Are you guilty of unconscious overclaiming?
“Uunconscious overclaiming” is the phenomenon in which we unconsciously overestimate our contributions or skills relative to other people’s. In one study, for example, when students in a work group each estimated their contribution to the team, the total was 139 percent. A recent post on The Happiness Project blog has me thinking about the things that I do that I think I spend more time doing and are more important than things other people do.
Is my contribution greater or less than those around me? Do I really spend more time on household chores than others do because my house is 100 years old? If someone earns twice the money than their spouse/partner, does that release a person from responsibility for domestic chores, when both people work outside the home?
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4 Answers
I probably am, though I generally try to use standards that have evidence to back them up. That way if I say, “Oh, I’ve done 75% of the work on this paper”, I can point to where I found 75% of the references, wrote 75% of the words, something. I don’t like to just randomly estimate because of things like overclaiming. I try to be as accurate as possible.
When we had to do these estimates for class, I would start everyone at equal then subtract from people who’d slacked off and added that to people who’d gone above and beyond, but generally kept myself at the starting point.
what an interesting project… personally i’m always in danger of underclaiming..
Hmm. Inside, maybe I overclaim, but I rarely say that, except to my wife. In public, I believe that people don’t really see me, and so I tend to underclaim as a result of that. The exception is if I’m in a job interview. Then, I don’t so much overclaim, as I market.
I think most of us are guilty (at least internally) of this in some area of our lives. It’s the same type of thing that makes most drivers think they are above average drivers. We can’t all be above average, can we? As to the last two questions…in my experience 100 year old houses do require more housework, but probably not twice the amount. And NO, money does NOT absolve someone’s lack of contribution if both work outside the home!
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