Who you pick

If you've been keeping the list from chapter 1, have a look at the names on it. If you haven't, make one from memory. Write down the person who comes to mind for money, then for career, home, fitness, marriage, children and friends.

I'd guess you've written a different name on nearly every line. The friend with the house isn't the one with the enviable marriage. The colleague whose career you watch isn't the cousin who runs. You haven't been measuring yourself against a person. You've been measuring yourself against a committee, and each member was picked because they're the best you know at one thing.

Put like that, the result isn't surprising. You've entered a decathlon in which every event is run against a different specialist. You lose the sprint to the sprinter and the javelin to the javelin thrower, and you go home believing you're a poor athlete. None of those specialists has ever had to face the other nine.

There's good evidence that people pick their comparisons this way. In 2019 Shai Davidai and Sebastian Deri reported twelve studies with about 2,500 participants. People did rate themselves as above average in many areas, which is a well-known finding. But the standards they measured themselves against sat well above average too. When asked who they compared themselves with, they brought to mind high performers. They did this even when they'd just been told they'd performed badly, and even in areas where they knew they were weak. The authors traced it to mental availability. Impressive people are simply the ones who come to mind.

Two years earlier the same researchers and Thomas Gilovich had found the same thing with social lives. Across eleven studies with more than 3,000 people, including students, shoppers at a mall and a large online panel, most people believed that others led richer and more active social lives than they did. The belief was strongest for things like how many parties people go to and how close they are to the centre of their social circle. The reason offered was the same. When you ask yourself how sociable other people are, the ones who spring to mind are the most sociable people you know. When the researchers made those extreme examples less available, the bias disappeared.

It's easy to see why impressive people come to mind. They generate news. A promotion gets announced, and so does a house, a marathon or an engagement. Your friend who's still renting and is reasonably content hasn't produced a single piece of news in four years, so she never appears on your list. Nor does the cousin who doesn't run. They're most of the people you know, and they've dropped out of your sums.

You may feel your comparisons are fairer than this, because you only measure yourself against people like you, such as those from your year at school, your first job or your street. But look at how you choose among them. There were perhaps thirty people in your year. The one with the director's job comes to mind, and the other twenty-nine don't. You've picked a fair group and then you've compared yourself only with its best performer in each event.

Two corrections follow, and both are quick.

The first is to count the quiet ones. When the dip tells you that everyone has a house like that, run through the people you know, including the ones who never generate news. "Everyone" usually turns out to be three people.

The second is to fill in the rest of the row. You've scored your friend on her home and her job. Try scoring her on the other lines of your list, and you'll find you can't, because you don't know. Your verdict on her whole life rests on the two lines you happened to see.