Finally, One Area Where We Don ’t Think We’re Better Than Others: Remembering Names

By Matthew Warren We tend to see ourselves as better than our peers across a whole range of traits and skills. We think we’re more environmentally friendly,  morally superior, and more observant than those around us. The bias can even spill over to our perceptions of our loved ones: we overestimate the intelligence of our romantic partners, for instance. But according to a new study in Psychology and Aging there’s one domain where we don’t see ourselves as “better than average”: remembering other people’s names. Past work has shown that the better-than-average effect is less likely to occur for tasks that are particularly challenging. Given that older adults experience more memory difficulties, perhaps they would be less likely to believe that their memory abilities are better-than-average than younger people, reasoned the researchers, led by Mary Hargis at Texas Christian University To see whether this was the case, the team asked 84 participants aged 20-25 and 69 participants aged 60-84 to rate their own abilities and traits compared to others of the same age. Participants were asked about their ability to remember names, scientific terms, historical figures, and locations, as well as their perceptions of their own honesty, leadership ability, ability to get along with others, and capacity for hard work. For each of these skills and traits, participants rated themselves on a scale from 1 (much worse than others of the same age) to 9 (much better than othe...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Language Memory Social Source Type: blogs