Beyond Feelings

CHAPTER 8 The Basic Problem: “Mine Is Better”
children better behaved, my accomplishments more numerous, and my
ideas, beliefs, and values more insightful and profound than other people’s.”
All of this, as we have noted, is natural, though not especially noble
or virtuous or, in many cases, even factual—simply natural. The tendency
is probably as old as humanity. History records countless examples of it.
Most wars, for example, can be traced to some form of “mine-is-better”
thinking. Satirists have pointed their pens at it. Ambrose Bierce, for
instance, in his Devil’s Dictionary, includes the word infidel. Technically,
the word means “one who is an unbeliever in some religion.” But Bierce’s
definition points up the underlying attitude in those who use the word.
He defines infidel this way: “In New York, one who does not believe in the
Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.” 2
The results of a survey of a million high school seniors illustrate the
influence of “mine-is-better” thinking. The survey addressed the question
of whether people considered themselves “above average.” Fully
70 percent of the respondents believed they were above average in leadership
ability, and only 2 percent believed they were below average.
Furthermore, 100 percent considered themselves above average in ability
to get along with others, 60 percent considered themselves in the top
10 percent, and 25 percent considered themselves in the top 1 percent. 3 (Perhaps
this inflated view is partly responsible for the conviction of many students
that if they receive a low grade, the teacher must be at fault.)
For many people, most of the time, the “mine-is-better” tendency is
balanced by the awareness that other people feel the same way about
their things, that it’s an unavoidable part of being human to do so. In
other words, many people realize that we all see ourselves in a special
way, different from everything that is not ourselves, and that whatever
we associate with ourselves becomes part of us in our minds. People who
have this understanding and are reasonably secure and self-confident can
control the tendency. The problem is, some people do not understand that
each person has a special viewpoint. For them, “mine is better” is not an
attitude that everyone has about his or her things. Rather, it is a special,
higher truth about their particular situation. Psychologists classify such
people as either egocentric or ethnocentric.
Egocentric People
Egocentric means centered or focused on oneself and interested only in
one’s own interests, needs, and views. Egocentric people tend to practice
egospeak, a term coined by Edmond Addeo and Robert Burger in their book
of the same name. Egospeak, they explain, is “the art of boosting our own
egos by speaking only about what we want to talk about, and not giving a
hoot in hell about what the other person wants to talk about.” 4 More
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