People are inaccurate judges of how their abilities compare to others'. Kruger and Dunning (1999; argue that most inaccuracy is attributable to unskilled performers' lack of metacognitive skill to evaluate their performance. They overestimate their standing, whereas skilled performers accurately predict theirs. Consequently, the majority of people believe they are above average. However, not all tasks show this bias. In a series of ten tasks across three studies, we show that moderately difficult tasks produce little overall bias and little difference in accuracy between best and worst performers, and that more difficult tasks produce a negative bias, making the worst performers appear more accurate in their judgments. This pattern suggests that judges at all skill levels are subject to similar degrees of inaccuracy and bias. Although differences in metacognitive ability may play a role in the accuracy of interpersonal comparisons, our results indicate that, for the most part, the skilled and the unskilled are equally unaware of how their performances compare to those of others. Skilled or Unskilled 3Skilled or Unskilled, but Still Unaware of It: How Perceptions of Difficulty Drive Miscalibration in Relative ComparisonsResearch on overconfidence has found that subjective and objective measures of performance are poorly correlated (see Alba & Hutchinson, 2000 for a comprehensive review).While most of this research compares confidence in one's estimates with one's actual performance, one particular vein focuses on people's accuracy in estimating their ability compared to their peers. Such judgments are important in many contexts. In many societies, success in school, jobs, entrepreneurship, sports, and many other activities are largely a function of how one's ability and performance compare to others'. Thus, the ability to estimate one's relative standing can have a major impact on one's life choices and one's satisfaction with those choices.The most common finding in this area is a "better-than-average" effect: On average, people think that they are above average. However, this tendency is not uniform. The overestimation comes mostly from poor performers. Figure 1 summarizes results from studies by Kruger and Dunning (1999) showing this effect. Kruger and Dunning (1999; argue that this happens because people who perform poorly at a task also lack the metacognitive skill to realize that they have performed poorly. On the other hand, people who are more skilled have both the ability to perform well and the ability to accurately assess the superiority of their performance. Borrowing from the title of Kruger and Dunning's paper, we refer to this as the "unskilled-unaware hypothesis."The unskilled-unaware hypothesis has logical and intuitive appeal. As Kruger and Dunning (1999) point out, the skills it takes to write a grammatically correct sentence are the same skills it takes to recognize a grammatically correct sentence. The most incompetent Skilled or Unskilled 4 individuals overstate their abilities in ma...

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Donations to large numbers of victims are typically muted relative to donations to a single identified victim. This article shows that people can donate more to large numbers of victims if these victims are perceived as entitative-comprising a single, coherent unit. For example, donations to help children in need are higher when the children comprise a family than when they have no explicit group membership. The same effect is observed on donations for endangered animals that are depicted as moving in unison. Perceived entitativity results in more extreme judgments of victims. Victims with positive traits are therefore viewed more favorably when entitative, triggering greater feelings of concern and higher donations. Entitativity has the opposite effect for victims sharing negative traits.