maxinia

Self-serving Bias: the Attribution of Failures

(an analysis through observing an argument)

By Maxine Alexandra Villas

Coma 101- D

Prof. Antonio Salvador S. de Veyra

March 24, 2008

People are complex. Sometimes they tend to make attributions in understanding people’s behavior. They even tend to see themselves in a favorable way to explain why they have succeeded and failed at something.

Usually people do not notice this kind of attitude that they have. They think they are good enough to defend themselves. One good example for this would be the situation here.

A father and a mother were having an argument, or shall they call it discussion, over a family dinner. The reason was just because of the wrong material that was handed by the mother.

“Mang, palihug ra gud ko ug tunol sa tinidor”, the father asked favor to his wife.

The mother handed him the container with spoons and forks instead. Then her husband was annoyed and almost yelled at her, “tinidor lang ang akong gipangayo mang! Nganong kaning kutsarahan naman hinuon ang imong gihatag sa ako. Kaw jud no, dili jud ka maminaw ug tarung ba. Ayaw ra gud ug pagdinanghag!”

The mother replied in a disgusted voice, “mukuha man kaha ka’g tinidor? O dara o. kuha diha. Kita ka na daghan ko ug gibuhat”.

The father shouted at his wife “taka-taka ra man ka uy! Wala ko niingon ug KUT-SA-RA-HAN ba! Ana ko TI-NI-DOR! Dili ka kasabot? Dili jud ka mudawat ug kasayupan ba”.

“Hay ambot nimo uy. Kabalo ka’g daghan kayo ko ug problema na ginahuna-huna, tapos imo pa kong sugu-sugoon? Ngano man gud daghan kayo ta’g problema ba. Nalibog na nuon ta. Ngano man gud ako imo sugoon na daghan kayo ko ug gibuhat. Naa man daghan bakante diha o, imong mga anak”.

“A, kuyawa pud nimo uy. Para ihatag lang sa ako ang tinidor daghan na ka’g palusot diha. Di jud ka muangkon ug sala. Ako man gani na maski na daghan ko ug trabaho, manlaba, magluto, tapos sabay pa na ha, nganong dili man ko malibog beh? Ingna lang jud na danghag ka!”

The mother whispered “hay ambot nimo pang. Nagalubog ra baya ka diha sa sala. Di man gani ka mangita ug trabaho,”

The father yelled at his wife again “a, mamoyboy man dayon ka!. Niabot naman dayon ka’g walay trabaho. Tungod lang kay daghan ka’g problema na ginahuna-huna, mao dayun na imong irason ngano wala nimo nahatag ang tinidor? Angkuna lagi imong sala!”

“Aw di man tawun ta perpekto.”

“Grabe pud ka uy. Danghag lang jud ka uy. Ayaw lagi ug supak sa pangasaba nako!!”

“Ayaw ko ug siyagiti lagi!” the mother complained.

“A, gago man diay ka. Ayaw pagbuot kung kasab-an ka!” the father yelled at his temper.

“Hai, dali ra jud na makakatag nang imong baba ba”

“Hilom na diha ba! Ikaw man ang nakasala, angkuna ang kasaba!”

“Pero ayaw lagi ko ug siyagiti” the mother sounded as if she was pleading to stop.

“Hilom na lagi ba!” the father ended the discussion with his loud voice.

This situation only shows how people try to do everything they can just to avoid committing their own mistakes. The mother here blames her problems she was bearing for the cause of not being able to give what her husband was asking from her. This is an example of portraying a self-serving bias.

Self- serving bias is not quite the same as fundamental attribution error, but it is still an aspect of the way people make attributions.

