THE ABOVE-AVERAGE EFFECT & SOCIAL COMPARISON
 

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Recently, we had the chance to hear from Gipsie Ranney, a regular contributor to the wealth of knowledge and wisdom found in this group. Here is the description:
 
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne’s InThinking Network welcomes Gipsie Ranney, from Brentwood, Tennessee, who lead our first Ongoing Discussion of 2011 on January 27th and 28th (and our 133rd session since we began in January 2000). She selected “Lake Wobegon and Other Places” as our topic of the month, in our annual “what-better-way-to-begin-the-New-Year?” conversation. Gipsie previously joined us as a Thought Leader in January 2010, on the topic of “The Trouble With Incentives; They Work,” as well as in October 2007, on the topic of “Motivation in the Workplace.”
 
We think you will greatly enjoy Gipsie’s Thought Piece (“Lake Wobegon and Other Places.”), which is all about the “above-average effect” – “the tendency to believe that one is more “athletic, intelligent, organized, ethical, logical, interesting, fair-minded, and healthy – not to mention more attractive – than the average person…” Gipsie explores this human phenomenon with humor and insight, and a sense of genuine inquiry.
 
She writes: “To me, the striking thing about the above-average effect, as well as the below-average effect, is the object of comparison. Am I comparing myself to others or am I comparing myself to myself at an earlier time? Is my focus on improvement and learning, or is it on social comparison? Of course, questions by psychologists that ask people to compare themselves to others will automatically bring answers that involve social comparison. How much social comparison do people actually do? How much do they need to do? Is there a need for social comparison to build self-esteem? Is this need a characteristic of all humans?”
 
When you hear Garrison Keillor’s line about all the children in Lake Wobegon being above average, have you ever paused and thought about yourself? Are you above average? In intellect? In height? In driving skills? In physics skills? In ability to deliver a joke? In foul recognition on a soccer (football) field? In leading a team? How about the person in the next cubicle? Is he or she above average? Would he or she agree with your self-assessment? If both of you are above average, where are those below average folks? What questions do you have about how we measure and rank ourselves (or our children)? What’s your mental model about comparison? To what extent does one’s culture affect this mental model? How do our mental models affect our attitude toward change and improvement?
 
As for skills as a physicist, Stephen Hawking delivered a 90-minute presentation at Caltech earlier this week. His session, titled, “My Brief History,” included commentary on his neuro-muscular dystrophy, and his reflections on being diagnosed, while still in graduate school;
 
“When you are faced with the possibility of an early death,” he said, “it makes you realize life is worth living and there are lots of things you’d like to do.”
 
His lecture ended with questions from three students. The last one, from an undergraduate student, asked Hawking to comment on a story of a noted physist who once compared himself to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton on a scale of physics intellect. The student wanted to know where Hawking would place himself on this same scale. His quick reply offered insight on his mental model about comparisions; “people who rate themselves are losers.”

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