science

Implicit egotism

Implicit egotism is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Implicit egotism rather than just read about it. In short: Implicit egotism is the hypothesis that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves. Pelham, Mirenberg and Jones In a 2002 paper, psychologists Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones argue that people have a basic desire to feel good about themselves and behave according to that desire.

Key takeaways

Implicit egotism belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Implicit egotism to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Implicit egotism from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Implicit egotism is the hypothesis that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves.

Pelham, Mirenberg and Jones In a 2002 paper, psychologists Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones argue that people have a basic desire to feel good about themselves and behave according to that desire. These automatic positive associations would influence feelings about almost anything associated with the self. Based on the mere ownership effect, which states that people like things more if they own them, and the name-letter effect, which states that people like the letters of their name more than other letters, the authors theorised that people would develop an affection for objects and concepts that are chronically associated with the self, such as their name. They called this putative form of unconscious attraction 'implicit egotism'. Implicit egotism is used by some researchers as an explanation for putative psychological effects such as nominative determinism – the hypothesis that people tend to gravitate towards areas of work that fit their names (e.g. the notion that Igor Judge became a judge because of his name).

Uri Simonsohn Uri Simonsohn subsequently suggested that implicit egotism only applies to cases where people are nearly indifferent between options, and therefore it would not apply to major decisions such as career choices. Low-stakes decisions such as choosing a charity would show an effect. Raymond Smeets theorised that if implicit egotism stems from a positive evaluation of the self, then people with low self-esteem would not gravitate towards choices associated with the self, but possibly away from them (a laboratory experiment was cited in support of this hypothesis). In a paper published in 2011, reporting a reanalysis of data from previous population studies, Simonsohn concluded that despite the existence of apparent correlations "all [the] existing evidence appears to be spurious." He criticized Pelham and his colleagues for not considering confounding factors in their data analyses, and pointed out that reverse causality could also help explain several of the correlations. However, Pelham and colleagues had already addressed these criticism in some of their previous papers, including a paper on preferences for close relationship partners led by John Jones. Pelham and Carvallo also published a new, population-level study in 2015. In this study, they controlled for gender, ethnicity, and education levels. In three studies -- looking at both 1880 and 1940 U.S. Census data as well as 1911 English Census data -- they found consistent evidence of people disproportionately working in eleven occupations whose titles matched their surnames (namely, baker, barber, butcher, butler, carpenter, farmer, foreman, mason, miner, painter, and porter). This study also showed that people may be disproportionately likely to marry others who share either their birthday numbers or their birth months. Pelham and Carvallo argued that "natural experiments" such as this may attenuate confounders that Simonsohn claimed were potentially applicable to past studies of implicit egotism. They suggest that a tendency to develop strong preferences for things that resemble the self may be explained by well-established psychological processes such as mere exposure and classical conditioning.

See also Self-evaluation maintenance theory Implicit self-esteem

Notes

References Nuttin, Jozef M. (1985). "Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness:The name-letter effect". European Journal of Social Psychology. 15 (3): 353–361. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420150309. Pelham, B; Mirenberg, Matthew C; Jones, John T (2002). "Why Susie sells seashells by the seashore:Implicit egotism and major life decisions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 82 (4): 469–487. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.469. PMID 11999918. Pelham, Brett; Carvallo, Mauricio (2015). "When Tex and Tess Carpenter Build Houses in Texas:Moderators of Implicit Egotism". Self and Identity. 4 (6): 692–723. doi:10.1080/15298868.2015.1070745. S2CID 145572523. Simonsohn, Uri (2011). "Spurious? Name similarity effects (implicit egotism) in marriage, job, and moving decisions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 101 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1037/a0021990. PMID 21299311. S2CID 207744109. Smeets, Raymond (2009). On the Preference for Self-related Entities:The Role of Positive Self-associations in Implicit Egotism Effects. Nijmegen, the Netherlands: UB Nijmegen. ISBN 978-90-90-24290-3.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Implicit egotism

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Implicit egotism claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Implicit egotism before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Implicit egotism ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Implicit egotism

In research: Implicit egotism appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Implicit egotism in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Implicit egotism is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Social psychology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Implicit egotism outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Implicit egotism in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Implicit egotism means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Implicit egotism out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Implicit egotism in simple terms?

Implicit egotism is the hypothesis that humans have an unconscious preference for things they associate with themselves. Pelham, Mirenberg and Jones In a 2002 paper, psychologists Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones argue that people have a basic desire to feel good about themselves and behave according t…

Why does Implicit egotism matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Implicit egotism?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Implicit egotism.