Lake Wobegon effect

English Etymology From the fictional place en 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 illusory superiority, that is, the belief that a majority of people are or can be above average. en Pauline W. Chen Daniel P. Sulmasy When Optimism Is Unrealistic w:The New York Times 2011-03-03 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/health/views/03chen.html 0362-4331 “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.” https://web.archive.org/web/20210610070712/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/health/views/03chen.html See also en Dunning-Kruger effect en terms derived from fiction terms derived from toponyms