Self-serving Bias Research Articles

Attitudes to inequality: preferences and beliefs

Abstract To understand attitudes to inequality, we need to study people’s fairness preferences and beliefs about the sources of inequality. This article reviews the existing experimental literature on fairness, including our new study ‘Fairness Across the World’ that collected novel data on attitudes to inequality in 60 countries. We establish that people in general are more willing to accept inequalities that reflect differences in performance than inequalities that reflect differences in luck—and that people care more about fairness than efficiency. We also document that people differ in their fairness preferences both within and between countries. Richer countries are more meritocratic, and, correspondingly, richer people are more meritocratic within countries. People also differ in their beliefs about the sources of inequality both between and within countries, and the evidence is consistent with people having a self-serving bias in beliefs.

An Empirical Investigation of the Relationships Among Self-Esteem, Depression and Self-Serving Bias in People with Internet Gaming Disorder.

People are generally characterized by a self-serving bias which describes the tendency to ascribe positive outcomes or success to internal or personal causes (self-enhancement motivation) and ascribe negative outcomes or failure to external or situational causes (self-protection motivation). It has been found that the individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) who have low self-esteem and high depression exhibit an attenuated self-serving bias. However, the relationships among self-esteem, depression and self-serving bias are not clearly identified. A sample of 138 IGD participants completed self-esteem and depression scales and a causal attribution task (Study 1) to examine the relationships among self-esteem, depression and self-serving bias (both self-enhancement and self-protection). In follow-up Study 2, 28 IGD participants were recruited to undertake self-affirmation intervention which can affirm one's sense of global self-view and bolster self-esteem to explore whether self-affirmation would trigger a reduction of depression and a raise of self-serving bias. The results of path analysis in Study 1 showed that the self-serving bias was predicted by self-esteem and depression, and the depression played a mediating role between self-esteem and self-serving bias. The results of Study 2 showed that the IGD participants reported higher self-esteem, lower depression and engaged in more self-protection motivation after affirming-self manipulation as compared with affirming-other manipulation. These findings suggest that self-esteem predicts self-serving bias through depression and self-affirmation could trigger an increase of self-esteem, further decrease depression and improve self-serving bias for the individuals with IGD. The present article clearly identified the relationships among these factors and provided a new approach to promote positive self-concept in individuals with IGD. Future research is warranted to explore the lasting benefits of self-affirmation on domains of education, relationships and gaming withdrawal for the individuals with IGD among different populations.

Evidence of a self-serving bias in people's attributions for their food intake

People often fail to acknowledge external influences on their food intake, but there might be some circumstances in which people are willing to report that those external factors influenced their behavior. This study examined whether participants who believed that they had overeaten would indicate that the portion size they were served influenced their food intake. Participants (119 women) ate a pasta lunch at two separate sessions, one week apart. At the second session, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a regular portion of pasta (the same portion as the first session) or a large portion of pasta (a portion that was twice the size), and to receive false feedback about their food intake indicating that they had either eaten about the same as or substantially more than they had at the previous session. Participants were then asked to indicate the extent to which the amount of food served influenced how much they ate at that second session. Compared to participants who were informed that they had eaten the same amount across the two sessions, those who were informed that they ate more at the second session reported a stronger influence of the amount of food served if they also received a large portion of pasta, but not if they received a regular portion of pasta. These findings suggest that the willingness to implicate external influences (e.g., portion size) on one's food intake may be driven by a self-serving bias, providing an “excuse” for overeating. However, the external cue must be salient enough to be a plausible explanation for one's behavior.

Consumer autonomy: A strategy to alleviate the self-serving bias in tourism value co-creation

Although consumers are increasingly collaborating with service providers to create value in the tourism industry, the potential for self-serving bias (i.e., taking credit or deflecting blame onto others) can be detrimental to co-creation. There is a lack of research addressing how such unproductive effects can be reduced from the perspective of consumer autonomy. To bridge this gap, this study investigates the consumer self-serving bias effect and the mitigating role of autonomy within four scenario-based experiments. Our findings reveal that consumers demonstrate self-serving bias when they are involved in the co-creation process. This bias can be significantly reduced when consumers have autonomy of whether and what to co-create. The study also shows that autonomy of with whom to co-create, does not reduce self-serving bias. This study extends the consumer autonomy and value co-creation literature in tourism services and offers practical insights into the effective management of value co-creation.

