Self-serving bias
Encyclopedia
A self-serving bias occurs when people attribute their successes to internal or personal factors but attribute their failures to situational factors beyond their control. The self-serving bias can be seen in the common human tendency to take credit for success but to deny responsibility for failure. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way that is beneficial to their interests. Self-serving bias may be associated with the better-than-average effect
, in which individuals are biased to believe that they typically perform better than the average person in areas important to their self-esteem. This effect, also called "illusory superiority", has been found when people rate their own driving skill, social sensitivity, leadership ability and many other attributes.
or blame
depend on whether success or failure was achieved. For example, a student who gets a good grade on an exam might say, "I got an A because I am intelligent and I studied hard!" whereas a student who does poorly on an exam might say, "The teacher gave me an F because he does not like me!" When someone strategically strives to facilitate external causes for their poor performance (so that they will subsequently have a means to avoid blaming themselves for failure), it may be labeled self-handicapping
.
tend to attribute their accidents to external factors, whereas their coworkers
and management tend to attribute the accidents to the victims' own actions.
Several reasons have been proposed to explain the occurrence of self-serving bias. One class of explanation is motivational: people are motivated to protect their self-esteem
, and so create causal explanations that serve to make them feel better. Another class of explanation focuses on strategic impression management
: although people may not believe the content of a self-serving utterance, they may nevertheless offer it to others in order to create a favorable impression. Yet another class of explanation focuses on basic mechanisms of memory: people might make success more available in memory for internal reasons rather than for external reasons.
Self-serving bias may result in bargaining impasse
if each side interprets the facts of the dispute in their own favor. In this situation one or more of the parties may refuse to continue negotiating, believing the other side is either bluffing or refusing to accept a reasonable settlement and thus deserves to be "punished".
There is a good deal of experimental evidence to support this hypothesis. In one experiment, subjects played the role of either the plaintiff or defendant in a hypothetical automotive accident tort
case with a maximum potential damages payment of $100,000. The plaintiff's prediction of the likely judicial award was on average $14,500 higher than the defendant's. The plaintiff's average nomination of a "fair" figure was $17,700 higher than the defendant's. When parties subsequently attempted to negotiate a settlement agreement, the discrepancy between the two sides' assessment of a fair compensation figure strongly correlated with whether or not parties reached an agreement within a set period of time. This experiment was conducted with real money with one real dollar being equal to 10,000 experimental dollars and if parties did not reach a negotiated agreement the case was decided by a third party and each side had to pay costly court and legal fees.
At the same time, there is evidence to suggest that people do not necessarily exhibit self-serving bias with respect to computer technologies. When they fail to achieve a desirable outcome when using a computer they often blame themselves, not the technology. The reason is that people are so used to bad functionality, counterintuitive
features, bugs, and sudden crashes in contemporary software applications that they tend to not complain about them. Instead, they believe it is their personal responsibility to predict possible issues and to find solutions to computer problems. This unique phenomenon has been recently observed in several human-computer interaction investigations.
Group-serving bias
is a similar bias on the group level.
Illusory superiority
Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of...
, in which individuals are biased to believe that they typically perform better than the average person in areas important to their self-esteem. This effect, also called "illusory superiority", has been found when people rate their own driving skill, social sensitivity, leadership ability and many other attributes.
Use and purpose
The term "self-serving bias" is most often used to describe a pattern of biased causal inference, in which praisePraise
Praise is the act of making positive statements about a person, object or idea, either in public or privately. Praise is typically, but not exclusively, earned relative to achievement and accomplishment...
or blame
Blame
Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, making negative statements about an individual or group that their action or actions are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for doing something wrong their action is blameworthy...
depend on whether success or failure was achieved. For example, a student who gets a good grade on an exam might say, "I got an A because I am intelligent and I studied hard!" whereas a student who does poorly on an exam might say, "The teacher gave me an F because he does not like me!" When someone strategically strives to facilitate external causes for their poor performance (so that they will subsequently have a means to avoid blaming themselves for failure), it may be labeled self-handicapping
Self-handicapping
Self-handicapping is the process by which people avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem. It was first theorized by Edward E...
