"It's Not Just Me. The Role of Inferred
Distributions of Others in Estimates of Relative Standing"
Why do most
people think they are better than average drivers, but worse than average
jugglers? Consumers often have to estimate how they compare to others, but they
often err in this task. Prior research suggests this occurs in part because
people fail to properly weigh information about others in their
estimates. Katherine Burson and I offer an alternative explanation; people do
properly weigh information about others, but the information about others is
systematically flawed, and subject to external influence. Four studies support
this. In study 1, we replicate prior findings of systematic over and under
estimation of relative standing, but show that consumers make these errors by
using overly disperse estimates of the distributions of others. Studies 2, 3,
and 4 show that estimates of the distribution of others are labile, subject to
influence of how the request is made and to the availability of instances of
individuals that fall at the distribution extremes. This, in turn, is shown to
directly affect estimates of relative standing.