Self-Positivity in Risk Judgments: the Role of Processing, Encoding, and Recall Biases

Self-positivity bias refers to the tendency of people to consider themselves as more fortunate than others. Although literature shows robust demonstrations of self-positivity, there are no empirically tested accounts of how self-positivity occurs. According to Chambers and Windschitl (2004), self-positivity might arise from biased retrieval of risk information. In the present research, we (a) present a first empirical test of biased retrieval of risk information, and (b) argue that self-positivity begins with biased encoding and biased processing of information. We report three studies examining self-positivity in encoding, processing and recall of risk information in the context of health risk judgments.

Citation:

Parthasarathy Krishnamurthy and Magdalena Cismaru (2009) ,"Self-Positivity in Risk Judgments: the Role of Processing, Encoding, and Recall Biases", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 666-666.