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Self-Enhancement Error Motivates Social Projection

Social projection is the tendency to assume that others are similar to the self, whereas self-enhancement is the tendency to see them as inferior. Although these concepts appear to be in conflict, we suggest that both can stem from the same motive of self-protection. In three studies, we show that respondents overestimate the prevalence of self-enhancement bias in others and predict that most self-enhancement entails an error in judgment. Critically, we find that social projection is strongest among those who learn that they have committed a self-enhancement error. Those who receive feedback saying that their positive self-evaluations are false project this outcome onto others. We also find that self-enhancement errors degrade perceptual accuracy. We discuss how self-protection motives affect both self-evaluation and social projection, and how social judgments that appear inductively rational may stem from arational processes of need satisfaction.