The current study examines self-enhancing beliefs among students regarding their own driving behavior as a function of desirability of behavior, controllability of behavior, and verifiability of behavior. Participants were 48 Dutch university students. They completed a computer-administered questionnaire, in which desirability, controllability, and verifiability of particular actions were systematically manipulated. They also rated the likelihood that they themselves and the average Dutch car driving would engage in a particular action. The hypotheses that undesirable actions would be rated as more probable under conditions of low verifiability and lo wcontrollability, and more so for others than for self were partially supported. One unexpected finding was that undesirable actions were deemed more probable when controllability was high rather than low. (A)
Abstract