According to Miller and Ross (1975), people tend to attribute success to dispositional causes and failure to situational ones. These dispositional causes are a cause of behavior that is based on internal traits of personality factors. The situational causes are a cause of behavior that is based on environmental factors. (Feldman 522). Like for example the context – “. Kabalo ka’g daghan kayo ko ug problema na ginahuna-huna, tapos imo pa kong sugu-sugoon? Ngano man gud daghan kayo ta’g problema ba. Nalibog na nuon ta. Ngano man gud ako imo sugoon na daghan kaayo ko ug gibuhat. Naa man daghan bakante diha o, imong mga anak”, this line only shows that she attributes her poor performance to avoid having attribute it to lack of ability. She made excuses for her potential failure and for her inability to provide what her husband was asking for.

From this, there was something about the situation that caused the behavior. The mother might attribute her accomplishment to situational factors, explaining that she had so many problems to solve, and that caused her to be out of her mind or she did not exactly hear what her husband said for the reason of being mentally absent. Or it could be the thought that her husband might need another spoon or could be that she was tired of getting or finding the fork in the container and so she just let her husband get it for himself. To her, then, the reason for her behavior might not be dispositional at all; it could be situational.

There have been explanations for the self-serving bias that people like to present a favorable impression to others - to “save face”.

It is actually a human nature to feel not to be embarrassed publicly. Usually, people inflate their sense of self-worth and distort their perspective of reality (Dave Anderson). To avoid from embarrassment, the mother might deceive her husband. According to Interpersonal Deception theory of David Buller and Judee Burgoon's, there is a truth bias that avoids a person from embarrassment from his or her own failures. She may be lying that she was thinking of the problems and that’s why she was not able to give the fork to her husband.

Another explanation for this is the idea of self-serving bias allows people to protect their self-esteem. People might make either positional or situational attributions about their performance. But those who attributed failure to lack of ability also tended to have a very high level of self-esteem. (Foundations of Psychology p.540)

According to Heider, the explanations people come up with are called attributions, and the theory that describes the process is called Attribution theory. (Kassin 481)

One reason why attribution error is common is that it pertains to the nature of information that is available to the people making an attribution. (Feldman 523)

As what was mentioned earlier, self-serving bias has similarities with the fundamental attribution error but not quite. According to Gilbert and Malone (1995), “when people view the behavior of another person in a particular setting the information that is most conspicuous is the person’s behavior itself. Because the individual’s immediate surroundings are relatively unchanging the person whose behavior they were considering is the center of their attention. In contrast, the person’s environment is less attention-grabbing. Consequently, people are more likely to make attributions relating to the situation.” (Feldman 523)

Furthermore, individuals bias their attributions to satisfy their need for self-esteem. People are biased in attributions they make for their own outcomes- taking quick credit for success but distancing themselves form failure. (Kassin 484)

People will attribute negative events to external causes to avoid a lowered self-evaluation (Silvia & Duval). They want to be consistent with their standards, but they also want to accurately attribute events to their most plausible cause (Duval 1983). They are keenly aware of the relation between self and standards when their attention is focused on the self. This makes failure much more severe (Silvia & Duval 334). Conversely, the evaluative of the self motive is minimal when people are not concerned with whether they are consistent with their standards; there is thus no motive to be reconciled when self-awareness is low. When self-awareness is high, people attribute failure when they feel they could still improve.

The attribution of success to self will be enlarged, and failure will be attributed to self when people expect a high probability of future improvement, and attributions will influence state self-esteem. When self-awareness is low, improvement likelihood should not affect attribution or self-esteem, self-enhancement concerns are reduced when people are not comparing the self against personal standards. (Duval & Silvia 51)

When people’s favorable views of themselves were questioned, mocked or challenged, the person was motivated to present more self-serving bias. Like the situation presented, when the mother said that she was not on her condition and was busy thinking of her problems, she presented here a reason that, according to Campbell & Sedikides, minimizes the threat and maintains the integrity of a positive self-concept in the face of threatening information. According to them, people are motivated to protect, maintain or enhance the positivity of the self-concept. This shows that the mother was protecting her positive concept and maintains it and has just done those alibis to “save face”. But with this, a new conversation was formed, jumping and diverging to another discussion and new topics. From the fork concept, it paved way to shouting argument.

