THE SENSE OF RELATIVE SUPERIORITY - CENTRAL TO WELL-BEING

Abstract

QOL research appears to show that in nearly all countries which have been studied almost all sections of the community rate their subjective well-being (SWB) above the mid-point of scales. This paper suggests a partial explanation of this puzzling finding. It is that almost all human beings explicitly believe that their own performance in major life roles is well above average. We label this the human sense of relative superiority (SRS).In the 1985 Australian Quality of Life survey (N = 584) respondents rated their performance in seven major roles on a 7 point scale running from “way above average” to “way below average”. The percentages rating themselves above average ranged from 85.9% for ..