History and analysis
The term "egocentric bias" was first coined in 1980 byExamples
In a 1993 study conducted in Japan, subjects were asked to write down fair or unfair behaviors that they themselves or others did. When writing about fair behavior, they tended to start with the word "I" rather than "others". Likewise, they began unfair behaviors with "others" rather than "I". This demonstrates that people tend to attribute successes and positive behaviors to themselves, while placing the burden of failures and negative behaviors on others. Furthermore, in this study there were gender differences detected; Japanese women, compared to men, remembered the behaviors of others more than their own, and were also more probable to characterize fair or unfair behavior to others compared to themselves. Another study found that egocentric bias influences perceived fairness. Subjects felt that overpayment to themselves were more fair than overpayment to others; by contrast, they felt the underpayment to themselves were less fair than underpayment to others. Greenberg's studies showed that this egocentrism was eliminated when the subjects were put in a self-aware state, which was applied in his study with a mirror being placed in front of the subjects. When a person is not self-aware, they perceive that something can be fair to them but not necessarily fair to others. Therefore, fairness was something biased and subjective. When a person is self-aware, there is a uniform standard of fairness and there is no bias. When made self-aware, subjects rated overpayment and underpayment to both themselves and to others as equally unfair. It is believed that these results were obtained because self-awareness elevated subjects' concerns about perceived fairness in payment, thereby overriding egocentric tendencies. The egocentric bias can also be clearly observed in young children, especially those who have not yet developedCauses
The causes and motivations for egocentric bias were investigated in a 1983 journal entry by Brian Mullen of Murray State University. Inspired by the study by Ross et al. demonstrating the false consensus effect, Mullen's paper focused on the overestimation of consensus. Mullen analyzed the NBC television show "Play the Percentages" to determine whether egocentric bias was rooted in a perceptual and unintentional distortion of reality versus a conscious, intentional motivation to appear normalized. Subjects in this analysis were contestants from the show, 20–30 year old middle class married couple with equal gender distribution. At the start of each show, studio audiences were asked several trivia questions, and the percentage of correct answers was recorded for later use in the game. During each round of the game, opposing contestants estimated the percentage of correct answers. The contestant who had a closer estimate wins the percentage of correct answer as a score, and then if they answer said trivia question correctly, wins the remaining percentage for a maximum possible 100 points. The first couple to win 300 points received a cash prize, with the opportunity to win more prizes in bonus rounds. Thus, the show provided incentive for unbiased estimates of consensus. Statistical analysis of the collected data showed that the "egocentric bias of false consensus was observed in spite of the potent incentive for unbiased estimates of consensus." This analysis ultimately supports the hypothesis that egocentric bias is a result of unintentional perceptual distortion of reality rather than a conscious, intentional motivation to appear normalized. From a psychological standpoint, memories appear to be stored in the brain in an egocentric manner: the role of oneself is magnified in one's experiences to make them more personally relevant and thereby easier to recall. Early childhood memories, therefore, may be more difficult to recall since one's sense of self is less developed, so old memories do not connect as strongly to oneself as newer ones. Moreover, egocentric bias may have evolved fromEffects of personal characteristics
Age
A 2016 study published by Riva, Triscoli, Lamm, Carnaghi, and Silani found that egocentric bias tends to be experienced in a much greater degree by adolescents and older adults than by young and middle aged adults. They examined the emotional effect of visuo-tactile stimulation on pairs of participants from a population of 114 female of varying ages. The varying degree of egocentric bias with age was attributed to the developmental cycle of the rightBilingualism
Recent studies of egocentric bias have been done in many different subgroups of people, such asRelated phenomena
False-consensus effect
Considered to be a facet of egocentric bias, the false-consensus effect states that people believe their thoughts, actions, and opinions are much more common than they are in reality. When people are asked to make an estimate of a population's statistic, they often only have data from themselves and tend to assume that others in the population are similar to them due to egocentric bias. In turn, people tend to overestimate the extent to which their opinion is shared by the rest of the population. Moreover, people tend to believe that those who differ in opinion must be part of a minority and that the majority actually agrees with them. Therefore, the false-consensus effect, or the tendency to deduce judgements from one's own opinions, is a direct result of egocentric bias. A well known example of false-consensus effect is a study published by Ross, Greene