. New York: Knopf.
4. Blanton, H., Axsom, D., McClive, K. P., & Price, S. (2001). Pessimistic bias in comparative evaluations: A case of perceived vulnerability to the effects of negative life events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 627-636.
5. Clark, H. H. (1985). Language use and language users. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 179-232). New York: Random House.
6. Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1997). Social comparisons and subjective well-being. In B. P. Buunk & F. X. Gibbons (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from social comparison theory (pp. 329-357). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
7. Dunning, D., Meyerowitz, J. A., & Holzberg, A. D. (1989). Ambiguity and self-evaluation: The role of idiosyncratic trait definitions in self-serving assessments of ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1082-1090.
8. Ehrlichman, H., & Halpern, J. N. (1988). Affect and memory: Effect of pleasant and unpleasant odors on retrieval of happy and unhappy memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 769-779.
9. Eiser, J. R. (1990). Social judgment. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
10. Eiser, R. E., Pahl, S., & Prins, Y. R. A. (2001). Optimism, pessimism, and the direction of the self-other comparisons. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37, 77-84.
11. Engen, T. (1982). The perception of odors. New York: Academic Press.
12. Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
13. Forgas, J. P. (1995). Mood and judgment: The affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological Bulletin, 117, 39-66.
14. Gigerenzer, G. (1991). How to make cognitive illusions disappear: Beyond "heuristics and biases." European Review of Social Psychology, 2, 83-115.
15. Giladi, E. E., & Klar, Y. (2002). Direct and indirect member-to-group comparisons: A test of the LOGE model in comparative judgments of liked and disliked politicians. Manuscript in preparation.
16. Guilford, J. P., & Fruchter, B. (1985). Fundamental statistics in psychology and education (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
17. Hadassah Institute. (1986). List of occupations by fields and levels. Jerusalem: Author.
18. Helson, H. (1964). Adaptation-level theory. New York: Harper & Row.
19. Higgins, E. T., & Lurie, L. (1983). Context, categorization, and recall: The "change-of-standard" effect. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 525-547.
20. Hoorens, V. (1993). Self-enhancement and superiority biases in social comparison. European Review of Social Psychology, 4, 113-139.
21. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430-454.
22. Klar, Y. (2002). Way beyond compare: The nonselective superiority and inferiority biases in judging randomly assigned group members relative to their peers. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 331-351.
23. Klar, Y., & Giladi, E. E., (1997). No one in my group can be below the group's average: A robust positivity bias in favor of anonymous peers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 885-901.
24. Klar, Y., & Giladi, E. E., (1999). Are most people happier than their peers or are they just happy? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 585-594.
25. Klar, Y., Medding A., & Sarel, D. (1996). Nonunique invulnerability: Singular versus distributional probabilities and unrealistic optimism in comparative risk judgments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67, 229-245.
26. Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Wobegon be gone! The "below-average-effect" and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 221-232.
27. Larson, R. (1995). Secrets in the bedroom: Adolescents' private use of media. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 24, 535-550.
28. Manis, M., Biernat, M., & Nelson, T. F. (1991). Comparison and expectancy processes in human judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 61, 203-211.
29. McKie, L. J., Wood, R. C., & Gregory, S. (1993). Women defining health: Food, diet and body image. Health Education Research, 8, 35-41.
30. Miller, D. T., & Prentice, D. A. (1996). The construction of social norms and standards. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 799-829). New York: Guilford Press.
31. Pedhazur, E. J. (1982). Multiple regression in behavioral research: Explanation and prediction. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
32. Sears, D. O. (1983). The person-positivity bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 233-250.
33. Skvoretz, J., Windell, P., & Fararo, T. J. (1974). Luce's axiom and occupational prestige: Test of a measurement model. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 3, 147-162.
34. Steele, J. R., & Brown, J. D. (1995). Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 24, 551-576.
35. Tajfel, H. (Ed.). (1982). Social identity and intergroup relations. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
36. Tajfel, H., & Turner, C. J. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worschel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (2nd ed., pp. 7-24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
37. Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusions and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
38. Walk, H. A., & Johns, E. E. (1984). Interference and facilitation in short-term memory for odors. Perception & Psychophysics, 36, 508-514.
39. Wardle, J. (1993). Food choices and health evaluation. Psychology and Health, 8, 65-75.
40. Weinstein, N. D., & Klein, W. M. (1996). Unrealistic optimism: Present and future. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 15, 1-8.
41. Weinstein, N. D., & Lachendro, E. (1982). Egocentrism as a source of unrealistic optimism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 195-200.
42. White, T. I., & Treisman, M. (1997). A comparison of the encoding of content and order in olfactory memory and in the memory for visually presented verbal materials. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 459-472.
43. Wood, J. W. (1996). What is social comparison and how should we study it? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 520-537.