Illusory superiority

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein a person overestimates their own
qualities and abilities compared to other people. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions,
relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests,
and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities
compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

The term "illusory superiority" was first used by the researchers Van Yperen and Buunk, in 1991. The
phenomenon is also known as the above-average effect, the superiority bias, the leniency error, the
sense of relative superiority, the primus inter pares effect,[1] and the Lake Wobegon effect, named after
the fictional town where all the children are above average.[2] The Dunning-Kruger effect is a form of
illusory superiority shown by people on a task where their level of skill is low.

A vast majority of the literature on illusory superiority originates from studies on participants in the United
States. However, research that only investigates the effects in one specific population is severely limited as
this may not be a true representation of human psychology. More recent research investigating self-esteem
in other countries suggests that illusory superiority depends on culture.[3] Some studies indicate that East
Asians tend to underestimate their own abilities in order to improve themselves and get along with
others.[4][5]

Explanations

Better-than-average heuristic

Alicke and Govorun proposed the idea that, rather than individuals consciously reviewing and thinking
about their own abilities, behaviors and characteristics and comparing them to those of others, it is likely
that people instead have what they describe as an "automatic tendency to assimilate positively-evaluated
social objects toward ideal trait conceptions".[6] For example, if an individual evaluated themselves as
honest, they would be likely to then exaggerate their characteristic towards their perceived ideal position on
a scale of honesty. Importantly, Alicke noted that this ideal position is not always the top of the scale; for
example, with honesty, someone who is always brutally honest may be regarded as rude—the ideal is a
balance, perceived differently by different individuals.

Egocentrism

Another explanation for how the better-than-average effect works is egocentrism. This is the idea that an
individual places greater importance and significance on their own abilities, characteristics, and behaviors
than those of others. Egocentrism is therefore a less overtly self-serving bias. According to egocentrism,
individuals will overestimate themselves in relation to others because they believe that they have an
advantage that others do not have, as an individual considering their own performance and another's
performance will consider their performance to be better, even when they are in fact equal. Kruger (1999)
found support for the egocentrism explanation in his research involving participant ratings of their ability on
easy and difficult tasks. It was found that individuals were consistent in their ratings of themselves as above
the median in the tasks classified as "easy" and below the median in the tasks classified as "difficult",
regardless of their actual ability. In this experiment the better-than-average effect was observed when it was
suggested to participants that they would be successful, but also a worse-than-average effect was found
when it was suggested that participants would be unsuccessful.[7]

Focalism

Yet another explanation for the better-than-average effect is "focalism", the idea that greater significance is
placed on the object that is the focus of attention. Most studies of the better-than-average effect place greater
focus on the self when asking participants to make comparisons (the question will often be phrased with the
self being presented before the comparison target—"compare yourself to the average person"). According
to focalism this means that the individual will place greater significance on their own ability or characteristic
than that of the comparison target. This also means that in theory if, in an experiment on the better-than-
average effect, the questions were phrased so that the self and other were switched (e.g., "compare the
average peer to yourself") the better-than-average effect should be lessened.[8]

Research into focalism has focused primarily on optimistic bias rather than the better-than-average effect.
However, two studies found a decreased effect of optimistic bias when participants were asked to compare
an average peer to themselves, rather than themselves to an average peer.[9][10]

Windschitl, Kruger & Simms (2003) have conducted research into focalism, focusing specifically on the
better-than-average effect, and found that asking participants to estimate their ability and likelihood of
success in a task produced results of decreased estimations when they were asked about others' chances of
success rather than their own.[11]

Noisy mental information processing

A 2012 Psychological Bulletin suggests that illusory superiority, as well as other biases, can be explained by
an information-theoretic generative mechanism that assumes observation (a noisy conversion of objective
evidence) into subjective estimates (judgment).[12] The study suggests that the underlying cognitive
mechanism is similar to the noisy mixing of memories that cause the conservatism bias or overconfidence:
re-adjustment of estimates of our own performance after our own performance are adjusted differently than
the re-adjustments regarding estimates of others' performances. Estimates of the scores of others are even
more conservative (more influenced by the previous expectation) than our estimates of our own
performance (more influenced by the new evidence received after giving the test). The difference in the
conservative bias of both estimates (conservative estimate of our own performance, and even more
conservative estimate of the performance of others) is enough to create illusory superiority.

