Brewer, D. D. Biases in perceiving one’s own social position and social ties as evolved  psychological mechanisms. Invited paper presented at the Cologne 2000: "Ethnography, social theory, and networks" conference in memoriam Thomas Schweizer, Koeln, Germany, July, 2000.

In this paper, I extend the evolutionary analysis of cognitive biases to the perception of social structure and one’s position in it.  Although people have relatively accurate perceptions of overall affiliation patterns and dominance orders, they display biases in perceiving their own positions and relational ties in such structures.  I review the evidence for three of these biases based on studies conducted in natural social settings.  Multiple studies indicate the existence of each bias.  I also offer an evolutionary account for the adaptive functions of these biases and propose hypotheses for further evaluation of these biases as evolved psychological mechanisms.