Self-Serving Bias After a Loss

Growing up with an older brother and having tons of neighbors that are boys has definitely played a role in making me the competitive girl I am today. When I was younger, you could always find me outside playing football, manhunt, and wiffle ball with all of the boys on the block. Not only was I the only girl, but I was also the youngest person there. I was constantly trying to overcome the "nonathletic little girl" stereotype and prove that I was capable of playing with them. Most of the time I was able to hold my own but there were definitely a few times that I really was not capable of playing with them.

One specific time where I was overambitious about my ability to play with the boys was in a one v. one basketball tournament played in the street outside my house. The rule was winner stays on and I ended up playing against my older brother. My brother is three years older than me so at the time he was probably a solid foot taller than me and at least 30 pounds heavier than me. Throughout the game I had trouble getting past my brother and even when I did he would block my shot. As a basketball player, I expected myself to preform better than I had been and I could not understand why my moves were not working. After being completely shut out 11-0, I remember crying and making up excuses for why I lost. In my opinion, it wasn't fair that he was a boy who was bigger, older, and stronger. In addition to this I blamed a lot of the loss on the fact that we used a boy's ball instead of a girl's. However, I never wanted to admit that the reason I lost was because I simply was not good enough.

There is a social psychological phenomenon that explains my reaction to my heartbreaking loss. The self-serving bias is the idea that we tend to blame our failures on external, situational factors and give credit to internal, dispositional factors for our successes. We make these self-serving attributions for a few different reasons. The main reason is that people want to maintain their self-esteem, even when they fail. When I lost to my brother, I did not want to believe that my skills were not good enough to beat him, so I blamed the loss on situational factors. Another reason is that we want to present ourselves in the best way possible. I did not want the other boys to think I was incapable of playing with them so I refused to take responsibility. Finally, we make these attributions based on the types of information we have to work with. As a basketball player, I was used to being able to beat people so when I was beaten by my brother I was surprised and could not believe that it was because I was not good enough.

Evidence of the self-serving bias can be seen in an experiment done by James R. Larson of the University of Washington (1977). In his experiment, 112 male students were paired up and asked to work together to complete a problem solving task. After, they were either told that their performance was either above or below the average, or they were not told how they performed which simulated success, failure and control. These students were randomly assigned throughout each condtion to increase internal validity. After, students were asked to rate themselves and their partners on the effect that their ability, effort, luck and the situation had on their performance on a scale of 1-6. Compared to the control group, students who failed took significantly less responsibility for their performance. However, students who succeeded did not show a significant difference in the amount of responsibility taken for their performance. This may be because they were smart college students who are used to succeeding in tasks similar to the one that was tested.

Self-serving bias is a way for us to cope with the stresses of failure and maintain our self esteem. Results from this experiment show that it is used more often when we fail than when we succeed. So next time you lose a game or fail a test, think about if the situation is actually to blame or if you are just using self-serving attributions. Being honest with yourself is the only way to learn from your failures!

References

Larson, J. R. (1977). Evidence for a self-serving bias in the attribution of causality. Journal Of Personality, 45(3), 430-441. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1977.tb00162.x 

Katie Doherty