Unearned Inequality and Biased Distributional Preferences: Evidence from a Lab Experiment in Ghana

I use a dictator game, with a preceding production phase, to explore how different sources of unearned inequality influence distribution decisions. The experiment introduces three inequalities: (1) inequality due to investment success, (2) inequality of initial endowments, and (3) inequality in a real-effort task requirement for receiving the initial endowment. I find that participants in rural Ghana respect each inequality, adjusting their allocation decisions in response to investment success, the distribution of initial endowments, and the effort requirement. Their distributional preferences suggest an interaction between the sources where those with high initial endowments are more likely to respect project success outcomes. Moreover, participants demonstrate a self-serving bias in fairness preferences, where those with high initial endowments and successful projects are more likely to respect inequality. Finally, I find a significant increase in self-allocations when participants must exert effort to receive their endowment.

Implications of Large Language Models for Quality and Efficiency of Neurologic Care: Emerging Issues in Neurology.

Large language models (LLMs) are advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems that excel in recognizing and generating human-like language, possibly serving as valuable tools for neurology-related information tasks. Although LLMs have shown remarkable potential in various areas, their performance in the dynamic environment of daily clinical practice remains uncertain. This article outlines multiple limitations and challenges of using LLMs in clinical settings that need to be addressed, including limited clinical reasoning, variable reliability and accuracy, reproducibility bias, self-serving bias, sponsorship bias, and potential for exacerbating health care disparities. These challenges are further compounded by practical business considerations and infrastructure requirements, including associated costs. To overcome these hurdles and harness the potential of LLMs effectively, this article includes considerations for health care organizations, researchers, and neurologists contemplating the use of LLMs in clinical practice. It is essential for health care organizations to cultivate a culture that welcomes AI solutions and aligns them seamlessly with health care operations. Clear objectives and business plans should guide the selection of AI solutions, ensuring they meet organizational needs and budget considerations. Engaging both clinical and nonclinical stakeholders can help secure necessary resources, foster trust, and ensure the long-term sustainability of AI implementations. Testing, validation, training, and ongoing monitoring are pivotal for successful integration. For neurologists, safeguarding patient data privacy is paramount. Seeking guidance from institutional information technology resources for informed, compliant decisions, and remaining vigilant against biases in LLM outputs are essential practices in responsible and unbiased utilization of AI tools. In research, obtaining institutional review board approval is crucial when dealing with patient data, even if deidentified, to ensure ethical use. Compliance with established guidelines like SPIRIT-AI, MI-CLAIM, and CONSORT-AI is necessary to maintain consistency and mitigate biases in AI research. In summary, the integration of LLMs into clinical neurology offers immense promise while presenting formidable challenges. Awareness of these considerations is vital for harnessing the potential of AI in neurologic care effectively and enhancing patient care quality and safety. The article serves as a guide for health care organizations, researchers, and neurologists navigating this transformative landscape.

Brief mindfulness intervention attenuates self-serving bias rather than boosts self-enhancement

Brief mindfulness intervention attenuates self-serving bias rather than boosts self-enhancement

Effect of anthropomorphic design and hierarchical status on balancing self-serving bias: Accounting for education, ethnicity, and experience

To address the issue of self-serving attributional bias linked to automation technology and artificial intelligence (AI), this study recruited a gender-balanced sample to investigate the positive effects of perceived anthropomorphism and hierarchical status of computer systems on users’ self-accountability and use intention. The specific research context was intelligent vehicles, a common form of automation and AI. Findings showed that anthropomorphism can significantly boost user self-accountability for both successes and failures, while hierarchical status primarily affected accountability for failures. Besides, the positive effects of anthropomorphism on self-accountability and use intention were mediated by cognitive empowerment and social rewards, respectively. This study also found that educational background amplified the impact of anthropomorphism, whereas ethnic differences moderated the effects of hierarchical status on self-accountability. Furthermore, incident experiences were found to positively moderate the relationship between hierarchical status and use intention, which indicates the need for more safety-focused strategies for human-computer interaction (HCI). In general, this study presented a promising strategy for academia and industry in designing human-like interactions to balance self-serving bias and foster self-accountability, which can potentially result in more inclusive and effective HCI experiences.

