title: Self-enhancement diminished.
abstract: Self-enhancement is a positive bias in self-perception, which may imply error. However, conventional measures of self-enhancement are difference scores that do not distinguish a positive bias from a self-enhancement error, that is, they fail to identify those individuals who hold an irrationally or inaccurately positive view of themselves. We propose 2 new measures to separate error from bias. In the domain of personality judgment, we estimate a defensible bias and an enhancement error from individuals' actual and perceived similarity with others. In the domain of performance, we adapt a decision-theoretic framework to distinguish those who falsely believe to be better than average from those who actually are better. We illustrate the properties of these measures in 3 empirical studies and computer simulations. Implausibly high majorities of people consider themselves to be above average on various dimensions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences, Brown University.
authors.forename: Patrick R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Heck
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences, Brown University.
authors.forename: Joachim I
authors.initials: JI
authors.lastname: Krueger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult