PSYC 333 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Information Processing, Risk Assessment, Egocentrism
Document Summary
Most people have illusions about the self: positively biased self evaluations. Such illusions are adaptive and associated with more positive outcomes (adjustment to college, more effective coping, symptom onset and course of aids) When people have to rate themselves on various personality dimensions or features, they see themselves as better than average (e. g. , domain of intelligence, etc. ) Also true of specific behaviors (e. g. , 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 behavior, and evaluate others" traits, dispositions and likely behavior. An error on either side could produce overly flattering self-assessments. Will you buy at least one daffodil and, if so, how many? . Prediction of peers is better than average but they have overly positive views about how they will behave. Not so much underestimating what their peers will do, more overestimating what they themselves would do.
