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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. [1] It is the belief that individuals tend to ascribe success to their own abilities and efforts, but ascribe failure to external factors. [2]
Egocentric bias: Recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g., remembering one's exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as bigger than it really was. Euphoric recall: The tendency of people to remember past experiences in a positive light, while overlooking negative experiences associated with that event.
It accounts for the fact that many biases are self-motivated or self-directed (e.g., illusion of asymmetric insight, self-serving bias). There are also biases in how subjects evaluate in-groups or out-groups; evaluating in-groups as more diverse and "better" in many respects, even when those groups are arbitrarily defined ( ingroup bias ...
This cognitive bias is the converse of the false consensus effect, in which people tend to overestimate the extent to which their attitudes and behaviours are normal and typical compared to those of others. Both are related to self-esteem, which is a crucial factor in defining how people look at their behaviour. [6]
The self-serving bias has been thought of as a means of self-esteem maintenance. [39] A person will feel better about themselves by taking credit for successes and creating external blames for failure. This is further reinforced by research showing that as self-threat increases, people are more likely to exhibit a self-serving bias. [40]
Self-serving bias would result in the assumption that the student's low grade is a result of poor teaching, which would direct the fault of one's reality away from one's own actions. Egocentric bias might also result in an overestimation of the number of students that received low grades in the class for the purpose to normalize these students ...
The bias may also result, at least in part, from non-social stimulus-reward associations. [4] Maintenance of this cognitive bias may be related to the tendency to make decisions with relatively little information. [5] When faced with uncertainty and a limited sample from which to make decisions, people often "project" themselves onto the situation.
An example of self-handicapping is the student who spends the night before an important exam partying rather than studying. The student fears failing his exam and appearing incapable. In partying the night before the exam the student has engaged in self-defeating behavior and increased the likelihood of poor exam performance.