Overfulfilling the norm: The Better-Than-Average effect in judgments of attitudes

This research extends the better-than-average (BTA) effect commonly observed in judgments of abilities and personality traits to the domain of attitudes. Participants reported their attitudes toward 18 sociopolitical issues and estimated the attitudes of most other people toward these issues. Consistent with the research on pro-norm and anti-norm deviance, for issues high (vs. low) in the injunctive norm, participants perceived their attitudes to be more supportive (vs. deprecatory) than the attitudes of the majority. This effect was stronger for issues that participants judged to be personally important as well as when participants estimated others' attitudes before indicating their own attitudes.