Does this [the result that people perceive others becoming less stable, much more often than themselves becoming less stable] represent people having a more optimistic view of themselves than they do of others? Or is this people correctly doing aggregation, since 10% of people becoming less stable makes people overall less stable and larger groups have less variance?
The explanation that immediately presented itself to me: Sensationalism bias. If one person goes crazy and does something crazy, then that’s a fascinating story that gets passed around to a wide audience. If a hundred people get somewhat better at maintaining their lives, that is not a fascinating story and doesn’t get passed around (except perhaps by those who study unemployment rates or other systematically aggregated data). I don’t know how good people are at correcting for this, but I’d guess many people are not good at it—20% would be enough to explain the difference in poll results.
Yep. If the crazy people get louder or the loud people get crazier or twitter-poll-respondents start paying more attention to the loud and crazy, then that will give you the self-other difference in perception.
The explanation that immediately presented itself to me: Sensationalism bias. If one person goes crazy and does something crazy, then that’s a fascinating story that gets passed around to a wide audience. If a hundred people get somewhat better at maintaining their lives, that is not a fascinating story and doesn’t get passed around (except perhaps by those who study unemployment rates or other systematically aggregated data). I don’t know how good people are at correcting for this, but I’d guess many people are not good at it—20% would be enough to explain the difference in poll results.
Yep. If the crazy people get louder or the loud people get crazier or twitter-poll-respondents start paying more attention to the loud and crazy, then that will give you the self-other difference in perception.