Since mental noise is a sufficient explanation that is much simpler and more straightforward than any other
explanation involving heuristics, behavior, or social interaction,[6] the Occam's razor principle argues in its
favor as the underlying generative mechanism (it is the hypothesis which makes the fewest assumptions).

Selective recruitment

Selective recruitment is the notion that an individual selects their own strengths and the other's weaknesses
when making peer comparisons, in order that they appear better on the whole. This theory was first tested
by Weinstein (1980); however, this was in an experiment relating to optimistic bias, rather than the better-
than-average effect. The study involved participants rating certain behaviors as likely to increase or decrease
the chance of a series of life events happening to them. It was found that individuals showed less optimistic
bias when they were allowed to see others' answers.[13]

Perloff and Fetzer (1986) suggested that when making peer comparisons on a specific characteristic, an
individual chooses a comparison target—the peer to whom he is being compared—with lower abilities. To
test this theory, Perloff and Fetzer asked participants to compare themselves to specific comparison targets
like a close friend, and found that illusory superiority decreased when they were told to envision a specific
person rather than vague constructs like "the average peer". However, these results are not completely
reliable and could be affected by the fact that individuals like their close friends more than an "average
peer" and may as a result rate their friend as being higher than average, therefore the friend would not be an
objective comparison target.[14]

"Self versus aggregate" comparisons

This idea, put forward by Giladi and Klar, suggests that when making comparisons any single member of a
group will tend to evaluate themselves to rank above that group's statistical mean performance level or the
median performance level of its members. For example, if an individual is asked to assess their own skill at
driving compared to the rest of the group, they are likely to rate themself as an above-average driver.
Furthermore, the majority of the group is likely to rate themselves as above average. Research has found
this effect in many different areas of human performance and has even generalized it beyond individuals'
attempts to draw comparisons involving themselves.[15] Findings of this research therefore suggest that
rather than individuals evaluating themselves as above average in a self-serving manner, the better-than-
average effect is actually due to a general tendency to evaluate any single person or object as better than
average.

Non-social explanations

The better-than-average effect may not have wholly social origins—judgments about inanimate objects
suffer similar distortions.[15]

Neuroimaging
The degree to which people view themselves as more desirable than the average person links to reduced
activation in their orbitofrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. This is suggested to link to the
role of these areas in processing "cognitive control".[16]

Effects in different situations

Illusory superiority has been found in individuals' comparisons of themselves with others in a variety of
aspects of life, including performance in academic circumstances (such as class performance, exams and
overall intelligence), in working environments (for example in job performance), and in social settings (for
example in estimating one's popularity, or the extent to which one possesses desirable personality traits,
such as honesty or confidence), and in everyday abilities requiring particular skill.[1]

For illusory superiority to be demonstrated by social comparison, two logical hurdles have to be overcome.
One is the ambiguity of the word "average". It is logically possible for nearly all of the set to be above the
mean if the distribution of abilities is highly skewed. For example, the mean number of legs per human
being is slightly lower than two because some people have fewer than two and almost none have more.
Hence experiments usually compare subjects to the median of the peer group, since by definition it is
impossible for a majority to exceed the median.

A further problem in inferring inconsistency is that subjects might interpret the question in different ways, so
it is logically possible that a majority of them are, for example, more generous than the rest of the group
each on "their own understanding" of generosity.[17] This interpretation is confirmed by experiments which
varied the amount of interpretive freedom. As subjects evaluated themselves on a specific, well-defined
attribute, illusory superiority remains.[18]

Academic ability, job performance, lawsuits going to trial, and stock

trading

In a survey of faculty at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, 68% rated themselves in the top 25% for
teaching ability, and 94% rated themselves as above average.[19]

In a similar survey, 87% of Master of Business Administration students at Stanford University rated their
academic performance as above the median.[20]

Illusory superiority has also explained phenomena such as the large amount of stock market trading (as each
trader thinks they are the best, and most likely to succeed),[21] and the number of lawsuits that go to trial
(because, due to illusory superiority, many lawyers have an inflated belief that they will win a case).[22]

