7. Self-knowledge and mirages:
self-serving biases and the dodo effect
A company with more than a thousand employees introduced a new assessment system,
requiring all employees to assess themselves in advance of an appraisal, based on a ive-point
scale: a) far below average, b) below average, c) average, d) above average, and e) far above
average. After the whole assessment cycle was inished, one of the employees in human
resources began to have misgivings. It was remarkable that there were hardly any complaints
about the appraisal. She therefore decided to analyze the assessment igures. What did she
discover? 87 percent of employees had judged themselves above or even far above average,
and only 3 percent had placed themselves below or far below average. In itself this would not
have been such a big problem, if the management had corrected the picture. But when the
employee inally looked at the management’s assessments, her surprise was even greater.
83 percent of employees had received an appraisal result of above or far above average from
their manager, and only 5 percent had a score far below or below average. This was strange,
because average must be average, and statistically shouldn’t there be as many people below
as above average? Average was clearly not average. That aroused the employee’s suspicions:
was this a matter of fraud? Extensive inquiries among employees and managers showed her
that they had acted in good faith. With a few exceptions everyone stood by their assessments.
What explained this score?
A possible explanation lies in people’s biases. People can have a distorted view of reality,
because they cannot observe reality objectively. A large body of research shows that the
majority of people see themselves as above average. The majority of people, for example,
think themselves more intelligent, better looking, funnier and better at driving than average.
The majority also consider themselves more honest, more trustworthy, more ethical, more
fair, more open and more helpful than average. When married couples are asked about their
own share of the household chores, the estimates often come out well above 100 percent.
When scientists are asked about their own contribution to a jointly written article, again the
sum often easily exceeds 100 percent. In the United States at least 90 percent of managers
consider themselves to function above average. In that respect the company mentioned
above was not so exceptional after all, but actually pretty ‘normal’.This effect of overestimation
7. Self-knowledge and mirages: self-serving biases and the dodo effect
