These tasks involved rating how much certain traits describe you and how much those same traits describe most other people. As discussed in chapter 5, we have a tendency to rank ourselves higher than most people on positive attributes. This is known as the better than average effect (Alicke, 1985). This effect can be seen as a result of our motivation to maintain and defend our self-esteem.

Here are the results of the evaluations you just made. Do they align with what the research suggests in relation to the better than average effect?

To give you some data to compare to, here are the results of a study conducted by Jonathon Brown in 2012. In this study, 29 undergraduates rated the same traits you did on how well they described the participants, and then how well they described most other people (using a 1 to 5 rating scale instead of the 1 to 9 rating scale you used). Results showed the ratings of the self to be significantly higher than the “most other people” ratings, suggesting a better than average effect.