Cognitive tasks

In Kruger and Dunning's experiments, participants were given specific tasks (such as solving logic
problems, analyzing grammar questions, and determining whether jokes were funny), and were asked to
evaluate their performance on these tasks relative to the rest of the group, enabling a direct comparison of
their actual and perceived performance.[23]

Results were divided into four groups depending on actual performance and it was found that all four
groups evaluated their performance as above average, meaning that the lowest-scoring group (the bottom
25%) showed a very large illusory superiority bias. The researchers attributed this to the fact that the
individuals who were worst at performing the tasks were also worst at recognizing skill in those tasks. This
was supported by the fact that, given training, the worst subjects improved their estimate of their rank as
well as getting better at the tasks.[23] The paper, titled "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in
Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments", won an Ig Nobel Prize in
2000.[24]

In 2003 Dunning and Joyce Ehrlinger, also of Cornell University, published a study that detailed a shift in
people's views of themselves influenced by external cues. Cornell undergraduates were given tests of their
knowledge of geography, some intended to positively affect their self-views, others intended to affect them
negatively. They were then asked to rate their performance, and those given the positive tests reported
significantly better performance than those given the negative.[25]

Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others, and the subjects' perception of
how sensitive they were.[26] Research by Burson, Larrick, and Klayman suggests that the effect is not so
obvious and may be due to noise and bias levels.[27]
Dunning, Kruger, and coauthors' latest paper on this subject comes to qualitatively similar conclusions after
making some attempt to test alternative explanations.[28]

Driving ability

Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in Sweden and the United States, asking them to compare their
driving skills and safety to other people's. For driving skills, 93% of the U.S. sample and 69% of the
Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%; for safety, 88% of the U.S. and 77% of the Swedish put
themselves in the top 50%.[29]

McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar results in their study, asking 178 participants to
evaluate their position on eight different dimensions of driving skills (examples include the "dangerous–
safe" dimension and the "considerate–inconsiderate" dimension). Only a small minority rated themselves as
below the median, and when all eight dimensions were considered together it was found that almost 80% of
participants had evaluated themselves as being an above-average driver.[30]

One commercial survey showed that 36% of drivers believed they were an above-average driver while
texting or sending emails compared to other drivers; 44% considered themselves average, and 18% below
average.[31]

Health

Illusory superiority was found in a self-report study of health behaviors (Hoorens & Harris, 1998) that
asked participants to estimate how often they and their peers carried out healthy and unhealthy behaviors.
Participants reported that they carried out healthy behaviors more often than the average peer, and unhealthy
behaviors less often. The findings held even for expected future behavior.[32]

Immunity to bias

Subjects describe themselves in positive terms compared to other people, and this includes describing
themselves as less susceptible to bias than other people. This effect is called the "bias blind spot" and has
been demonstrated independently.

IQ

One of the main effects of illusory superiority in IQ is the "Downing effect". This describes the tendency of
people with a below-average IQ to overestimate their IQ, and of people with an above-average IQ to
underestimate their IQ (similar trend to the Dunning-Kruger effect). This tendency was first observed by
C. L. Downing, who conducted the first cross-cultural studies on perceived intelligence. His studies also
showed that the ability to accurately estimate other people's IQs was proportional to one's own IQ (i.e., the
lower the IQ, the less capable of accurately appraising other people's IQs). People with high IQs are better
overall at appraising other people's IQs, but when asked about the IQs of people with similar IQs as
themselves, they are likely to rate them as having higher IQs.[source needed]
The disparity between actual IQ and perceived IQ has also been noted between genders by British
psychologist Adrian Furnham, in whose work there was a suggestion that, on average, men are more likely
to overestimate their intelligence by 5 points, while women are more likely to underestimate their IQ by a
similar margin.[33][34]

Memory

Illusory superiority has been found in studies comparing memory self-reports, such as Schmidt, Berg &
Deelman's research in older adults. This study involved participants aged between 46 and 89 years of age
comparing their own memory to that of peers of the same age group, 25-year-olds and their own memory at
age 25. This research showed that participants exhibited illusory superiority when comparing themselves to
both peers and younger adults, however the researchers asserted that these judgments were only slightly
related to age.[35]

