We are all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers: Successful replication and extension of Svenson (1981)‎

Abstract

The better-than-average effect refers to the tendency to rate oneself as better than the average person on desirable traits and skills. In a classic study, Svenson (1981) asked participants to rate their driving safety and skill compared to other participants in the experiment. Results showed that the majority of participants rated themselves as far above the median, despite the statistical impossibility of more than 50% of participants being above the median. We report a preregistered, well-powered (total N = 1,203), very close replication and extension of the Svenson (1981) study. Our results indicate that the majority of participants rated their driving skill and safety as above average. We added different response scales as an extension and findings were stable across all three mesaures. Thus, our findings are consistent with the original findings by Svenson (1981). Materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/fxpwb/