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Why You Think You Are a Better Driver
How the self-serving attributional bias makes us unrealistically think we are better than most.
However potent the influence of reference groups is, we are stubborn creatures as well. Most of us feel pretty good about ourselves and often not entirely based on reality.
Many studies throughout the years have shown that people tend to think of themselves as better than average. For instance, and you might recognize this, most people think of themselves as better car drivers than others. This unrealistic view of our own abilities permeates almost every aspect of our lives. From a psychological health point of view, this positive illusory bias is not such a bad thing — it feels good to think well of yourself.
We value different information differently. This is especially true if we value information about ourselves compared to information about others. The fundamental attribution error makes us see the actions of others as a result of their personality rather than the circumstances. We don’t do this when it comes to our own actions — when judging our own behavior we tend to attribute successes to our personality but our failures to the circumstances.
This bias is aptly named the self-serving attributional bias. You can often see this bias at work…