Popularity

In Zuckerman and Jost's study, participants were given detailed questionnaires about their friendships and
asked to assess their own popularity. Using social network analysis, they were able to show that participants
generally had exaggerated perceptions of their own popularity, especially in comparison to their own
friends.[36]

Despite the fact that most people in the study believed that they had more friends than their friends, a 1991
study by sociologist Scott L. Feld on the friendship paradox shows that on average, due to sampling bias,
most people have fewer friends than their friends have.[37]

Relationship happiness

Researchers have also found illusory superiority in relationship satisfaction. For example, one study found
that participants perceived their own relationships as better than others' relationships on average, but thought
that the majority of people were happy with their relationships. It also found evidence that the higher the
participants rated their own relationship happiness, the more superior they believed their relationship was—
illusory superiority also increased their own relationship satisfaction. This effect was pronounced in men,
whose satisfaction was especially related to the perception that one's own relationship was superior as well
as to the assumption that few others were unhappy in their relationships. On the other hand, women's
satisfaction was particularly related to the assumption that most people were happy with their
relationship.[38] One study found that participants became defensive when their spouse or partner were
perceived by others to be more successful in any aspect of their life, and had the tendency to exaggerate
their success and understate their spouse or partner's success.

Self, friends, and peers

One of the first studies that found illusory superiority was carried out in the United States by the College
Board in 1976.[6] A survey was attached to the SAT exams (taken by one million students annually), asking
the students to rate themselves relative to the median of the sample (rather than the average peer) on a
number of vague positive characteristics. In ratings of leadership, 70% of the students put themselves above
the median. In ability to get on well with others, 85% put themselves above the median; 25% rated
themselves in the top 1%.
A 2002 study on illusory superiority in social settings, with participants comparing themselves to friends
and other peers on positive characteristics (such as punctuality and sensitivity) and negative characteristics
(such as naivety or inconsistency). This study found that participants rated themselves more favorably than
their friends, but rated their friends more favorably than other peers (but there were several moderating
factors).[39]

Research by Perloff and Fetzer,[14] Brown,[40] and Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner[41] also found friends
being rated higher than other peers. Tajfel and Turner attributed this to an "ingroup bias" and suggested that
this was motivated by the individual's desire for a "positive social identity".

Moderating factors
While illusory superiority has been found to be somewhat self-serving, this does not mean that it will
predictably occur—it is not constant. The strength of the effect is moderated by many factors, the main
examples of which have been summarized by Alicke and Govorun (2005).[6]

Interpretability/ambiguity of trait

This is a phenomenon that Alicke and Govorun have described as "the nature of the judgement dimension"
and refers to how subjective (abstract) or objective (concrete) the ability or characteristic being evaluated
is.[6] Research by Sedikides & Strube (1997) has found that people are more self-serving (the effect of
illusory superiority is stronger) when the event in question is more open to interpretation,[42] for example
social constructs such as popularity and attractiveness are more interpretable than characteristics such as
intelligence and physical ability.[43] This has been partly attributed also to the need for a believable self-
view.[44]

The idea that ambiguity moderates illusory superiority has empirical research support from a study
involving two conditions: in one, participants were given criteria for assessing a trait as ambiguous or
unambiguous, and in the other participants were free to assess the traits according to their own criteria. It
was found that the effect of illusory superiority was greater in the condition where participants were free to
assess the traits.[18]

The effects of illusory superiority have also been found to be strongest when people rate themselves on
abilities at which they are totally incompetent. These subjects have the greatest disparity between their
actual performance (at the low end of the distribution) and their self-rating (placing themselves above
average). This Dunning–Kruger effect is interpreted as a lack of metacognitive ability to recognize their
own incompetence.[23]

Method of comparison

The method used in research into illusory superiority has been found to have an implication on the strength
of the effect found. Most studies into illusory superiority involve a comparison between an individual and
an average peer, of which there are two methods: direct comparison and indirect comparison. A direct
comparison—which is more commonly used—involves the participant rating themselves and the average
peer on the same scale, from "below average" to "above average"[45] and results in participants being far
more self-serving.[9] Researchers have suggested that this occurs due to the closer comparison between the
individual and the average peer, however use of this method means that it is impossible to know whether a
participant has overestimated themselves, underestimated the average peer, or both.
The indirect method of comparison involves participants rating themselves and the average peer on separate
scales and the illusory superiority effect is found by taking the average peer score away from the
individual's score (with a higher score indicating a greater effect). While the indirect comparison method is
used less often it is more informative in terms of whether participants have overestimated themselves or
underestimated the average peer, and can therefore provide more information about the nature of illusory
superiority.[45]

Comparison target

The nature of the comparison target is one of the most fundamental moderating factors of the effect of
illusory superiority, and there are two main issues relating to the comparison target that need to be
considered.

