Lake Wobegon effect

English

Etymology

From the fictional place Lake Wobegon in Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”.

Noun

Lake Wobegon effect (plural Lake Wobegon effects)

1. Illusory superiority, that is, the belief that a majority of people are or can be above average.
   • 2011 March 3, Pauline W. Chen, quoting Daniel P. Sulmasy, “When Optimism Is Unrealistic”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     “It’s the Lake Wobegon effect,” said Dr. Daniel P. Sulmasy, senior author and a professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Chicago. “If you have more than 50 percent of patients saying their chances are better than average of avoiding some harm or obtaining some benefit, they are being unrealistically optimistic because you can’t say that most people are above average.”

See also

• Dunning-Kruger effect