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Self-serving bias

Self-serving bias occurs when people are more likely to claim responsibility for successes than failures.

For instance, a student who gets a good grade on an exam might say, "I got an A!" while a student who does poorly on an exam might say, "The teacher gave me an F!"

Self-serving bias may simply be a form of wishful thinking.

Group-serving bias is a similar bias on the group level.

Dale Miller and Micheal Ross first suggested this attributional bias.

  • Miller, D. T., & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213-225.

See also: list of cognitive biases.

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