This occurrence or phenomena is explainable by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) of W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen. According to this theory, persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create. With this assertion, the interaction of the father and the mother will be enhanced in a wide range of their communication situation. (Cronen & Pearce 67)

The mood and manner that persons-in-conversation adopt plays a large role in the social construction process (70). Since Pearce regards language as the “single most powerful tool that humans have ever invented for the creation of social worlds”, he thinks it is tragic when people in conflict, like the given situation, caught up in a language game that they are bound to lose (71).

According to these theorists, there is logic of meaning and action given in a give-and-take conversation. Consider the father and mother’s argument. When the father said, “tinidor lang ang akong gipangayo mang! Nganong kaning kutsarahan naman hinuon ang imong gihatag sa ako. Kaw jud no, dili jud ka maminaw ug tarung ba. Ayaw ra gud ug pagdinanghag!, the mother answered him back with this line “Mukuha man kaha ka’g tinidor? O dara o. kuha diha. Kita ka na daghan ko ug gibuhat. From these lines, it has given way to a conflict.

When the father asked favor to his wife to get him a fork, his wife was not able to hand him the fork, instead she gave the container. Consequently, the father instructed her about the error she has just done, but the mother gave reasons that she was not in the mood and she was thinking of the problems. That is the reason why it happened.

From that response, the father told her that it was not a qualified reason and should accept her faults and listen to his corrections to her instead. Then, the information conflicts with their self-concept as the mother as a stupid person, so the mother insulted his husband. When the father said that “A, kuyawa pud nimo uy. Para ihatag lang sa ako ang tinidor daghan na ka’g palusot diha. Di jud ka muangkon ug sala. Ako man gani na maski na daghan ko ug trabaho, manlaba, magluto, tapos sabay pa na ha, nganong dili man ko malibog beh? Ingna lang jud na danghag ka!”, the mother became furious about it and she replied in a whispering manner “ hay ambot nimo pang. Nagalubog ra baya ka diha sa sala. Di man gani ka mangita ug trabaho,”, with this, the boundary of turbulence is present which arises out of parties’ inability to coordinate privacy rules and boundary management (Griffin 127). This is according to the Social Penetration Theory of Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor. The father here violated a privacy wherein he should not tell his wife to be so stupid. Because of the statement of the father, the mother also, voiced a frustrating statement where the father’s pride has been hit with her “nagalubog” word that is conveying or referring to a lazy and idle husband who has done nothing for the needs of the family.

By this time, the original topic of the conversation now becomes irrelevant. It came to the point that both of them should shut themselves and listen to each other’s opinion and accept their own mistakes.

From this line “Aw di man tawun ta perpekto.”, it has opened up to another topic and another argument. The two continue the feud, and fueled only by the logical force of the interaction. (Griffin 71)

Another theory that also gives way to the explanation for this give situation is the Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick. According to him, one-up communication ( ) which is a movement to gain control of the exchange that bids for dominance, includes messages that instruct, order, interrupt, contradict, change topics or fail to support what the other person said. (Griffin 180)

From the given situation, the dominance of each other’s self-awareness to avoid being embarrassed gave way to contradictions which led to an argument. It has also led to the changing of topics. From the discussion of “fork-thing” or failing of the wife to provide a fork to her husband, it has diverted to a situation where some other topics became irrelevant.

“hay ambot nimo pang. Nagalubog ra baya ka diha sa sala. Di man gani ka mangita ug trabaho,” From this point, the original topic became ambiguous because of presenting the unemployment of the father which is no longer related to the original topic (which is the inability of the mother to give the fork).

“a, mamoyboy man dayon ka!. Niabot naman dayon ka’g walay trabaho. Tungod lang kay daghan ka’g problema na ginahuna-huna, mao dayun na imong irason ngano wala nimo nahatag ang tinidor? Angkuna lagi imong sala!”

“Aw di man tawun ta perpekto.”- Because of this reason presented by the mother, that she is not perfect, it has also led to a new topic that one should accept its own faults, regardless of whoever is in the wrong side.

