Hello I'm BETTER THAN YOU (+poll!)

[therealbereth]

So I only voted for the trait, not the comparison

That's a clever way to go about it, although I don't know if it fits @DokiDokiTsuna's expectations. xD But then again, WHAT ARE THEY ANYWAY, don't leave us hanging. (I might be more impatient than other people. 8D)

[Drewbie]

The half of me that has a god-complex and is a megalomaniac says I am better at everything while the depressed and anxious half says I'm the worst at everything

[tchotchkeco]

Damn. I didn’t pick anything cause I figure I’m just so average. Lol.

[Maps]

I’m tickled how most talented is one of the last two right now. YALL ARE FRIGGIN TALENTED ON THIS SITE, OKAY?!

[Maps]

I feel like we’re the same person probably.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I don't pick any.

Who are the "Most other people"? There are too many people!
There are always someone better than you, even on the smallest scale. Being best is a myth, it's useless to deceive yourself into thinking you're better just to feel better.

If I had to check one that would be "More realistic" because some people associate negativity with being realistic. It's not true though as being deluded in negativity isn't realistic at all.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Okay, I've gone to class, had an ice cream, and come back. Let's see what we got here:

• At the time of this writing, we have 30 voters and 65 votes, which averages out to ~2 choices per person. * cough* not exactly great for data collection *cough *. It's no wonder none of them have gone past 50% yet...but I can't really complain. It is what it is.
• The standard deviation of these percentages is ~9%...which (if my logic is correct) means the average difference between each choice is about 3...choosers. Again, not great for data collection...I take this to mean that the differences between how many people picked each one are too small to be significant (the proper thing to do would be to find the p-value, but my brain hurts too much as it is).
  Basically, pretty much everyone picked their own things, and the distribution of votes (over the middling choices) is only a little better than it would be if every voter picked two at random. ^___^; Haha...good thing I'm not staking a thesis on this...
• Although the results are mostly inconclusive, the extremes of the hierarchy are about what I expected: 'more realistic' is top pick, which fits very well with my experiences on this forum. And 'more confident' is the least favorite, which is also to be expected.
• 'More intelligent' goes against my hypothesis (making the assumption that you're smarter than everyone around you is normally frowned upon), BUT, based on previous "research" in another poll, it makes a lot of sense. People here apparently revel in the idea of superior intelligence quite a bit. ^^; And so far, 40% of the forumers being smarter than average is well within the realm of possibility.

[TAMAnnoying]

Hehehe I enjoy your findings through this! <3 really cool!

[ryoko]

I'm...none of the above? ^_^;;;; I honestly don't feel any of those...um...if I had to answer something, I think I'm better than most people at taking care of my car It's 21 years old and has 637,000 on it and still runs perfectly

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I went with more intelligent and more realistic.

I can say that on the intelligence front...in my interactions with most people at work, simply because I read better than they do. I've always equated being able to read at a college level since I was in fourth grade to be a sign of high intelligence.

As for realism...it just felt right.

(I feel like an arrogant ass saying all of this XD)

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I've always equated being able to read at a college level since I was in fourth grade to be a sign of high intelligence.

As someone who's been told that since 3rd grade...it means so much less than they make you think it does...sigh...

[vfinnigan]

I only say I'm more intelligent than most people because, well... my mom had me tested. And I'd been tested multiple times over the years. So there's empirical proof that I'm smarter than average... for all the good that's done me.

People may tell me I'm more this or that, but since there's no scientific data on who's more talented or generous or whatever else than me, I take that with a grain of salt.

[rmdooley]

Can you be more mediocre than most people? That's where I excel

[Atarun]

That poll strongly reminds me of the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey results:

Check the full results of the survey here if you're interested: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019

It seems highly unlikely that two thirds of surveyed developers are actually better than average. Because that's really not how averages work...

Interestingly, so far, none of the dimensions you've picked has reached 50%. So while it's doubtful that all 44% of people who said they are more honest than others (that group includes me, lol) are actually as honest as they think they are... it is still statistically possible.

