Self-serving bias
A self-serving bias is any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceive oneself in an overly favorable manner. It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. When individuals reject the validity of negative feedback, focus on their strengths and achievements but overlook their faults and failures, or take more credit for their group's work than they give to other members, they are protecting their self-esteem from threat and injury. These cognitive and perceptual tendencies perpetuate illusions and error, but they also serve the self's need for esteem. For example, a student who attributes earning a good grade on an exam to their own intelligence and preparation but attributes earning a poor grade to the teacher's poor teaching ability or unfair test questions might be exhibiting a self-serving bias. Studies have shown that similar attributions are made in various situations, such as the workplace, interpersonal relationships, sports, and consumer decisions.
Both motivational processes and cognitive processes influence the self-serving bias. There are both cross-cultural and special clinical population considerations within the bias. Much of the research on the self-serving bias has used participant self-reports of attribution based on experimental manipulation of task outcomes or in naturalistic situations. Some more modern research, however, has shifted focus to physiological manipulations, such as emotional inducement and neural activation, in an attempt to better understand the biological mechanisms that contribute to the self-serving bias.History
The theory of self-serving biases first came to attention in the late 1960s to early 1970s. As research on this topic grew, some people had concerns about it. In 1971, a fear emerged that the hypothesis would prove to be incorrect, much like the perceptual defense hypothesis by Dixon. However, the theory now holds strong. When this theory was still being developed it was during the research of attribution bias. Fritz Heider found that in ambiguous situations people made attributions based on their own needs, in order to maintain a higher self-esteem and viewpoint. This specific tendency became what we now know as the self-serving bias. Miller and Ross conducted a study in 1975 that was one of the earliest to assess not only self-serving bias but also the attributions for successes and failures within this theory. They argued that the self-serving bias people create is rational and not dependent on one's need for self-esteem. This means that if the outcome of an event is consistent with the person's expectation, then they will attribute dispositional factors. On the other hand, if the outcome of the event does not match the person's expectations, they will make situational attributions by blaming their surroundings instead of themselves.Methods
Laboratory testing
Investigations of the self-serving bias in the laboratory differ depending on the experimental goals, but have basic fundamental aspects. Participants perform some task, often of intelligence, social sensitivity, teaching ability, or therapy skills. Participants may be asked to work alone, in pairs, or in groups. After task completion, participants are given randomized bogus feedback. Some studies employ emotion-induction mechanisms to investigate moderating effects on the self-serving bias. Finally, participants make attributions for the given outcomes. These attributions are assessed by the researchers to determine implications for the self-serving bias.Neural experimentation
Some more modern testing employs neural imaging techniques to supplement the fundamental self-serving bias laboratory procedures. Neural correlates of the self-serving bias have been investigated by electroencephalography, as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging. These procedures allow for insight into brain area activity during exhibition of a self-serving bias, as well as a mechanism to differentiate brain activity between healthy and clinical populations.Naturalistic investigation
Retrospective performance outcomes can be used in investigation of the self-serving bias. An example of this is reported company performance followed up by self-report of outcome attributions. These self-report attributions can then be used to assess how successes and failures are viewed by company employees and executives. This method can be used for numerous outcome variables to determine the presence or absence of the self-serving bias.Factors and variables
Motivation
Two types of motivation affect the self-serving bias: self-enhancement and self-presentation. Self-enhancement aims to uphold self-worth; attributing successes internally and failures externally helps people in their self-enhancement. Self-presentation refers to the drive to convey a desired image to others and make self-serving attributions to manage impressions. For example, they claim personal responsibility for successes but not failures in an attempt to influence how others perceive them. Motivation works in conjunction with cognitive factors to produce personally satisfying and self-preserving attributions for outcomes.Locus of control
is one of the main influences of attribution style. Individuals with an internal locus of control believe that they have personal control over situations and that their actions matter. Those with an external locus of control believe that outside forces, chance, and luck determine situations and that their actions can not change anything. Individuals with an external locus of control are more likely to exhibit a self-serving bias following failure than those with an internal locus of control. The difference in attribution style between individuals with internal and external loci of control, however, is not as marked in successful outcomes, as individuals with both types attribution style have less need to defend their self-images in success. Airplane pilots with an internal locus of control were likely to exhibit a self-serving bias in regard to their skill and levels of safety.Gender
Studies have shown a slight discrepancy in males' and females' use of the self-serving bias. In self-report surveys investigating partner interactions of romantic couples, men tended to attribute negative interactions to their partners more than women did. This is evidence that men may exhibit the self-serving bias more than women, although the study did not look at positive interaction attributions.Age
Older adults have been shown to make more internal causal attributions for negative outcomes. Differential attribution style at different ages indicates that the self-serving bias may be less likely in older adults. These older adults who attributed negative outcomes to more internal factors also rated themselves to be in poorer health, so negative emotional factors may confound the found age effects.Culture
There is evidence of cross-cultural differences in the tendency to exhibit the self-serving bias, particularly when considering individualistic versus collectivistic societies. Family and group goals are important in collectivistic cultures. In contrast, the individual goals and identity focused on in individualistic societies increases the need for people within those cultures to guard and boost their personal self-esteem. While differences have been shown, conflicting literature has cited similarity in causal attributions across both individual and collective cultures, specifically between Belgium, West Germany, South Korea, and England. Naturalistic observation and information comparing United States and Japanese companies outcome attributions shows that the meaning and psychological function of internal versus external attributions are similar across cultures but that the difference is in the strategy of attribution. No consensus has been reached on cross-culture influences on the self-serving bias, though some systematic differences do seem to be present, especially between Western and non-Western cultures. For example, a study conducted by Kudo and Numuzaki showed that the participants in the success condition provided more internal attributions than the participants in the failure condition even though past research has constantly shown that Japanese people do not tend to show a self-serving bias. Another study conducted by Hugten and Witteloostuijn displayed the results that student participants between the ages of 13 and 15 who mainly process feedback in a non-native English tend to show more self-serving bias than those who process feedback in their native Dutch language.Role
Investigations of self-serving bias distinguish between the role of participants as the actor of a task or as the observer of someone else performing a task, relating closely to actor–observer asymmetry. Actors of a task exhibit the self-serving bias in their attributions to their own success or failure feedback, whereas observers do not make the same attributions about another person's task outcome. Observers tend to be more objective in their tendency to ascribe internal or external attributions to other people's outcomes. This may be due to the fact that the self-image of actors is challenged directly and therefore actors feel the need to protect their own self-image, but do not feel the same inclination to do so when the self-image of others is threatened.Self-esteem and emotion
Emotions can influence feelings of self-esteem, which in turn alters the need to protect one's self-identity. Individuals with higher self-esteem are thought to have more to protect in their self-image, and therefore exhibit the self-serving bias more often than those individuals with lower self-esteem. In a study, participants who were induced to feel the emotions of guilt or revulsion were less likely to make self-serving attributions for success and less likely to make self-protecting attributions for failure. Coleman concluded that the two emotions of guilt and revulsion lead to a drop in self-esteem, and thus a reduction in the use of the self-serving bias.