“Grabe pud ka uy. Danghag lang jud ka uy. Ayaw lagi ug supak sa pangasaba nako!!”

“Ayaw ko ug siyagiti lagi!”

“A, gago man diay ka. Ayaw pagbuot kung kasab-an ka”

“Hai, dali ra jud na makakatag nang imong baba ba” - This time, the mother meant that the father should not make the issue a big deal. Then, again, it opened to a new meaning of the conversation and a new discussion.

“Hilom na diha ba! Ikaw man ang nakasala, angkuna ang kasaba!”

“Pero ayaw lagi ko ug siyagiti”

“Hilom na lagi ba!”

So, from the end statement of the father, the mother dropped herself into silence. She did not respond or even uttered a word. She left herself no choice but to be quiet. She left no more words and remained mute.

According to Deborah Tannen of her Genderlect Styles, men are used to dominating women; they do it especially in conversations. (Griffin 480)

She added that the differences in male and female communication styles sometimes used to imbalance the power. That is why the father kept on yelling at her because; he felt to be superior to his wife. Then the wife put herself into silence because she knew that she is inferior as what the culture and the biblical scriptures said.

In addition, when the discussion ended up with the father’s signal and told the mother to settle down, it showed that the man asserts itself and gain power. That the women are under advantaged and thus, men are over advantaged- a gender difference that makes a huge difference which is according to Standpoint theory of Sandra Harding and Julia T. Wood.

With these explanations, the woman or the mother has this sense of confusion and a lack of power. Chris Kramae assumed that men are trying to control the women and that is according to Muted Group Theory. She even assumed that problems are caused primarily by men’s and women’s “different styles” (Griffin 504).

Therefore, self-serving bias in this situation occurred because the couple was more likely to claim responsibility for successes than failures. They exhibited the presentation of ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests. It only shows that in a self-serving bias, one will most likely have the pride and therefore, will not directly accept its failures or mistakes. One may blame the other factor affecting the situation. The mother was not able to give the fork to her husband because she was too busy thinking of the problems. So, the verbal communication in this situation affected the gender and the relationship of the couple. They may not notice it, but the words that came from their mouth were the words that let everyone understand that they bias themselves, attributing the success or their failures. It still depends upon the person’s situation.

Works Cited

http://home.rochester.rr.com/boggess/allyson/social/social5.htm

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=316628
http://www.cic.sfu.ca/forum/NamNov211997.html

Printed Reference:

Duval, Thomas Shelley & Silvia Paul, J. Self-Awareness, Probability of Improvement, and the Self-serving Bias Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. American Psychological Association, Inc. 2002

Feldman, Robert. Essentials of Understanding Psychology. 4^th ed. The McGraw-Hill Companies,Inc. 2000

Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 6th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 2006.

Hayes, Nick. Foundations of Psychology. Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. 1996

Kassin, Saul. Psychology. 2^nd ed. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1998

Silvia, Paul J. Predicting the Interpersonal Targets of Self-serving Attributions. A Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2000 <http://www.idealibrary.com>

1. role of actor or observer
2. task importance
3. self-esteem
4. achievement motivation
5. self-focused attention
6. choice in participation
7. outcome expectancies
8. perceived difficulty
9. competitive vs. noncompetitive
10. equal or unequal status between people
11. positive or negative effect
12. locus of control
13. gender
14. task type

1. Present the psychological analysis on how people are affected by their high self-evaluation.
2. Suggest ethical outline or ways on how to improve self-assessment.
   
3. Determine the factors that affect self-serving bias of people.

1. Observe the students and record their actions and try to formulate questions out of it.
2. Conduct a survey or interview using the sampling method  which is " Simple-Random Sampling".
3. research on the topic through library and internet surfing.
4. read and interpret data with the help of related researches or books and articles.
5. Examine the work done for any revisions and come up with a research paper.

    Dear unknown human,

    Everything is really complicated once you reach the stage of puberty. A lot of things will be changing and so much adjustments to the new environment will be observed and must be taken care of.
   