Mechanism of Formation and Propagation of Internet Rumors from the Perspective of Social Psychology

Rumor is a typical social public opinion phenomenon. With the advent of the internet era, the intensity and breadth of internet rumors have increased, resulting in more profound and prominent impacts on society. Current research on internet rumors mainly involves theoretical analysis, but lacks a clear, common theoretical perspective. The social psychology communication perspective is precisely the perspective that studies how social information is disseminated, how individuals and groups in society perceive information dissemination, and how individuals and groups in society respond to information dissemination. This study argues that the social psychology communication perspective is an important theoretical perspective for analyzing the phenomenon of internet rumors. This study suggests that mechanisms such as diffusion of responsibility, cognitive closure, thinking patterns, self-serving bias, and emotional contagion contribute to the continuous generation and rapid spread of internet rumors. This paper also proposes countermeasures and suggestions for governing internet rumors from the perspectives of multiple social entities such as media and regulatory agencies.

Collectives closer to the self are anticipated to have a brighter future: Self-enhancement in collective cognition.

Collective future thinking is a budding research field concerned with the act of imagining possible events in the future of a collective-typically one's nation. Prior research has shown that people imagine more positive than negative events in the personal future but more negative than positive events in the collective future. This interaction has been interpreted as a valence-based dissociation between collective and personal cognition. We examine if degrees of self-relatedness may account for these effects. In Study 1, participants (N = 299) imagined events in the future of their country and family, rated how central they viewed these collectives to their self and identity and rated the collectives' futures for positive and negative valence. Positive and negative valence of the imagined collective futures was strongly associated with how central the collectives were viewed to the self. In Study 2, participants (N = 306) rated self-centrality, personal agency, and moral decline perceived for their country. All three measures explained independent variance in how positive the future was for their country. In Study 3, participants (N = 310) self-nominated collectives that they viewed as highly versus minimally central to their self and identity. The futures of highly central collectives were rated more positive than negative, whereas such positive bias was absent for the futures of minimally self-central collectives. Overall, the findings indicate that a continuum of different degrees of self-relatedness may explain the Valence × Domain interaction in previous work, and suggest a need to integrate research on collective future thinking with self-serving biases in social cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

What to Blame? Self-Serving Attribution Bias with Multi-Dimensional Uncertainty

Abstract People often receive feedback influenced by external factors, yet little is known about how this affects self-serving biases. Our theoretical model explores how multi-dimensional uncertainty allows additional degrees of freedom for self-serving bias. In our primary experiment, feedback combining an individual’s ability and a teammate’s ability leads to biased belief updating. However, in a follow-up experiment with a random fundamental replacing the teammate, unbiased updating occurs. A validation experiment shows that belief distortion is greater when outcomes originate from human actions. Overall, our experiments highlight how multi-dimensional environments can enable self-serving biases.

Effects of Embarrassment on Self-Serving Bias and Behavioral Response in the Context of Service Failure.

Previous research has focused on examining embarrassment in sensitive product purchase situations. Although embarrassment is a widespread emotion in consumption situations, few studies have explored its impact on service encounters, especially in the service failure context. This study examines how customers react to different service failures that cause embarrassment and explores whether self-serving bias exists when customers perceive higher embarrassment in service failure. This study uses a 2 (source of failure) × 2 (level of embarrassment) scenario experimental method to examine the effect of two sources of failure on consumer locus attributions, negative emotions, and negative behaviors, considering the moderating effects of the level of embarrassment. Data were collected from 218 student subjects in Taiwan. The results show that embarrassment is important in service failure contexts. Specifically, when consumers perceive higher embarrassment, they attribute more responsibility to the service provider. These attributions, in turn, influence customers' emotions and behavioral responses. These findings have several important theoretical and practical implications in terms of embarrassing service failures.

