What is Lake Wobegon Effect?

Posted
23.11.2008

What is Lake Wobegon Effect?

Answer

Answered
26.11.2008
Last updated
26.11.2008

Here is a defition from Word Spy, http://www.wordspy.com/2003/08/lake-wobegon-ef.html

Lake Wobegon effect
n. The tendency to treat all members of a group as above average, particularly with respect to numerical values such as test scores or executive salaries; in a survey, the tendency for most people to describe themselves or their abilities as above average. Also: Lake Woebegon effect, Lake Woebegone effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect contains refetences to literature
Alicke, M. D., & Govorun, O. (2005). The better-than-average effect. In Alicke, M. D., D. A. Dunning & J. I. Krueger, The Self in Social Judgment New York: Psychology Press. (ISBN 978-1-84169-418-4)
Kruger, J. (1999). Lake Wobegon be gone! The "below-average effect" and the egocentric nature of comparative ability judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 221-232.
Kruger J., & Dunning D. (1999). Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 121-1134
Myers, D. G. (1980). The Inflated Self. New York: Seabury Press.

Kruger, Justin - Dunning, David Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments is available as a pdf-file,
http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf and contains more sources which deal with self-evaluation and evaluation of skills.

0 votes
Was this answer helpful?
 
Do you want to leave a new question? Post your question here.

Add new comment

Basic HTML without CKEditor

  • Allowed HTML tags: <i> <b> <s>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.