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Self-serving biases
Although the existence of the fundamental attribution error demonstrates that many people tend to prefer internal dispositional explanations, that is not always true. Think about the last time you failed at a task. Perhaps it was an exam, or an athletic competition, or a social event. Why did you fail? If you're like most Westerners, you can probably identify several things in the situation that contributed to the failure. The exam was especially difficult, the referees had it in for your team, or the people around you were simply impossible. When confronted with failure, it is easy to find comfort in situational explanations Now think about a recent success. If we ask you why you succeeded, are you tempted to say it was because of something about you that led to the success? Numerous studies have shown that people exhibit a self-serving bias when it comes to attributions for success and failure. In general, people tend to take credit for success and place blame for failure <REF>(Miller & Ross, 1975). We believe that our successes are the result of our dispositional natures, while our failures are caused by situational circumstances and the shortcomings of others. Similarly, when we think about our contributions to joint products, we tend to believe that we contributed more than our fair share. Michael Ross and Fiore Sicoly <REF>(1979) found, for example, that each member of a married couple believed that they contributed more than their fair share to domestic chores around the house. In situations such as these, attributions have the effect of placing the self in a favorable light. |
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