Illusory Superiority
We overestimate our desirable qualities and underestimate our undesirable ones.
Illusory superiority is a condition of cognitive bias whereby a person overestimates their own qualities and abilities in relation to others. This manifests in intelligence, attractiveness, job performance, and ethics. Studies consistently show that people rate themselves as more ethical, more intelligent, and better drivers than average, which is statistically impossible for the majority of people simultaneously.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Workplace Performance Reviews In self-assessments, the majority of employees rate their performance as above average, creating systematic inflation that makes calibrated feedback difficult for managers.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
Kevin thinks his parenting skills are above average, but his children often complain about his strict rules.
Carla thinks her sense of humor is more sophisticated and funnier than that of her friends, even when her jokes often fall flat.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
Get Debias on Google Play