I find the results in your first paragraph surprising too. The reason i didn't fill out the poll was that I didn't think I could accurately self-report the frequency with which I remember small favours compared to everyone else, because my perception of it was bound to be skewed. I notice frustration towards others for being a bit flaky much more often than I chastise myself for being flaky. Nonetheless, I am often a bit flaky :-)

This comment may belong more on the OP, but I also wondered about the influence of the balance of favours. If part of the small errand you mention involves reciprocating or responding to a favour from the other person, then that must have an influence. For example, if I offer to lend somebody something and then space out on it, then it's somewhere between acceptable and annoying for them to send me an email reminding me to bring it next time we meet. But if I have borrowed somebody's book, and then they ask for it back, it is annoying of me to forget to do so, because I'm in their debt, however mildly. What the etiquette of them emailing me to remind me to bring it is, though, I'm not sure.

My ballot paper was almost as long as my leg, but that's what you get for being a short-legged person living in London. I had to hold it up against the wall of the polling booth to see all the options.

I didn't think I could accurately self-report the frequency with which I remember small favours compared to everyone else, because my perception of it was bound to be skewed.

Oh, I'm sure of it. I was at least partially interested in people's possibly inaccurate self-perceptions. (If I'd wanted objectively accurate data, an LJ poll is not how I'd have gone about getting it! :-)

Somewhat tangentially but still related, fanf pointed out this article (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf) (pdf) on twitter, which argues that incompetent people are less aware of their own incompetence than capable people.

That is to say, fanf used Twitter to link to it - the article itself is considerably more than 140 characters.

I was reminded of it on bofhnet and realised I had never saved the link. A classic paper.

Also a good sniff of everybody's armpits on the tube, I noticed. (My legs are not particularly short but there always seems to be an influx of massive tall people around Covent Garden.)

This is what happens to short people *all the time*. It's one of the reasons I don't like London very much. (Oddly enough my experience of other city's tubes/similar haven't been nearly so overcrowded, though Paris was definitely hotter.)