and House in 1977. Students are asked to walk around a campus with a sandwich board that bearing the word "repent". People who agreed to do so (50%) estimated that most of their peers would also agree to do so (average estimation 63.5%). Conversely, those who refused to do the experiment reported that most of their peers would refuse as well. People who exhibit the false consensus effect take egocentric bias a step further: they not only forgo thinking of other perspectives, but they believe that their viewpoints are those accepted by the majority of people. Nevertheless, some psychologists do not distinguish between egocentric bias and the false consensus effect. For example, in the paper published by Ross, Greene, and House, the terms "false consensus" and "egocentric attribution bias" are used interchangeably. In the second part of their study, they gave out a questionnaire which asked participants which option (out of two choices) they would choose in specified situations, and what percentage of the population would choose which option. In all four scenarios that were given, subjects rated the option that they chose as the most probable. Ross, Greene, and House conclude that their results support the false consensus hypothesis, and that "intuitive estimates of deviance and normalcy, and the host of social inferences and interpersonal responses that accompany such estimates, are systematically and egocentrically biased in accord with his own behavioral choices."Self-serving bias
A related concept to egocentric bias is self-serving bias, in which one takes undue credit for achievements and blames failures on external forces. However, egocentric bias differs from self-serving bias in that egocentric bias is rooted in an erroneous assumption of other's perception of reality, while self-serving bias is an erroneous perception of one's own reality. For example, consider a student who earns a low grade in a class. Self-serving bias would result in the assumption that the student's low grade is a result of poor teaching, which would direct the fault of one's reality away from one's own actions. Egocentric bias might also result in an overestimation of the number of students that received low grades in the class for the purpose to normalize these students' performance. However, similar to the false-consensus effect, the self-serving bias and the egocentric bias have also been used as interchangeable terms. Both concepts may be the product of individualistic cultures that usually stress independence and personal achievement over group-oriented success. Cross-cultural studies have found a strong presence of the egocentric bias in the primarily individualistic American, South African, and Yugoslavian communities, but noted the opposite effect in the collectivisticBayesian inference
Real-world implications
Collaboration
Egocentric bias can lead to the devaluation of peer contributions and the amplification of one's own work when in a collaborative setting. For example, when group members have been asked to report what percentage of the output they created, the total summed to greater than 100%. Usually, individuals are more easily able to recall their personal contributions and thus believe them to greater or more important. This applies to both positive and negative inputs: in a study of married couples, each spouse rated themselves as more responsible for helpful (cleaning) and detractive activities (causing arguments). Research has shown that feelings of sibling caregivers and their siblings depend on the contact between siblings and their feelings of closeness. Each of these two groups believed that their siblings contributed less to the needs of their family than themselves, and were more resistant to increasing these types of contributions. The closer that siblings were to each other, measured through observation and self reports, the smaller the extent of egocentric bias they felt in reporting each sibling's contribution.Mental health
An overly exaggerated or extremely low demonstration of egocentric bias could be an indicator of mental illness. Those with anxiety tend to view themselves as the center of all events around them, regardless of their nature or how unrelated they are to oneself. On the other hand, people suffering from depression may have a lower tendency towards egocentricity, as evidenced by the fact that they tend to more realistically rate their contributions to group work, while non-depressed participants often overreport their additions.Voting
The egocentric bias has also been shown to contribute to a citizen's decision to vote in elections. Firstly, people tend to view their personal choice between voting and abstinence as a reflection of those who support the same candidates and issues. Secondly, although each individual vote has very little power in large-scale elections, those who vote overestimate the significance of their ballot. Moreover, citizens demonstrate egocentric bias, in conjunction with the false-consensus effect, in their predictions of election outcomes. A study examining the 2008 American presidential election found that the more strongly people favor a certain candidate, the higher they estimate that candidate's likelihood of winning the election. For instance, those who strongly preferred Barack Obama predicted that he had a 65% chance of becoming the president, while those who preferred another candidate approximated that he only had a 40% chance of victory.Notes
References
*Further reading
* * * * * {{Biases Cognitive biases