Why do we blame external factors for our own mistakes?

Self-serving Bias

, explained.
Bias

What is the Self-Serving Bias?

The self-serving bias describes our tendency to attribute positive outcomes and successes to internal factors like our personal traits, skills, or actions but attribute negative results or failures to external factors, shifting the blame to situational factors beyond our control, such as bad luck or the actions of others.

An illustration contrasting winning and losing under the label "Self-Serving Bias." On the left, a stick figure on a green background celebrates, saying, "I am the best athlete of all time!" On the right, against a red background, a stick figure blames someone else for losing, saying, "This was your fault, Bob!" Another figure corrects, "My name is Fred..."

Where this bias occurs

Many of us will remember the feelings associated with getting a good grade versus a bad grade in school. Particularly as younger students, we can remember being proud of ourselves for getting good grades. Attributing our success to our own skills and hard work. On the other hand,  if we were to receive a poor grade, we may attribute the result to external factors. These external factors could range from things such as a professor’s inability to teach the subject, the difficulty of the topic, or our group members.

This process is common among many of us, as our initial reaction is to praise ourselves when we achieve success and blame external factors for our shortcomings. This seemingly harmless habit can have significant implications on our life as we age, hence the importance of identifying and curtailing behavior related to it.

Related Biases

Sources

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  2. Kriss, Peter H; Loewenstein, George; Wang, Xianghong; Weber, Roberto A (2011). Behind the veil of ignorance: Self-serving bias in climate change negotiations. Judgment and Decision Making, 6(7):602-615.
  3. Myers, D.G. (2015). Exploring Social Psychology, 7th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill Education.
  4. Hooghiemstra, Reggy (2008). “East-West Differences in Attributions for Company Performance: A Content Analysis of Japanese and U.S. Corporate Annual Reports”. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 39 (5): 618–629.
  5. Twenge, Jean M.; Zhang, Liqing; Im, Charles (2004). “It’s Beyond My Control: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis of Increasing Externality in Locus of Control, 1960-2002”. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 8 (3): 308–319. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.532.5200.
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  8. Neff, K. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude towards oneself. Self and Identity, 2, 85-101.
  9. Reis, N. A., Kowalski, K. C., Ferguson, L. J., Sabiston, C. M., Sedgwick, W. A., & Crocker, P. R. E. (2015). Self-compassion and women athletes’ responses to emotionally difficult sport situations: An evaluation of a brief induction. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 18-25.
  10. Mosewich, A. D., Crocker, P. R. E., Kowalski, K. C., & Delongis, A. (2013). Applying self-compassion in sport: An intervention with women athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35, 514-524.
  11. Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley. p. 322
  12.  Krusemark, E. A.; Campbell, W. Keith; Clementz, B. A. (2008). “Attributions, deception, and event related potentials: An investigation of the self-serving bias”. Psychophysiology. 45 (4): 511–515. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2008.00659.x. PMID 18282197.
  13. Blackwood, NJ; Bentall RP; Fytche DH; Simmons A; Murray RM; Howard RJ. (2003). “Self-responsibility and the self-serving bias: an fMRI investigation of causal attributions”. NeuroImage. 20 (2): 1076–85. doi:10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00331-8. PMID 14568477
  14. Greenberg, Jeff; Pyszczynski, Tom; Burling, John; Tibbs, Karyn (1992). “Depression, self-focused attention, and the self-serving attributional bias”. Personality and Individual Differences. 13 (9): 959–965. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90129-D.
  15. Larson, James; Rutger U; Douglass Coll (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.
  16. Walther, J. B.; Bazarova, N. N. (2007). “Misattribution in virtual groups: The effects of member distribution on self-serving bias and partner blame”. Human Communication Research. 33 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00286.x.
  17. Furnham, A. (1982). “Explanations for Unemployment in Britain”. Journal of European Social Psychology. 12 (4): 335–352. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420120402.
  18. De Michele, P.; Gansneder, B.; Solomon, G. (1998). “Success and failure attributions of wrestlers: Further Evidence of the Self-Serving Bias”. Journal of Sport Behavior. 21 (3): 242.
  19. Zaccaro, Stephen J.; Peterson, Christopher; Walker, Steven (1987). “Self-Serving Attributions for Individual and Group Performance”. Social Psychology Quarterly. 50 (3): 257–263. doi:10.2307/2786826. JSTOR 2786826.
  20. Sedikides, C., Campbell, W. K., Reeder, G. D., & Elliot, A. J. (1998). The self-serving bias in relational context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(2), 378–386. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.2.378
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  22. Dong, M., & Bocian, K. (2024). Responsibility gaps and self-interest bias: People attribute moral responsibility to AI for their own but not others' transgressions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 111, 104584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2023.104584
  23. Mezulis, A. H., Abramson, L. Y., Hyde, J. S., & Hankin, B. L. (2004). Is there a universal positivity bias in attributions? A meta-analytic review of individual, developmental, and cultural differences in the self-serving attributional bias. Psychological Bulletin, 130(5), 711-747. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.5.711
  24. Heine, S. J., & Lehman, D. R. (1997). The cultural construction of self-enhancement: an examination of group-serving biases. Journal of personality and social psychology, 72(6), 1268–1283. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.72.6.1268
  25. Ard, J. (2019). Self-serving bias and conveying a positive image to attract followers. Medium. https://jacqulineard.medium.com/impression-management-and-self-serving-bias-are-mandatory-on-social-media-in-order-to-convey-a-107af50d4952

About the Authors

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Dan Pilat

Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.

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Dr. Sekoul Krastev

Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.

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