First, research into illusory superiority is distinct in terms of the comparison target because an individual
compares themselves with a hypothetical average peer rather than a tangible person. Alicke et al. (1995)
found that the effect of illusory superiority was still present but was significantly reduced when participants
compared themselves with real people (also participants in the experiment, who were seated in the same
room), as opposed to when participants compared themselves with an average peer. This suggests that
research into illusory superiority may itself be biasing results and finding a greater effect than would
actually occur in real life.[45]

Further research into the differences between comparison targets involved four conditions where
participants were at varying proximity to an interview with the comparison target: watching live in the same
room; watching on tape; reading a written transcript; or making self-other comparisons with an average
peer. It was found that when the participant was further removed from the interview situation (in the tape
observation and transcript conditions) the effect of illusory superiority was found to be greater. Researchers
asserted that these findings suggest that the effect of illusory superiority is reduced by two main factors—
individuation of the target and live contact with the target.

Second, Alicke et al.'s (1995) studies investigated whether the negative connotations to the word "average"
may have an effect on the extent to which individuals exhibit illusory superiority, namely whether the use of
the word "average" increases illusory superiority. Participants were asked to evaluate themselves, the
average peer and a person whom they had sat next to in the previous experiment, on various dimensions. It
was found that they placed themselves highest, followed by the real person, followed by the average peer,
however the average peer was consistently placed above the mean point on the scale, suggesting that the
word "average" did not have a negative effect on the participant's view of the average peer.[45]

Controllability

An important moderating factor of the effect of illusory superiority is the extent to which an individual
believes they are able to control and change their position on the dimension concerned. According to Alicke
& Govorun positive characteristics that an individual believes are within their control are more self-serving,
and negative characteristics that are seen as uncontrollable are less detrimental to self-enhancement.[6] This
theory was supported by Alicke's (1985) research, which found that individuals rated themselves as higher
than an average peer on positive controllable traits and lower than an average peer on negative
uncontrollable traits. The idea, suggested by these findings, that individuals believe that they are responsible
for their success and some other factor is responsible for their failure is known as the self-serving bias.

Individual differences of judge

Personality characteristics vary widely between people and have been found to moderate the effects of
illusory superiority, one of the main examples of this is self-esteem. Brown (1986) found that in self-
evaluations of positive characteristics participants with higher self-esteem showed greater illusory
superiority bias than participants with lower self-esteem.[40] Additionally, another study found that
participants pre-classified as having high self-esteem tended to interpret ambiguous traits in a self-serving
way, whereas participants pre-classified as having low self-esteem did not do this.[39]

Relation to mental health

Psychology has traditionally assumed that generally accurate self-perceptions are essential to good mental
health. This was challenged by a 1988 paper by Taylor and Brown, who argued that mentally healthy
individuals typically manifest three cognitive illusions—illusory superiority, illusion of control, and
optimism bias.[17] This idea rapidly became very influential, with some authorities concluding that it would
be therapeutic to deliberately induce these biases.[46] Since then, further research has both undermined that
conclusion and offered new evidence associating illusory superiority with negative effects on the
individual.[17]

One line of argument was that in the Taylor and Brown paper, the classification of people as mentally
healthy or unhealthy was based on self-reports rather than objective criteria.[46] People prone to self-
enhancement would exaggerate how well-adjusted they are. One study claimed that "mentally normal"
groups were contaminated by "defensive deniers", who are the most subject to positive illusions.[46] A
longitudinal study found that self-enhancement biases were associated with poor social skills and
psychological maladjustment.[17] In a separate experiment where videotaped conversations between men
and women were rated by independent observers, self-enhancing individuals were more likely to show
socially problematic behaviors such as hostility or irritability.[17] A 2007 study found that self-enhancement
biases were associated with psychological benefits (such as subjective well-being) but also inter- and intra-
personal costs (such as anti-social behavior).[47]

