No Lake Wobegon in Beijing? The Impact of Culture on the Perception of Relative Ranking

A prominent example in the literature on relative ranking is the "better-than-average" effect: that people have a general tendency to view themselves in a positive light and think they are above average. The current paper evaluates whether such biases are specific to culture. In Experiment 1, Americans exhibited a larger better-than-average effect than Chinese. In Experiment 2, the study was designed to understand what drives this cultural difference. Estimates of relative standing for Americans relied more on perceptions of their own ability compared to those for Chinese participants. Relatively structured questions (experimental manipulation of the question frame) facilitate Americans making better judgments but not Chinese, supporting the hypothesis that relative-ranking estimates are influenced by the degree to which other (vs. self) information is used cross-culturally.