The Motivated Self: Self-Affirmation and the Better-Than-Average Effect

Research has shown that individuals routinely espouse “better-than-average” beliefs across a host of traits, skills, and abilities. Although some theorists take this tendency as evidence of self-enhancement motives guiding the organization and understanding of self-knowledge, others argue that better-than-average perceptions can be fully explained by nonmotivational processes. The present studies inform this controversy by exploring whether self-affirmation attenuates the magnitude of this comparative bias. Consistent with a motivational account, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the better-than-average effect is reliably reduced following the affirmation of an important self-aspect. Moreover, Study 2 shows this attenuation to be primarily the product of self-ratings becoming more modest following an affirmation. Discussion focuses on potential avenues for future research as well as on the current findings’ implications for understanding the role of self-enhancement in judgment and behavior.