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opposite; they feel at fault for failures and not responsible for
successes. Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes is the
truth--honesty is the best policy because we need to face our
shortcomings and not blame others. Think about how you tend to
respond in several situations and ask your friends what distortions
they suspect you might make.
(2) A tendency to exaggerate our own importance and our
own strengths. Almost everyone can consider him/herself superior if
he/she selects carefully the basis of comparison--just my face, my
body, my athletic ability, my musical ability, my social skills, my brain,
my social status, my car, etc. We tend to consider only our best
features (Hamachek, 1987). We exaggerate our role, our strengths
and our contributions. Examples: when group projects are done, most
persons tend to feel his/her contribution was greater than the others
would judge it to be. If you ask a married person who makes the
major contribution to the marriage, 70% say "I do" (Ross & Sicoly,
1979). About 85% of people in high school think they are above
average in intelligence. College students think they will live 10 to 20
years longer than the average person their age (Snyder, 1980). "Yep,
lots of college students are budding alcoholics but not me" or "Yeah, I
believe the reports about cancer and smoking but I don't think it will
happen to me." In general we tend to inflate our image and deflate
others--they cheat on taxes and spouses (more than I will do), they
can't be trusted (as much as I can be), they won't work as hard as I
will, they are prejudiced (more than I), etc. These "I'm OK, You're not
OK" tendencies and the exaggerated sense of self-importance cause
many problems (see chapter 9). We need to face reality. How much do
you do these things?
(3) A tendency to believe others will change and we won't
have to. Examples: when considering marriage (or divorce) we are
more likely to think of our partner as having to make certain changes
rather than us. When our partners have more or less sexual drive than
we do, we expect him/her to adjust to us. When students don't do
well, they expect the teacher to change and the teacher expects the
students to change. When poorly paid foreign workers produce a
cheaper product, we want them to stop flooding the market rather
than our changing. When the wealth of the world is very unequally
distributed, we resist the idea of changing and suggest the poor
nations raise their standards of living. Isn't there an air of superiority
implied in these situations? Surely it would be better to have an
egalitarian attitude among caring people who are unafraid of change.
(4) A tendency to create excuses for our failures. Not only do
people "explain" away their past failures, there is growing evidence
that some people even devise their own barriers to success, i.e. they
provide themselves a "handicap" which will serve as an excuse in case
they fail in the future. Examples: One motive, among many, for
students to party and use drugs is that being "out partying" or "high"
or "hung over" is an acceptable ("I'm a popular, fun-loving person")
excuse for doing poorly in school. Just like being injured or ill explains
