US High School Psychology Practice Exam

What term describes the tendency to attribute one's successes to internal factors and failures to external factors?

1. Self-serving bias

2. Fundamental attribution error

3. Confirmation bias

4. Hindsight bias

The correct answer is: Self-serving bias

The correct term for the tendency to attribute one's successes to internal factors, such as personal ability or effort, while blaming failures on external factors, such as situational influences or bad luck, is known as self-serving bias. This cognitive bias serves to enhance an individual's self-esteem and maintain a positive self-image. By crediting personal achievements to internal characteristics, individuals reinforce their sense of competence, while attributing failures to outside circumstances allows them to protect their self-worth from damage. In contrast, other biases mentioned do not accurately capture this behavior. The fundamental attribution error involves overemphasizing personality traits in others while downplaying situational influences, but it doesn’t focus on how individuals view their own successes and failures. Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to favor information that supports existing beliefs while disregarding contradictory evidence, and hindsight bias is the inclination to see events as having been predictable after they have already occurred, neither of which encompass the attribution patterns described in the question.