Why we are fairer than others:A cross-cultural replication and extension

Experiment 1 was a replication in the Netherlands of a study reported by D. M. Messick, S. Bloom, J. P. Boldizar, and C. D. Samuelson (1985, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 480–500). Subjects were asked to write down as many fair or unfair things as they could think of in 5 min. If the subjects thought that they did those things more often than others, they were to start the sentence with “I”, if not, then they were to start the sentence wit “They”. In both the Messick et al. study and in the present one, subjects began more fair behaviors with “I” than with “They“, and began more unfair behaviors with “They”. This basic bias is thus found in the Netherlands as well as the United States. In Experiment 2, subjects had to rate 80 randomly selected behaviors on their fairness, frequency, and salience. The differential slope pattern of results reported by Messick et al. was replicated in the Dutch study, i.e., “Fair” behaviors were rated as more frequent than “Unfair” behaviors, and the difference in frequency was greater for behaviors beginning with “I” than for behaviors beginning with “They”. Unfair behaviors beginning with “They” were also rated as particularly salient. Subjects sorted the samples of behaviors into ones that they did more than others and ones that others did more often. The frequency of self-ascription depended not only on the behaviors' fairness, frequency, and salience, but also on whether it was originally written as an “I” or a “They” behavior. Finally, some of the subjects were asked to recall as many as possible of the behaviors that they had rated. The most frequently recalled acts were “They-unfair” behavior