Shafir (1993) found that people select an alternative which is positive on some dimensions and negative on others more often than one with average dimensions. We applied his methodology to the choice of a person. It is argued that Japanese people prefer a person with an average disposition. But is it that they really prefer this or that they believe that others do? We presented a scenario where two persons wanted to join a party with your group. One was positive on some dimensions and negative on others, whereas the other had an average disposition. One hundred and seven female students were asked to choose one of the two persons, and 113 female students were asked to reject one of the two. They were also asked to infer which person the other members of their group would choose or reject. The results were that our participants chose and rejected the person with positive and negative dimensions in the self-decision condition, whereas they inferred that other members would choose the average person. These imply that self-critical bias may reflect an adaptive strategy as to the selection of persons.
