More human than others? A critique of Cypryańska et al. (2017)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cypryańska and colleagues offer a critique of existing work on the self-humanizing effect and present some empirical findings motivated by their critique. In this commentary, I question their overly restrictive understanding of self-humanizing and argue that the phenomenon does not stand or fall on a definition based on a strict analogy to the better-than-average effect. I argue that defining self-humanizing exclusively in these terms is inappropriate: It fails to recognize the relationship between self-humanizing and self-enhancement, as well as the primary role of trait valence in comparative self-ratings. Finally, I observe that Cypryańska et al.’s empirical findings are highly consistent with past work rather than offering the deep challenge that the authors suppose.