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Bias in the relative assessment of happiness, political stance, height and weight
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Proto, Eugenio and Sgroi, Daniel (2010) Bias in the relative assessment of happiness, political stance, height and weight. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics. Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS), Vol.2010 (No.943).
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Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear...
Abstract
Cognitive biases have been a recognised feature of research into human behaviour since at least Kahneman and Tversky’s ground-breaking work of the 1970s. We find that such biases extend into the realm of perceptions about relative happiness and we compare and contrast this phenomenon across three other characteristics: height, weight and political stance. Our findings indicate a powerful and consistent bias in the way individuals perceive their place in the population distribution. In particular, those at extremes perceive a population distribution that is incorrectly and heavily biased towards themselves, irrespective of whether the characteristic is objective and easily observed or not.
Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) | ||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Social sciences -- Research, Psychological tests, Happiness -- Testing, Body image -- Testing | ||||
Series Name: | Warwick economics research paper series (TWERPS) | ||||
Publisher: | University of Warwick. Dept. of Economics | ||||
Place of Publication: | Coventry | ||||
Official Date: | 2010 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.2010 | ||||
Number: | No.943 | ||||
Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Funder: | Leverhulme Trust (LT) |
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