Self-Serving Bias in Performance Goal Achievement Appraisals: Evidence From Long-Distance Runners.

Moonsup Hyun,Jeremy S Jordan,James Du,Wonsok F Jee,Taeyeon Oh,Christine Wegner

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.762436

Abstract

While working with a long-distance running event organizer, the authors of this study observed considerable differences between event participants’ official finish time (i.e., bib time) and their self-reported finish time in the post-event survey. Drawing on the notion of self-serving bias, we aim to explore the source of this disparity and how such psychological bias influences participants’ event experience at long-distance running events. Using evidence of 1,320 marathon runners, we demonstrated how people are more likely to be subject to a biased self-assessment contingent upon achieving their best finish time at the event. The study samples were split into record-high-achieved and record-high-missed groups, and the self-serving biases of each group were explored. Results from the t-test comparing record-high-achieved and -missed groups showed that runners in the record-high-missed group were significantly more likely to report a positively biased finish time than runners in the record-high-achieved group (p < 0.01). Additionally, results from logistic regression showed that as runners missed their best finish time by a wider margin, the probability of reporting a positively biased incorrect finish time increased. Lastly, we conducted an additional t-test and revealed that runners who are subject to self-serving bias showed a lower level of overall event satisfaction. The current study suggests one way to bypass the adverse effects of participant sport event participants’ worse-than-expected athletic performance. We specifically suggest that the event organizers target runners who had worse-than-expected performance and make extra efforts on non-race service attributes (e.g., finish line experience, rest and recovery area, and transportation after the event) because these runners are more likely to be unsatisfied with the event.

Highlights

IntroductionCompetition is often considered a key element of sports (Anderson-Butcher et al, 2014)
The number of runners who reported a positively biased finish time was significantly fewer than expected in the recordhigh achieved group (p < 0.01); only 36 out of 635 runners
Our findings aligned with the notion of self-serving bias; runners whose finish time fell short of their best finish time were more likely to report positively biased incorrect finish time than those whose time performance was better than their best finish time, despite the lack of external reward for doing so

Summary

Introduction

Competition is often considered a key element of sports (Anderson-Butcher et al, 2014). Self-Serving Bias of Long-Distance Runners spectator sport services context—who wins and who loses—have been identified as a core element of service quality evaluation (Greenwell et al, 2002; Theodorakis et al, 2013). Scholars studying participant sport services have likewise found that athletic performance in participant sport events is a critical antecedent of participants’ evaluations of their overall event experiences (Du et al, 2015; Hyun and Jordan, 2020). Failing to achieve a pre-determined athletic performance goal in a long-distance running event results in negative perceptions of the entire event (Hyun and Jordan, 2020). Runners who achieve their pre-determined goals tend to be more satisfied with the entirety of the event journey even if other service aspects were disappointing (Du et al, 2015)

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Discussion

Conclusion