| 1. |
- Eriksson, Kimmo, et al.
(författare)
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A Below-Average Effect with Respect to American Political Stereotypes on Warmth and Competence
- 2015
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Ingår i: Political Psychology. - : Wiley. - 0162-895X .- 1467-9221. ; 36:3, s. 341-350
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The "above-average effect" is the phenomenon that people tend to judge themselves above average on desirable traits. Based on social identity theory, we propose that a "below-average effect" may arise when individuals rate themselves and the average ingroup member on traits stereotypically associated with the ingroup. In two studies, Republican and Democrat participants rated themselves and the average political ingroup member on possession of desirable traits related to warmth and competence. Current political stereotypes in America associate the former dimension with Democrats and the latter with Republicans. Consistent with our hypothesis, the above-average effect was moderated by political group and dimension in interaction. In particular, Democrats rated themselves below the average Democrat on warmth and Republicans rated themselves below the average Republican on competence.
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| 2. |
- Eriksson, Kimmo, et al.
(författare)
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Humble Self-Enhancement : Religiosity and the Better-Than-Average Effect
- 2014
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Ingår i: Social Psychology and Personality Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 1948-5506 .- 1948-5514. ; 5:1, s. 76-83
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Prior research has linked religiosity to certain forms of self-enhancement. We extend this literature by three studies linking religiosity to the well-established better-than-average effect (BAE). First, a reanalysis of self-judgments of desirable characteristics in 15 nations showed that the BAE was stronger in more religious countries, even taking into account gross domestic product, interdependence, and economic inequality. Second, in two online surveys totaling 1,000 Americans, the BAE was stronger among more religious individuals. Several observations indicated that this relation was due to individuals self-stereotyping with respect to their religious in-groups. In particular, the relation was restricted to characteristics on the warmth dimension, consistent with the religious stereotype, and the average religious in-group member tended to be judged even more favorably than self. The latter phenomenon, which we term humble self-enhancement, is consistent with other studies linking stronger religiosity to greater favoritism of the religious in-group and greater derogation of religious out-groups.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Funcke, Alexander, et al.
(författare)
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Biased perception may trump rational intention: Most people think they are less corrupt than average
- 2015
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Ingår i: SSRN Electronic Journal. - : Elsevier BV. - 1556-5068.
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From a game theoretic point of view, a social norm can sometimes be considered as a Nash equilibrium in a coordination game. Here we point out a psychological reason why such a social norm might erode, even if it is beneficial and agents have rational intentions. The reason is a well-established bias in interpersonal perception, the better-than-average effect. Psychological research on this bias has mainly focused on skills and personality attributes, rather than normative behavior. In a series of online surveys, we demonstrate that the better-than-average effect applies also to judgments of the likelihood to engage in petty corruption, a very important domain of social norms. We conclude that this psychological bias may be a factor that contributes to the difficulty of establishing noncorruption.
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| 5. |
- Funcke, Alexander, 1982-
(författare)
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Mathematical models of social norms and petty corruption
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Corruption is a problem all around the world, but the extent of the problem varies between countries and situations. In this thesis, I focus on how corruption levels can change when they are culturally determined. For this reason, I study the dynamics of the cultural underpinnings: social norms and conventions.The dissertation consists of six papers. In the first paper, I expand a common definition of social norms. The aim of the extension is to capture the fact that the scope of a social norm may be larger than just a single specific situation. I introduce a similarity measure and develop a mathematical model according to which all situations' social norms are interconnected, and affect each other, but those situations that are most similar and most recent have the greatest normative effect on a current situation. Given this model I test the effect of bringing about norm change by temporarily dismantling institutions and then reestablishing them.In the second paper, I show in a mathematical model how it is possible to design fine and reward mechanisms that make it superfluous for individuals to form beliefs about how others will act. Through this mechanism, it should be possible to circumvent the problem that norm change typically will be successful only if it is synchronized across a large part of the population.In the third paper, I and my co-authors, first conducted a survey. The results of which demonstrate that there is a general tendency among people to consider themselves to be less prone to corrupt behavior than the average person. Such an "everyone-is-better-than-average" effect is a well-established phenomenon in social psychology but not previously demonstrated in the corruption domain. We then show in a mathematical model that such systematic biases in estimation of own versus others' corruption make it more difficult to achieve norm change in the direction of less corruption.In the fourth and fifth paper we again consider the "everyone-is-better-than-average" effect and see how in certain value based groups the effect can be reversed. This changes the insight from the third paper slightly.The last paper considers a classic question of how a collective can succeed in collective action when it is risky to be among the first individuals to act. I and my co-author investigate how the collective can benefit from access to a set of signal acts that signal an individual's level of commitment to the collective cause. The problem is modeled as a threshold model where an individual's inclination to conduct a specific act depends on the previous commitment level in the population.
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