Abstract:
People often disagree in their judgments of the traits and abilities of others. Three studies suggested that these differences arise because people activate and use their own particular behaviors as "norms" when evaluating the performances of others. In Study 1, 71% of participants reported comparing a target's behavior with their own when providing judgments of that target. Participants also provided descriptions of their own behavior more quickly after judging another person's, suggesting they had activated information about their own behavior when judging that of another (Studies 2 & 3). In all studies, judgments of another's behavior tended to be egocentrically related to the participant's own, particularly among those who displayed the strongest evidence of activation of self-information (Studies 1 &2). Discussion centers on the generality of these findings and on their implications for past and future research.