ABSTRACT
In this chapter we report a number of studies of what we call the uniqueness bias, the tendency for people to underestimate the proportion of people who can or will perform socially desirable actions. Past research has found that people underestimate the proportion of people who will play a prisoner’s dilemma game cooperatively, and this underestimation is characteristic of both cooperators and competitors (Goethals, 1986a). Both groups see cooperative behavior as socially desirable and as considerably more unusual or unique than it actually is. That is, cooperative people see their own cooperative behavior as special or unique at the same time that competitors see cooperation in others as rare and their own competitive behavior as the norm. As a consequence of the uniqueness bias people see their own behaviors as either uniquely or unusually good, or in the worst case, as no worse than the behaviors of others. The uniqueness bias reflects our tendency to see ourselves as somewhat better than average (Myers & Ridl, 1979), a tendency that has been observed in a wide variety of domains including vulnerability to major life events (Weinstein, 1980), driving ability (Svenson, 1981), responses to victimization (Taylor, Wood, & Lichtman, 1983), perceptions of fairness (Messick, Bloom, Boldizar, & Samuelson, 1985) and goodness (Allison, Messick, & Goethals, 1989). The studies just cited, and those reported in the present chapter, indicate that the uniqueness bias is robust and pervasive. At the same time, we will show that it is constrained for particular kinds of behavior, specifically where the motivation to see oneself as better than others is low or where one’s standing on the behaviors at issue are easily reality-tested.
