From Flying Cars To Cities on the Moon

I'm almost wrapping it up with the David McRaney series of excerpts from You Are Now Less Dumb, a great read -- I can't wait to read his other stuff:

From flying cars to cities on the moon, science fiction movies rarely get the future right. There is no internet on Star Trek, no smartphones in Blade Runner. Your brain is just as bad as any science fiction movie when it comes to predicting your own future. The difference is that movies leave behind a perfect record of their failure. You don't.

When things are going your way, you have no problem calling attention to your own contributions to good fortune. If you win a game, or get promoted, or make an excellent grade, you tend to attribute that success to your skills, talent, effort, & preparation.

If you FAIL, though, or get passed over, you have a habit of looking for something outside yourself to blame -- a mean boss, a crappy team, a confusing teacher -- whatever it takes to keep yourself from blame. 

This SELF-SERVING BIAS provides you with credit for all the things in life that worked out in your favor, & it absolves you of responsibility for those times you fell short. The self-serving bias makes it difficult for you to acknowledge the help of others, or luck, or an unfair advantage. It isn't a malicious defect of your personality; it's just your brain's way of framing things so that you don't stop moving forward. If you fail the tests that would have made you a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or dog groomer, you protect your ego by noticing all the factors in between you & your goals. That way, you can try again with all the gumption & certainty required to accomplish such difficult objectives.

The positive illusions & their helpers form a supercluster of delusion that thumps in the psyche of every human. Together, ILLUSORY SUPERIORITY BIAS, THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL, OPTIMISM BIAS, CONFIRMATION BIAS, HINDSIGHT BIAS, & SELF-SERVING BIAS combine like Voltron into a mental chimera called self-enhancement bias. It works just as the name suggests--it enhances your view of your self. 

If you drive, you probably see yourself as a competent, considerate, skillful driver, especially compared with the morons & assholes you face on the road on a daily basis. If you are like the typical subject, you believe you are slightly more attractive than the average person, a bit smarter, a smidgen better at solving puzzles & figuring out riddles, a better listener, a cut above when it comes to leadership skills, in possession of paramount moral fiber, more interesting than the people passing you on the street, & on & on it goes. 

A report in 2010 published in the British Journal of Social Psychology suggests that you even see yourself as more human than other people.