Attribution (psychology) - Bias and Errors in Attributions - Self-serving Bias

Self-serving Bias

Self serving bias is attributing dispositional and internal factors for success and external, uncontrollable factors for failure. For example, if a person gets promoted, it is because of his/her ability and competence whereas if he/she does not get promoted, it is because his/her manager does not like him/her ( external, uncontrollable factor). Originally, researchers assumed that self-serving bias is strongly related to the fact that people want to protect their self-esteem. However, alternative information processing explanation came out. That is, when the outcomes match people’s expectations, they make attributions to internal factors; when the outcome does not match their expectations, they make external attributions. People also use defensive attribution to avoid feelings of vulnerability and to differentiate himself from a victim of a tragic accident. An alternative version of the theory of the self-serving bias states that the bias does not arise because people wish to protect their private self-esteem, but to protect their self-image (a self-presentational bias). Note well that this version of the theory can predict that people attribute their successes to situational factors, for fear that others will disapprove of them looking overly vain if they should attribute successes to themselves.

For example, people believe in just-world hypothesis that “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people” to avoid feeling vulnerable. This also leads to blaming the victim even in a tragic situation. When people hear someone died from a car accident, they reassure that the accident will never happen to them by deciding that the driver was drunk at the time of the accident. People automatically decide that it was the driver’s fault drunk-driving and thus it will never happen to them. Another example of defensive attribution is optimism bias in which people believe positive events happen to them more than to the others and that negative events happen to them less than to the others. Too much optimism leads people to ignore some warnings and precautions given to them. For example, smokers believe they are less likely than other smokers to get lung cancer.