André Vaz

So there really seems to be something here to be told about, you know, how people look at individuals that really...

motivates them to think positively of individuals, even if you have cynical opinions about society.

Definitely, definitely.

So there's some more

I want to say, cold reasons for that.

So, of course, you know, we judge ourselves better than average in part because we know ourselves, right?

So if I make a mistake, I know that I had good intentions and I don't know that about others.

And so, of course, you know, if you have information about others, if it's a friend, you know your friend has good intentions, so you're also going to judge your friend as better than average, you know, more moral, etc.,

But even outside of that, definitely there's this better than average effect also extended to your extended self, your acquaintances, your friends, your family, your in-group, definitely.

And that would be part of the reason.

But in our research, we find that even without knowing anything at all about the individual, people already judge that individual more positively.

Yeah.

So, I mean, yeah, just to reiterate what you just said.

So, you know, in our research, we, so this was already kind of known, right?

So people rank themselves higher than others and then individual others higher than groups.

What we introduced in our research was just this concept of, you know, basically ask them, you know, if you're doing a certain behavior, how often do you have to behavior to be a good person?

Now, if you do it less than that, you're a bad person.

If you do it more, you're a good person.

And this is interesting because then when you ask people to make these judgments about themselves and others, we can really see if they place themselves not just higher than others, but in the positive or in the negative side.

And as said, of course, people judge themselves much higher than others, but they judge individuals, random individuals, higher than the group.