The worse-than-average effect or below-average effect is the human tendency to underestimate one's achievements and capabilities in relation to others.
It is the opposite of the usually pervasive
better-than-average effect (in contexts where the two are compared or the
overconfidence effect
The overconfidence effect is a well-established bias in which a person's subjective ''confidence'' in his or her judgments is reliably greater than the objective ''accuracy'' of those judgments, especially when confidence is relatively high. Overco ...
in other situations). It has been proposed more recently to explain reversals of that effect, where people instead underestimate their own desirable traits.
This effect seems to occur when chances of success are perceived to be extremely rare. Traits which people tend to underestimate include
juggling
Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object o ...
ability, the ability to ride a
unicycle
A unicycle is a vehicle that touches the ground with only one wheel. The most common variation has a bicycle frame, frame with a bicycle saddle, saddle, and has a human-powered vehicle, pedal-driven direct-drive mechanism, direct-drive. A two spee ...
, the odds of living past 100 or of finding a
U.S. twenty dollar bill on the ground in the next two weeks.
Some have attempted to explain this
cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
in terms of the
regression fallacy
The regression (or regressive) fallacy is an informal fallacy. It assumes that something has returned to normal because of corrective actions taken while it was abnormal. This fails to account for natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special ki ...
or of
self-handicapping
Self-handicapping is a cognitive strategy by which people avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem. It was first theorized by Edward E. Jones and Steven Berglas, according to whom self-handicaps are obstacle ...
. In a 2012 article in
Psychological Bulletin
The ''Psychological Bulletin'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes evaluative and integrative research reviews and interpretations of issues in psychology, including both qualitative (narrative) and/or quantitative (meta-anal ...
it is suggested the worse-than-average effect (as well as other
cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, m ...
es) can be explained by a simple
information-theoretic
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. T ...
generative mechanism that assumes a noisy conversion of objective evidence (observation) into subjective estimates (judgment).
See also
*
Dunning–Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in th ...
*
List of cognitive biases
Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm and/or rationality in judgment. They are often studied in psychology, sociology and behavioral economics.
Although the reality of most of these biases is confirmed by reproducible ...
References
{{Reflist
Cognitive biases