Lynn D Carlisle DDS

You might not be as good of a communicator as you think you are.

One of the biggest challenges that relationship-based dentistry faces is that many dentists think they do a good job of communicating - so they don't need to mess around with that relationship stuff.

Not!

I have frequently quoted a research study that found that 60% of physicians put themselves in the top 10% in their ability to communicate with patients. I say that dentists would probably show similar results.

In the social psychology literature this is called a "self-serving bias". In the general public it is called the Lake Wobegone effect for Garrison Keillor's comment "Where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average".

In trying to find the actual research study on physicians (not found), I came across many references to self-serving biases.

Here are some other examples:

In a faculty survey conducted as part of an accreditation self-study, 100% of the faculty rated their performance as better than the average performance in the institution.

In a study reported my Myers (1990) , based on data collected by the College Entrance Examination Board, over 800,000 students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) were asked to indicate how they felt they compared to others their own age in terms of several abilities. For leadership ability, 70% rated themselves above average, and only 2% rated themselves below average. For ability to get along with others 60% rated themselves in the top 10% and 0% rated themselves as below average.

"The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background," notes Dave Barry (1998), "is that deep down inside, we all believe that we are above average drivers."

Ethics. Most businesspeople see themselves as more ethical than the average businessperson (Baumhart, 1968; Brenner & Molander, 1977).

One national survey asked, "How would you rate your own morals and values on a scale from 1 to 100 (100 being perfect)?" Fifty percent of people rated themselves 90 or above; only 11 percent said 74 or less (Lovett, 1997).

Professional competence. Ninety percent of business managers rate their performance as superior to their average peer (French, 1968).

In Australia, 86 percent of people rate their job performance as above average, 1 percent as below average (Headey & Wearing, 1987).

Most surgeons believe their patients' mortality rate to be lower than average (Gawande, 2002).

Virtues. In the Netherlands, most high school students rate themselves as more honest, persistent, original, friendly, and reliable than the average high school student (Hoorens, 1993, 1995).

Intelligence. Most people perceive themselves as more intelligent, better looking, and much less prejudiced than their average peer (Public Opinion, 1984; Wylie, 1979).

When someone outperforms them, people tend to think of the other as a genius (Lassiter & Munhall, 2001).

So if you are a faculty member, student, driver, business person, professional, (or dentist?) you might not be as good as you think you are.

Hmmmm. Food for thought. How would you rate your ability to communicate with others on a scale of 1-10?

For you trivia buffs, here are some more references:

Contrary to the presumption that most people suffer from feelings of inferiority, researchers consistently find that most people exhibit a self-serving bias. In experiments and everyday life we often blame failures on the situation while taking credit for successes. We typically rate ourselves as better than average on subjective, desirable traits and abilities.

Believing in ourselves, we exhibit unrealistic optimism about our futures. And we overestimate the commonality of our opinions and foibles (false consensus) while underestimating the commonality of our abilities and virtues (false uniqueness). We also remember ourselves in the past and project ourselves into the future in ways that portray a positive image of the current self.

Self-serving bias can be adaptive in that it allows us to savour the good things that happen in our lives. When bad things happen, however, self-serving bias can have the maladaptive effect of causing us to blame others or feel cheated out of something we "deserved".

Social Psychology, 10th Edition, David Myers, Hope College This 10th edition also features the contributions of Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic, further bolstering the direct connection to today's students. Amazon.com: Social Psychology (9780073370668): David Myers: Books

http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/f/socialpsych.htm

http://osil.psy.ua.edu/pubs/weitenguadagno&beck.pdf

http://www.princeton.edu/~adame/papers/astrology/astrology.pdf

In Praise of Self

http://psych.colorado.edu/~vanboven/teaching/p7536_heurbias/p7536_readings/proninglovichross2004.pdf

The Optimism Bias - TIME

Self-serving bias - PsychWiki - A Collaborative Psychology Wiki

What is a Self Serving Bias?

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D.: Self-Serving Bias: Why Some Leaders Don't Learn From Their Mistakes

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: SELF-SERVING BIAS

The Inflated Self

http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~dunning/publications/pdf/ambiguityandselfevaluation.pdf

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0070765170/694564/Myers_02.pdf

• Parental support. Most adults believe they support their aging parents more than do their siblings (Lerner et al., 1991).

• Health. Los Angeles residents view themselves as healthier than most of their neighbours, and most university students believe they will outlive their actuarially predicted age of death by about 10 years (Larwood, 1978; C. R. Snyder, 1978).

• Insight. Others' words and deeds reveal their natures, we presume. Our private thoughts do the same. Thus, most of us believe we know and understand others better than they know and understand us. We also believe we know ourselves better than others know themselves (Pronin et al., 2001).

• Driving. Most drivers--even most drivers who have been hospitalized for accidents--believe themselves to be safer and more skilled than the average driver (Guerin, 1994; McKenna & Myers, 1997; Svenson, 1981).

Dave Barry was right!

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