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Self-serving biases in beliefs about collective outcomes

Shimon Kogan,Florian H. Schneider,Roberto A. Weber

Published 2021 in Social Science Research Network

ABSTRACT

Beliefs about collective outcomes, such as economic growth or firm profitability, play an important role in many contexts. We study biases in the formation of such beliefs. Specifically, we explore whether over-optimism and self-serving biases in information processing—documented for beliefs about individual outcomes—affect beliefs about collective outcomes. We find that people indeed exhibit self-serving biases for collective outcomes, and that such biases are similar to biases for individual outcomes. In addition, we investigate whether collective selfdelusion is mitigated by market institutions. If anything, biases in information processing are more pronounced in the presence of a market.

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2021

  • Venue

    Social Science Research Network

  • Publication date

    2021-03-01

  • Fields of study

    Economics, Psychology

  • Identifiers
    DOI 10.5167/UZH-201445
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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