Facts and Arguments about the Introduction of Initiative and ...

Another question is: how do people interpret this phenomenon?
The danger lurking here is that one interprets the other
person’s inclination to overestimate his or her own positive
contribution as an inclination to unfairly take the credit
themselves. This interpretation is called ‘naive cynicism’.
The study of phenomena such as naive cynicism is very important
for direct democracy, because opponents of radical
democracy generally refer to the alleged self-centred behaviour
of most people as a justification for refusing the right
of self-determination. A series of new studies (discussed by
Kruger and Gilovich, 1999) identifies this phenomenon of
naive cynicism more clearly.
An initial study examined the assignment of positive and
negative activities by married couples. Both partners were
allowed to estimate their own contribution and the contribution
of their partner for ten activities – five positive and
five negative. Positive activities were, for instance, ‘energy
saving at home, e.g. by turning off unnecessary lights’ or ‘
resolving conflicts between the two of you’. On the other
hand, ‘breaking household goods’ or ‘causing an argument
between the two of you’ were typical negative activities.
Both partners were then also allowed to predict what the
other partner would state as his or her own contribution.
The result – in line with previous research – was that their
own contributions were systematically overestimated. For
the positive activities, the overestimate amounted to an average
of 5.2% and for the negative activities 3.8%.
More important, however, is how each partner predicts the
other’s estimates. The partners predict of each other that
they will exaggerate their own positive contribution and
play down their negative contribution. On average, the estimate
of the level of exaggeration for positive contributions
was 9.7% higher than the actual level, and for negative contributions
16.1% lower than the actual.
People do not themselves behave selfishly, therefore, but
they do have an ideological picture of the other as a selfish
being (see also the research on this by Miller and Ratner,
1998, which is discussed in chapter 3). Also interesting in
this context is recent research referred to by the authors,
from which it appears that in couples who are happier with
their relationship, partners tend to rate each other as less
selfish than average.
Kruger and Gilovich conducted this research not only with
couples, but also in a range of other situations. The result was
the same each time, but one important difference emerged.
In situations where people cooperate actively on the same
goal, they not only appear not to overestimate their own
merits, but also do not expect overestimates by other people.
In competitive situations, on the other hand, a strong bias
emerges: the inclination is very strong to suspect self-overestimation
by someone with whom one is in a competitive
relationship. Both situations can also occur in combination.
Kruger and Gilovich studied, for example, ‘vogelpik’ players
who played in teams of two against two (‘vogelpik’ is a form
of darts). It appeared that the players who were in the same
team not only showed no tendency to overestimate or underestimate
their own merits and shortcomings respectively;
they also accurately predicted the estimates by their co-players,
thus not suspecting them of selfish claims. The players
from the opposing team, on the other hand, were suspected
of overestimating their own merits by an average of 24.8%.
These kinds of research results are important for the issue
of direct democracy in two ways.
First, they once more illustrate that most people show an
inclination to attribute lower moral standards to other people
than to themselves. There is therefore an undeserved
mutual mistrust, which opponents of direct democracy rely
on to defend the current patronising system.
But, secondly, this research also shows that the mutual mistrust
is overcome by shared activities. On this point, then, a
logical bridge appears between the research by Kruger and
Gilovich and Frey’s research on the impact of direct democracy
on tax fraud, mentioned in inset 4-2. Active democracy
boils down to a shared activity of the citizens in shaping
society. This activity enables citizens to observe each other
more closely and better assess each other, and the mutual
mistrust ebbs away. The rather undemocratic and competitively
oriented society that we currently know, on the other
hand, is a breeding ground for mutual mistrust.