self-serving bias

success to internal causes and failure to external causes
Lau & Russell: baseball and football players and managers explanations of success and failure
1. high ecological value - biased by researchers' subjectivity
may be due to cognitive reasons i.e. expect because we try hard
or motivational bias as way of protecting / enhancing self-esteem
research shows people with high self-esteem more likely to show self-serving bias than those with low - direction of causal influence not clear
1. possibly show bias through motivation to increase self-esteem or if high self-esteem - expect to do well - cognitive bias
important as identifying source of distortion in judgements
practical applications e.g. training - people encouraged to identify weaknesses that contribute to failure and not make situational attributions

Resource summary

	Created by db56hse almost 11 years ago