Anyway, thank you for making that experiment. I find it fascinating.

[therealbereth]

Loving the statistic you put in here; it goes to show how much we as a society still bring up our boys/men to believe they CAN DO ALL THE THINGS, while failing to do the same for our girls and non-binary kids. But it also seems like we're not doing too bad in that regard, seeing that these numbers are not too far apart. Yay? xD

[LordVincent]

Without a "none of the above" response I don't really see how you're going to see if this is actually accurate lol, 100% of the people who answered the poll believed themselves to be above average at something because there was no other option...

I wouldn't say anyone is above any other. I think we all have different skills and situations in life that cause some people to excel in some areas of life. I'm pretty darn skilled with creative things, I have to be since it's my job. Does that mean I'm talented? No, it's a practiced skill. Anyone that puts their mind to it and has limbs that can hold a pen can eventually achieve what I can. I'm not special.

I was tested many times growing up and they found I have high IQ. Does this make me smarter than most? Not really. Intelligence is about much more than logical and mathematical perception, which is really the only thing IQ measures. IQ doesn't measure your ability to draw conclusions in a real scenario outside of very strict abstract contexts.

I struggle a lot with social interaction. Does this mean I can never improve? Not really, I have improved over the years. I was just set back a bit due to aspergers.

I understand this is a psychological theory but bear in mind many psychological theories have been, and need to be, challenged... because oftentimes the tests are created in a directed manner that accidentally or intentionally forces false results.

Interesting theory regardless. I guess I'm just skeptical because I have learned and read a lot about these things growing up and have an interest in psychology myself

[Atarun]

Loving the statistic you put in here; it goes to show how much we as a society still bring up our boys/men to believe they CAN DO ALL THE THINGS, while failing to do the same for our girls and non-binary kids. But it also seems like we're not doing too bad in that regard, seeing that these numbers are not too far apart. Yay? xD

Actually, I think that having a gap of about 25% between male and female developers in self-evaluation of competence is huge... Remember the responses came from self-identified developers who answered the Stack Overflow survey, so not exactly average women. I worry that the gap in self-confidence might be even wider in the general population...

It also makes me a teeny tiny bit sad that non-binary people are almost right in the middle between self-identified men and women... As if (and I don't pretend I'm analyzing things scientifically here, just talking about my impression) identifying as a woman itself tended to make you feel less worthy and competent, whereas identifying as a man did the opposite.

In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the average female developer tends to be more competent than the average male developer. Sure, the best developers are almost all men, but the worst developers I've met were all men. Guys who thought they could code or design software and had actually not a single clue what they were doing. There are plenty of guys like that... And I suppose the gap in self-confidence is enough to explain the discrepancy: a terribly incompetent female developer is more likely to realize how awful she is and either quit the industry or strive to get better, while a terribly incompetent male developer is more likely to feel that it's just everyone else doing things wrong.

Of course, I'm speaking about people generally. Nothing I said applies to any specific individual (unless it's one the male coworkers I was thinking about... cause yeah, they really were bad at everything and did not seem to realize or mind).

[therealbereth]

Actually, I think that having a gap of about 25% between male and female developers in self-evaluation of competence is huge... Remember the responses came from self-identified developers who answered the Stack Overflow survey, so not exactly average women. I worry that the gap in self-confidence might be even wider in the general population...

Good point, I haven't thought of that; or maybe I'm still a hopeless optimist and believe in change, however long it may take us. Fingers crossed. 🏻

The idea that identifying (too much) with the female gender in general could make people default into being less confident in their skills is interesting, though. I can't back that up at all, just like you, but it sounds... logical. With all that socialization crap going on in our (western) culture? I can see it. Internalized misogyny is one hell of a thing.

[Atarun]

Why can't I send multiple likes to one post? </rethorical-question>

[Mari]

I checked some am not gonna disclose, but I did check talented than most.

It's kinda weird, like on a realistic scale I know I'm above average when it comes to art, but when it comes to me...emotionally? I think I'm utter trash and the worst.