.
Examples
Another example of self-serving bias can be found in the workplace. Victims of serious occupational accidentsWork accident
A work accident is a "discrete occurrence in the course of work, which leads to physical or mental harm"...
tend to attribute their accidents to external factors, whereas their coworkers
Employment
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
and management tend to attribute the accidents to the victims' own actions.
Several reasons have been proposed to explain the occurrence of self-serving bias. One class of explanation is motivational: people are motivated to protect their self-esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
, and so create causal explanations that serve to make them feel better. Another class of explanation focuses on strategic impression management
Impression management
In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction...
: although people may not believe the content of a self-serving utterance, they may nevertheless offer it to others in order to create a favorable impression. Yet another class of explanation focuses on basic mechanisms of memory: people might make success more available in memory for internal reasons rather than for external reasons.
Self-serving bias may result in bargaining impasse
Impasse
A bargaining impasse occurs when the two sides negotiating an agreement are unable to reach an agreement and become deadlocked. An impasse is almost invariably mutually harmful, either as a result of direct action which may be taken such as a strike in employment negotiation or sanctions/military...
if each side interprets the facts of the dispute in their own favor. In this situation one or more of the parties may refuse to continue negotiating, believing the other side is either bluffing or refusing to accept a reasonable settlement and thus deserves to be "punished".
There is a good deal of experimental evidence to support this hypothesis. In one experiment, subjects played the role of either the plaintiff or defendant in a hypothetical automotive accident tort
Tort
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general...
case with a maximum potential damages payment of $100,000. The plaintiff's prediction of the likely judicial award was on average $14,500 higher than the defendant's. The plaintiff's average nomination of a "fair" figure was $17,700 higher than the defendant's. When parties subsequently attempted to negotiate a settlement agreement, the discrepancy between the two sides' assessment of a fair compensation figure strongly correlated with whether or not parties reached an agreement within a set period of time. This experiment was conducted with real money with one real dollar being equal to 10,000 experimental dollars and if parties did not reach a negotiated agreement the case was decided by a third party and each side had to pay costly court and legal fees.
At the same time, there is evidence to suggest that people do not necessarily exhibit self-serving bias with respect to computer technologies. When they fail to achieve a desirable outcome when using a computer they often blame themselves, not the technology. The reason is that people are so used to bad functionality, counterintuitive
Counterintuitive
The word "counterintuitive" literally means counter to intuition, and so it essentially means that something does not seem right or correct.A counterintuitive proposition is one that does not seem likely to be true when assessed using intuition or gut feelings...
features, bugs, and sudden crashes in contemporary software applications that they tend to not complain about them. Instead, they believe it is their personal responsibility to predict possible issues and to find solutions to computer problems. This unique phenomenon has been recently observed in several human-computer interaction investigations.
Group-serving bias
Group-serving bias
Group-serving bias is identical to self-serving bias except that it takes place between groups rather than individuals, under which group members make dispositional attributions for their group's successes and situational attributions for group failures, and vice versa for outsider groups.For...
is a similar bias on the group level.
See also
- Actor–observer asymmetry
- Attribution (psychology)Attribution (psychology)Attribution is a concept in social psychology referring to how individuals explain causes of behavior and events. Attribution theory is an umbrella term for various theories that attempt to explain these processes. Fritz Heider first proposed a theory of attribution The Psychology of Interpersonal...
- Choice-supportive biasChoice-supportive biasIn cognitive science, choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. It is a cognitive bias....
- Cognitive biasCognitive biasA cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations. Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable...
- Dunning–Kruger effect
- Fundamental attribution errorFundamental attribution errorIn social psychology, the fundamental attribution error describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors...
- List of cognitive biases
- Victim blamingVictim blamingVictim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment are held entirely or partially responsible for the transgressions committed against them. Blaming the victim has traditionally emerged especially in racist and sexist forms...
- Wishful thinkingWishful thinkingWishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality...
Further reading
- Campbell, W.K., & Sedikides, C. (1999). Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic integration. Review of General Psychology, 3, 23-43.