Just
a reminder that the purpose of this discussion aims at stimulating
thought and self awareness as tools
to help those in recovery
from trauma learn how to make safer
choices. To make the discussion more jocular, we've defined
Cognitive Biases as “CranioRectal
Inversions” (CRI).
Like the
Blind Spot and Confirmation biases, the Self Serving Bias also serves
to preserve the ego by painting the self in a positive light. One of
many other attribution errors, anything that happens that benefits a
person is credited to their achievement and merit. This assumption
is sometimes true, but not always. The tendency helps us cope with
and manage our fear of failure so that we can find optimism in the
face of self-doubt.
In the
event of failure or negative outcomes, the Self Serving Bias can also
work to preserve ego by laying blame on some source other than the
self. If we get a favorable score on a test, we take the credit for
knowing the material and performing well. However, if we earn a low
score on the test, we can easily blame the test or the teacher or
some other factor to assuage our own feelings. We human beings tend
to find it easy to assign cause to anything but our own behavior or
limitations.
Competition
As in
the Blind Spot Bias, we also tend to judge situations differently,
depending on whether the issue at hand pertains to us. We tend to
prefer our own opinions and our own standing over that of others. If
we did poorly on a test and others scored better, we are less
inclined to admit that we were at fault. The other party who scored
higher just happened to be lucky that day. If they did poorly, we
will be far more inclined to believe that they didn't study enough.
(This is actually a classic example of the Fundamental Attribution
Error as well as the Self-Serving Bias, the primary focus of a post
yet to come.)
Are
you at risk?
According
to research, certain populations of people are more prone to the
self-serving bias than others. Older people tend to interpret events
as due to internal factors, so they are more likely to blame
themselves for failure. Statistically men prove more likely to lay
blame on external factors than women. People from certain cultures
are also more prone to fall into the trappings of the self-serving
bias.
High
demand environments punish individuality and personal success, and
people become conditioned to attribute success to the group – a
practice enforced by the group. In the event of failure, group
members learn to absorb blame, attributing the cause to their own
deficiencies. They become victims of circumstance because of the
illusion of helplessness. Those who are depressed or suffer from
poor self esteem also tend to absorb blame because of the illusion of
powerlessness.
The Self
Serving Bias can interfere with our ability to recognize our mistakes
and can drastically limit our personal growth. Accepting failures or
mistakes as very human experiences that all people face can help us
transform them into an opportunities for learning – our teachers
that help us find success.
For
Further Reading until the next post:
- Shermer's The Believing Brain
- Carroll's Skeptic's Dictionary
- Judith Herman's Trauma
and Recovery