Worse-than-average effect
In contrast to what is commonly believed, research has found that better-than-average effects are not
universal. In fact, much recent research has found the opposite effect in many tasks, especially if they were
more difficult.[48]

Self-esteem
Illusory superiority's relationship with self-esteem is uncertain. The theory that those with high self-esteem
maintain this high level by rating themselves highly is not without merit—studies involving non-depressed
college students found that they thought they had more control over positive outcomes compared to their
peers, even when controlling for performance.[49] Non-depressed students also actively rate peers below
themselves as opposed to rating themselves higher. Students were able to recall a great deal more negative
personality traits about others than about themselves.[50]
In these studies there was no distinction made between people with legitimate and illegitimate high self-
esteem, as other studies have found that absence of positive illusions mainly coexist with high self-
esteem[51] and that determined individuals bent on growth and learning are less prone to these illusions.[52]
Thus it may be that while illusory superiority is associated with undeserved high self-esteem, people with
legitimate high self-esteem do not necessarily exhibit it.

See also
Psychology portal

Philosophy portal

Anosognosia
Fundamental attribution error
Impostor syndrome
Introspection illusion
List of cognitive biases
Looking glass self
Narcissism
Pollyanna principle
Put on airs
Self-efficacy
Self-help
Self-monitoring
Self-serving bias
Superiority complex

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Further reading
Alicke, Mark D.; Dunning, David A.; Kruger, Joachim I. (2005). The Self in Social Judgment
(https://archive.org/details/selfsocialjudgme00alic). Psychology Press. pp. 85 (https://archive.
org/details/selfsocialjudgme00alic/page/n84)–106. ISBN 978-1-84169-418-4. especially
chapters 5 and 4
Kruger, Justin (1999). "Lake Wobegon Be Gone! The 'Below-Average Effect' and the
Egocentric Nature of Comparative Ability Judgments". Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology. 77 (2): 221–232. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.221 (https://doi.org/10.1037%2F0
022-3514.77.2.221). PMID 10474208 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10474208).
Matlin, Margaret W. (2004). "Pollyanna Principle" (https://books.google.com/books?id=MS5F
r8safgEC&q=Matlin++pollyanna+principle+Cognitive+Illusions%3A+A+Handbook+on+Falla
cies+and+Biases+in+Thinking+R%C3%BCdiger+F+Pohl&pg=PA269). In Pohl, Rüdiger F.
(ed.). Cognitive Illusions: A Handbook on Fallacies and Biases in Thinking, Judgement and
 Memory (https://archive.org/details/cognitiveillusio0000unse). East Sussex: Psychology
Press. ISBN 978-1-84169-351-4.
Myers, David G. (1980). The Inflated Self: Human Illusions and the Biblical Call to Hope (http
s://archive.org/details/inflatedselfhuma0000myer). New York, NY: Seabury Press. ISBN 978-
0816404599.
Sedikides, Constantine; Gregg, Aiden P. (2007). "Portraits of the Self" (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=Dn3x670cxjoC&q=aiden+gregg+portraits&pg=PA93). In Hogg, Michael A.;
Cooper, Joel (eds.). The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology (Concise Student ed.).
London: SAGE Publications. pp. 93–122. ISBN 978-1412945356.
Dunning, David; Johnson, Kerri; Ehrlinger, Joyce; Kruger, Justin (June 2003). "Why People
Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence". Current Directions in Psychological Science.
12 (3): 83–87. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.01235 (https://doi.org/10.1111%2F1467-8721.01235).
S2CID 2720400 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:2720400).
Phelps, Richard P. (2009). "Appendix C: The Rocky Score-line of Lake Wobegon" (http://sup
p.apa.org/books/Correcting-Fallacies/appendix-c.pdf) (PDF). In Phelps, Richard P. (ed.).
Correcting Fallacies about Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington, DC: The
American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1433803925.
Cannell, J. J. (1987). "Nationally Normed Elementary Achievement Testing in America's
Public Schools: How All Fifty States are Above the National Average" (https://nonpartisaned
ucation.org/Review/Books/CannellBook1.htm). Nonpartisan Education Review. 13 (1): 1–17.

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