False Uniqueness Bias

False uniqueness bias, also called the false-uniqueness effect, is the tendency for people to see their own qualities, traits and personal attributes as more distinctive than they really are, particularly with regard to desirable characteristics. Research has documented the pattern across many domains, including people rating themselves as better and safer drivers than others, believing they hold less prejudice than their peers, and believing they contribute more to a group project than the evidence actually supports; when presented with the classic bystander-intervention finding that most people fail to help a stranger in distress, respondents typically insist they personally would have acted differently, despite the statistical evidence surrounding them. The psychologists David Snyder and Susan Shneckel began formal study of the effect in 1975 under the name illusion of uniqueness, and researchers Jerry Suls, Choi Wan and Glenn Sanders established the effect's contemporary terminology and framework in the late 1980s, showing that people with low fears or with healthy habits tended to underestimate how many of their peers shared the same trait. The effect is considered the inverse of the false consensus effect, in which people overestimate how typical their own less flattering behaviors are among others, and both are understood as connected to the broader motive of maintaining self-esteem.