June 29th, 2005

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The Lake Wobegon Effect

While reading this New York Times article on the priorities of online daters, I encountered the following paragraph:

Start with the self-reported characteristics. There was a strong Lake Wobegon effect in the data, with only 1 percent of the population admitting to having “less than average” looks. Even so, only a third actually posted a photo. The reported weights of the women were substantially less than national averages and about 30 percent were blonde. The reported weights of the men were consistent with national averages and only about 12 percent were blonde.

The Lake What-be-gone? I’d never heard of this term before, so I turned to the always-informative Wikipedia:

The Lake Wobegon effect, also called the Lake Wobegon fallacy and the better-than-average effect, is a term used by psychologists to refer to the human tendency to report flattering beliefs about oneself and believe that one is above average. Many experiments have shown that most people believe that they possess more desirable attributes than other people. The term is also related to the tendency to treat all members of a group as above average (a statistical impossibility), particularly with respect to numerical values such as test scores or executive salaries.

Who knew? The term’s origin is apparently explained on this page:

This phrase (sent my way by subscriber James Callan) was inspired by Garrison Keillor’s 1985 novel, Lake Wobegon Days, which described life in fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where “all the children are above average.”

Truly, you learn something new every day. Someone once told me to try to use a new words three times soon after you learn it, and it will stick in your brain. This usage is a little obscure, but I’ll do my best.

Comments: 9 Responses so far

Olaf Gradin
June 30th, 2005
5:05 am

Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon has been a favorite in my family for generations (well, two anyway). He’s a great comedian, if you can hang with mid-western (US) ideas. As a warning for you, he does make fun of Canadians - though not seriously. The entire quote from his opening and closing statements about Lake Wobegon is, “…where all the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above average.”

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Rog
June 30th, 2005
5:14 am

Attractiveness, being very subjective, is something that people direct to one another. Or to put it another way, most people have a specific audience in mind when they state their attractive features. So in a sense, they are “above average” for the intended recipients when they’re looking for someone attracted to their features.

This Lake Wobegon concept seems to depend heavily on averages as if it were so scientific. Averages in a subjective subject IMHO are complete bunk.

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Matt
June 30th, 2005
6:43 am

I have to echo Olaf’s comment. Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” is a public radio staple in the US, and well worth checking out. It incorporates many elements of old time radio variety shows, and is consistently pretty good quality (just be sure to turn it off for a few minutes when he decides to sing to you).

You can sample previous shows via their official website. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/

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BB
June 30th, 2005
6:59 am

The Prairie Home Companion phrase is a familiar one to Americans — well, NYT readers, anyway — from the weekly npr show.
The annual “pretty good joke show” is the one to go for if you’re sampling the online archives.

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Richgold
June 30th, 2005
8:44 am

Garrison Keillor is the American equivalent to Stuart McLean (though he’s been around longer.)

Keillor rocks.

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Anonymous
June 30th, 2005
9:15 am

“The reported weights of the women were substantially less than national averages and about 30 percent were blonde.”

Online men always lie about their height. I keep dating men who are 5′8″ online and shrink to shorter than my 5′4″ when we meet. :)

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-j.
June 30th, 2005
1:05 pm

Given that the pool of subjects consists of online daters, is the Lake Wobegon effect really what’s in play here? It seems that one of the key elements is that the person himself/herself has exaggerated beliefs. But in cases like Anonymous’, my guess is that the men in question are just plain lying (”I’m only 5′4″, but I’m not telling HER that”). That’s not the same.

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Scott Robarts
July 1st, 2005
9:28 pm

Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor was and is great - I grew up listening to the radio shows, very witty and intelligent humor. It told the story of a fictional small town in Minnesota and the Norwegian immigrants that lived there. It is very reminscient of the movie Fargo (Lake Wobegon preceeded the movie though). It’s great stuff, you should check it out Darren.

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Gitti
February 24th, 2007
11:07 pm

If you really do a dictionary and thesaurus search on the two words “woebegone” and “effect” it really means “glum results” and/or derivatives of it. And has nothing to do with stats on the dating scene.

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