Self-serving bias
The habit of taking credit for our successes while blaming outside factors for our failures. It protects our self-esteem.
In everyday life
A student who aces a test credits her hard work, but after failing the next one she blames the unfair questions.
When your team wins a pitch, you point to your slide design, and when the next pitch fails, you say the client never had the budget anyway.
Why your mind does this
To act at all, we need some belief that our choices matter and that we can pull them off. A bit of extra confidence gets us moving, keeps us going after setbacks, and protects our sense of self-worth and our standing in a group.
Its family, in 30 seconds: Confidence to act
How to spot it
Compare how you explain your wins with how you explain your losses, and check whether the causes switch sides.
How to counter it
After any result, name one thing you did and one outside factor that contributed, whether it went well or badly.
Same family: Confidence to act
- Overconfidence effect
- Social desirability bias
- Third-person effect
- False consensus effect
- Hard-easy effect
- Lake Wobegon effect
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Egocentric bias
- Optimism bias
- Forer effect
- Barnum effect
- Self-serving bias
- Actor-observer bias
- Illusion of control
- Illusory superiority
- Fundamental attribution error
- Defensive attribution hypothesis
- Trait ascription bias
- Effort justification
- Risk compensation
- Peltzman effect
SourcesMezulis et al. (2004)·Wikipedia