    I actually understand you because we are already grown-ups and we do not want to be controlled by other people. We get shit when we hear our parents always yelling at us on what should we really do. But, we do love our friends and family, that is why, often, we are pressured.
   
    In your case, you need not to worry that much(though sometimes you have to). Many teenagers have experienced that kind of situation. In fact, as a teenager, I have undergone that kind of super depressing stage. We really can not avoid those conflicts. It seems that those are attached in our life. Just be yourself. Do not pretend or hide in your shell. But put limitations my dear, 'cause a lot may severely happen.

   you only have to understand your parents, 'cause they are still coping up with your situation. Of course, your mother expects you to be obedient and thinks that you will never resists. Just understand and balance your own situation.

    while your father doesn't really want you to smoke. OF course that is natural for parents to get  angry with you. Think of this, do fathers praise their sons and daughters when they see them smoking cigarettes? of course not!, right?

so every situation here is spontaneous. You have to adjust and understand. That is the most important thing in maintaining relationships with your family and friends.

    Your sister, is of course trying to be on top and does not want to be dominated by just you. Because you are older than her, just understand her 'cause at the right time, she will understand it. She still needs to be advised and have to understand reality. Do not try to overpower her or outperformed her, 'cause it may only bring you in trouble. If you can't avoid it, then act favorably.

    I suggest you have to talk with your family and try to make things neatly. Just understand each other. Nurse those who are wounded and help each other. That is the best thing to do my dear. Then, all will be well.

With love,

Maxine ^_^

Printed:

     Never in my entire life have I seen such a guy who is quite incredibly tall as him. well, that wasn't actually my first time to see a giant-sized human, but he is really different. He is so slim, that everytime I see him, I have this feeling that he would be blown by the strong winds or even just a slight  one. I thought he was the guy who should be scared of. But I was really wrong. He is actually the brother I ever wanted in my freaking life. (haha!) 

     I spent my christmas vacation with the "char-charan" people. We went to different places and tried to uplift the spirits of the people this christmas. Well, the funny thing was, we became the "worn-out" ones. There are a lot of people who refused to be carolled with christmas songs,except for some and one of them were the fellow UPeans, those teachers and faculty and even the former executive director of Kombuyahan. With so many moments with the Koro family, we were able to know each other and even got tightened in a heavy bond.

    There is only one thing that I could not understand. Every time I talk to him I could not look at him directly. That is the very first thing I observed these past few days. Does this mean a thing? They say that when you can not look straight forwardly into the eyes of that person, you have a special feeling for him. Honestly, I liked him when I first  saw him last summer in school, and I think I still like him. But it does not mean I am in loved with him! of course i'm not! neither crushing him, ok?. Well, everytime we talk to each other, I just can't take looking into his eyes, and I usually, am not focusing on what he says but I just do those nonverbal cues and nod as a sign of my agreement to what he says. I am totally not on my mind every time we are together. I don't even ask him his favorites or what, instead, i just let him talk on what he wants. I don't ask information about his life and I am just so contented with what we are right now.

    I also noticed, that  the first practices we've done were so different compared to the present ones. Before, we rarely exchange "hi" or "hello"s and we don't even greet to each other and we just smile as a sign of our presence. well, things are becoming so easy now. It really takes time to be so close to each other. the first month of our practices, we commonly say "i'm okay", "it's alright", "no thanks, i'm fine", or  just nod or say yes or no. But what I observed now, is quite different. haha! so funny to realize that things are making bonded now. We now exchange text messages to each other and even share secrets. But, still, (haha) I can't even figured out why am I trembling deep inside when kuya talks to me or whenever I see his name appears in my cellphone and when I receive a message from him. 

    Well, maybe because I am crushing on him.(please don't tell anyone about this..whoever reads this. if you know him. hehee)

   All is well, i guess again. then one thing!

this is absolutely not true. na bored lang q that is why I wrote this. I just wanted to make stories out of my imaginations!