Self-Enhancement Analysis Paper

Current Research
The purpose of the current research was to test the hypothesis that self-enhancement motivation biases judges’ use of their own (vs. advisor’s) relative competence in a self-flattering way. What pattern of advice-taking would indicate such a bias? Note that cues of one’s own relative competence offer evidence of both one’s own knowledge and self-image. If a judge feels superior to an advisor, epistemic and self-enhancement considerations will be aligned, and the judge will tend to discount the advice. Crucially, however, if a judge feels inferior to an advisor, epistemic and self-enhancement considerations will be in opposition to each other: epistemic rationality will urge judges to heed the advice more, while self-enhancement

Judges will utilize cues of expertise in an arrogant manner—that is, they will weigh own superiority in expertise more heavily than that of an advisor.
2. Cues indicating superiority in competence over an advisor in an epistemically unrelated domain will increase advice discounting, while cues indicating inferiority in competence will not decrease advice discounting.
3. A sense of superiority in competence over other people will increase advice discounting, while a sense of inferiority in competence will not decrease it.
To the best of my knowledge, none of these predictions have been tested in past research. However, interestingly, some initial support for Prediction 1 can be found in two seminal papers in the field. In particular, Harvey and Fischer (1997) found that experienced judges put 79% weight on their own estimates and 21% on the novice advisors’ estimates (Study 3). However, novice judges put only 39% weight on the experienced advisors’ estimates and 61% on their own estimates (Study 1). Similarly, Yaniv and Kleinberger (2000) found that judges assigned 72% weight to their own opinions when the advisor had a poor reputation, but only 40% to advice provided by an advisor with a good reputation (Study 3, Block