Lake Wobegon Effect: a curious cognitive bias

Everyone claims to be honest and sincere, however, let's be truly honest: everyone lies, and this can be seen when describing ourselves.

No one likes to admit that they have certain weaknesses and there are many people who exaggerate their strengths.

This is basically how it works the Lake Wobegon effect, a curious and very common psychological phenomenon which we will see in greater depth below.

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Lake Wobegon Effect: what is it?

The Lake Wobegon effect is the tendency present in virtually all human beings to overestimate their own abilities in comparison to those of others.

It is named after a fictional city, invented by writer Garrison Keillor., called the same way. At Lake Wobegon, according to the writer, all the women are strong, all the men are handsome, and all the children are above average. But it was not Garrison who gave the name to the phenomenon, but the psychology professor at the University of Michigan David G. Myers.

This effect, which is a cognitive bias, is very common. There is no one in the world who has not done it on more than one occasion. In fact, has been approached experimentally with age groups and professions of all types, being researches on drivers, university students, CEOs and many others, in which it has been possible to see how everyone believes themselves to be better than others.

For example, in the study in which drivers were taken as a sample, it was seen that 95% of those who who were part of it believed they had better driving ability than the rest of the users of the car. vehicles. Another study, in this case with students, obtained similar percentages when the shows about how they looked in aspects such as their learning ability, memorization, popularity in the campus...

That is We tend to overestimate our powers and abilities, we attribute having failed an exam or having suffered a traffic accident to misfortune, but we take credit for having obtained a good academic grade.

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Is it always bad?

Despite how crude its definition may seem, the Lake Wobegon effect phenomenon is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, as long as it occurs within more or less healthy limits, it can be a protective factor for self-esteem and prevent psychopathologies from occurring.

It is normal that, when something bad happens to us, such as failing an exam or losing our job, many people lie to themselves saying that the fault is not theirs, but, in this case, the teacher or the teacher. boss. So, instead of making self-criticism about the fact of, for example, not having studied or not having been as responsible as one should be, the person chooses to believe that the blame for his misfortune is due to other people.

Although we are not going to discuss how convenient it is to study or be responsible in the work, we can see that lying to oneself, in this case, is a protection mechanism self-esteem. The person has an externalized locus of control, that is, he attributes his misfortunes to the action of things that he believes he cannot control.

This type of processing what happens and thinking that you are especially better at what qualities you can avoid that a situation of depression and stress arises and increases the desire to carry out solutions for the situation in question. concrete.

Causes of this cognitive bias

One of the explanations behind the manifestation of this very common phenomenon is that of How boys and girls are raised in most countries. From a very young age we are told that we are 'special', better than our schoolmates and others. children of the neighborhood, something that we end up believing and that is a very important foundation in our self-esteem. In turn, this is raw material for forming value judgments, own merits, stereotypes and other unconscious attitudes.

However, once you have grown up and have gained greater knowledge of others, you see that you are stronger and weaker in a wide repertoire of skills, this belief is reduced, although it never completely disappears from the all. In many aspects we believe that we are superior, although it is still an illusion, and personal defects and errors are ignored.

In adulthood, The abuse of this cognitive bias may be due to the personality characteristics of the person who manifests it.. If you are a person who is not sincere with others, it is quite likely that you will not be sincere with yourself either, although it must be said that practically no one is honest with others or with oneself, and self-criticism is not something easy.

Self-deception in this way can be a 'symptom' of being too vain and having a truly pathological way of seeing one's own strengths in comparison to others. These people, gone to extremes, are incapable of seeing their mistakes, which in itself can become a problem on a social and learning level.

It is interesting to see that this bias is directly related to how incompetent one is. The more incompetent you are in a given task, the less aware you are of how bad you are. This is why the people who most boast of their culture and intelligence, when it comes to demonstrating it, They can make themselves look ridiculous by showing that they know practically nothing, or that there will always be someone who knows more.

Consequences

As we were already saying in the causes section, it has been seen that people who have certain abilities that are more or less mediocre, or even below average, will be those who believed they had the most knowledge and They said they owned. In fact, this is not something new. Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, referred to them as 'bildungsphilisters', ignorant people who boast of their knowledge and experience, even though it is really very limited.

Interestingly, the same effect has been seen as reversed in people who have slightly above-average returns. These people, far from demonstrating that they know more than normal people, seem to underestimate their true nature. potential, appearing more doubtful and insecure in front of others, as if they really believed themselves to be complete ignorant This has been called self-sabotaging behavior..

In the case of the Lake Wobegon effect, we can speak of two fundamental consequences on the people who carry it out. The first is making wrong decisions, thinking that since they are experts in the matter they will not make mistakes, and the Second is the inability to be self-critical with respect to the area in which they claim to believe they have extensive control over. he.

This translates into a blockage in the ability to grow and evolve personally, as long as the effect of Lake Wobegon occurs in pathological degrees and the person is totally incapable of self-criticism of their real weaknesses and strengths.

Bibliographic references:

• Svenson, O. (1981). Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers? Acta Psychologica, 47, 143-48.
• Myers, D. g. (1980). The Inflated Self. New York: Seabury Press.
• Zuckerman, E. W., & Jost, J. T. (2001). What Makes You Think You're So Popular? Self Evaluation Maintenance and the Subjective Side of the "Friendship Paradox." Social Psychology Quarterly, 64(3), 207-223.