DanielLC comments on Open thread, Jan. 19 - Jan. 25, 2015 - Less Wrong
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In my small fourth grade class of 20 students, we are learning how to write essays, and get to pick our own thesis statements. One kid, who had a younger sibling, picked the thesis statement: "Being an older sibling is hard." Another kid did "Being the youngest child is hard." Yet another did "Being the middle child is hard", and someone else did "Being an only child is hard." I find this as a rather humorous example of how people often make it look like they're being oppressed.
Does anyone know why people do this?
If it's given how successful you were, it looks better if it was under worse circumstances. Thus, people benefit from overstating their challenges. Since people aren't perfect liars, they also overestimate their challenges.