People who earn less than they think they should tend to attribute this to unfairness of the economy

An online experiment on thousands of U.S. residents shows that people who are made to realize that their earnings are lower than their self-assessed earning ability tend to attribute this to the unfairness of the economy. They tend to believe that other people also earn less than their abilities merit. The study was published in theEuropean Journal of Political Economy. People tend to be overconfident about their abilities in many situations. For example, a 1981 study in the US showed that 88% of respondents considered themselves safer than the median driver. In a similar manner, workers tend ...