Self-Enhancement Error Motivates Social Projection

Social projection is the tendency to assume that others are similar to the self, whereas self-enhancement is the tendency to see them as inferior. Although these concepts appear to be in conflict, we suggest that both can stem from the same motive of self-protection. In three studies, we show that respondents overestimate the prevalence of self-enhancement bias in others and predict that most self-enhancement entails an error in judgment....