One, most people would really mean "not worse than average" when they say "better than average": we mostly don't want to be the very bad ones.
Then, like with Murphy's law, we mostly notice the bad, and compare ourselves to the worst we've seen: any every one of us is sometimes a bad driver, sometimes a bad teacher, or does stupid non-intelligent things.
Next, people usually compare themselves to the "union" of all the instances of bad events of everybody else: it's obviously more likely that there are more "bad" things thousands of people around us (eg. in traffic) do compared to our single self which we "observe" 24/7.
Finally, we are more lenient with ourselves and won't make much of a fuss when we sometimes mess up because we'll know we don't do that very often: so "average" number of bad events would seem lower than it is for ourselves. But 4 times in 100k is much lower than 12 times in 100k (eg. imagine you've been in 4 minor traffic accidents in 100k drives over your lifetime, but really, only someone else has saved your ass another 8 times or you'd be in 200% or 3x more).
Instead of just assuming I am below or above average, I assume everyone else is like me: as smart as me, as a good driver as me, as a good teacher as me...
But human behaviour is complex, and determining what "good" really is is very hard, so I think you can also look at it objectively and sometimes really claim you are better than average as long as you are aware there are things where you are worse than average (admitting those publicly is also another matter).
How about not assuming anything at all and just ask a lot of questions anyway? There's no reason to assume you're above or below average, but I think some people are attracted this attitude because it is psychologically reassuring. Instead of assuming you're below average, it's better to just drop the unhealthy attachment we have of always ranking everything and just love learning/discovering.
Out of the Dunning-Kruger frypan, into the Impostor Syndrome fire.
almosthere•8mo ago