Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits. It is one of many positive illusions relating to the self, and is a phenomenon studied in social psychology.
Illusory superiority is often referred to as the above average effect. Other terms include superiority bias, leniency error, sense of relative superiority, the primus inter pares effect, and the Lake Wobegon effect (named after Garrison Keillor's fictional town where "all the children are above average"). The phrase "illusory superiority" was first used by Van Yperen and Buunk in 1991.
Read more about Illusory Superiority: Effects in Different Situations, Cultural Differences, Self-esteem, Relation To Mental Health, Neuroimaging, Moderating Factors, Worse-than-average Effect
Famous quotes containing the word superiority:
“... what is especially insufferable in a woman is a restless, bold, domineering manner, for this manner goes against nature.... [ellipsis in source] No matter what her worth, no matter that she never forgets that she could be a man by virtue of her superiority of mind and the force of her will, on the outside she must be a woman! She must present herself as that creature made to please, to love to seek support, that being who is inferior to man and who approaches the angels.”
—Elisabeth-Felicite Bayle-Mouillard (1796–1865)