'Magic cosmetic fillers': Appearance-enhancement effects on self-face recognition.

People naturally exhibit a self-serving bias which can be observed in their tendency to judge their own physical attractiveness more favourably than that of others. Despite this positive self-perception, minimally invasive cosmetic injectable procedures for facial rejuvenation and enhancement are becoming increasingly common. It remains unclear, however, whether recognizing an altered version of one's own face, enhanced cosmetically, correlates with a positive view of cosmetic surgery and excessive preoccupations about physical characteristics perceived as defects (body dysmorphic concerns). In this study, 30 healthy female participants, aged 18-24 years (Mage = 21.1 years, SD = 1.6), engaged in a face recognition task during which their faces were digitally morphed with that of gender-matched unfamiliar women who had undergone cosmetic enhancements, specifically lip and cheek fillers. The duration of exposure to these modified faces varied with short (500 msec) and long (2000 msec) viewing periods. Participants were asked to identify whether the digital morphs represented themselves or the other woman. Self-reports regarding acceptance of cosmetic surgery and dysmorphic concerns were collected. Participants PSE indicated a tendency towards self-bias under short presentation times, shifting towards the other as presentation times lengthened. Interestingly, this effect was associated with greater acceptance of cosmetic surgery and higher body dysmorphic concerns. This study underscores the importance of understanding how perceptions of others' physical appearances can influence self-recognition and attitudes towards cosmetic surgery, which may have both positive and potentially harmful implications.

Partially Impartial Spectator

According to Adam Smith, we appeal to the imagined reactions of an ‘impartial spectator’ when justifying moral judgements of others and aspire to be impartial spectators when making judgements of ourselves. However, psychological research has shown that trying to be impartial will often have the paradoxical effect of reinforcing other-directed prejudice and self-serving bias. I argue that we can get around this problem by aspiring to be ‘partially impartial spectators’ instead.

How the Dunning-Kruger Effect Impairs Professional Judgement in High-risk Professions

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with limited expertise in a given area overestimate their own competence and subsequently make poor decisions. In this paper, we review the bias in high-risk professions, within which overestimations of self-efficacy can lead to harmful and even fatal consequences. We explore the bias's effect on students (in medicine and aviation) whose inexperience assigns them a higher disposition to unmerited confidence. Moreover, we address the bias's effect in criminal investigations and emergency situations. This review finds that Dunning's dual burden account partnered with a self-serving bias is the best explanation for the Dunning-Kruger effect. The cognitive bias is ubiquitous and leads to insupportable degradations in professional performance. The bias was prevalent among medical and aviation students and also adversely affected the criminal investigation process: investigators ignored a self-evaluation process needed to improve interrogation skills. The principal correctives to the cognitive bias (Rahmani, 2020) are twofold. Firstly, management needs to be aware of the effect and understand that subordinates' projected self-confidence does not necessarily correlate to capability. Secondly, an organizational structure incorporating continual constructive criticism and evaluation from numerous sources is essential. Supervisors should not rely solely on self-assessment and should remember that self-doubt is critical to improvement.

The Significant Factors Influencing Individual’s Perceptions of Pay Gap

Various studies have shown that there exist gender-related inequalities in employee compensation. Yet, individuals may also develop affective and behavioural outcomes based on their perceptions of whether they experience such inequalities or observe such inequalities (dis) favouring others. This paper seeks to examine the different factors that could be linked to individuals' pay gap perceptions. The study aims to analyze how demographic factors can significantly impact individuals' perceptions of the pay gap by looking at the relationship between the two variables, where the demographic factors are the independent variable and the perceptions become the dependent variable. The survey was made by adapting from two previous studies about gender discrimination. Hypotheses were tested by utilizing a hierarchical linear regression through SPSS with a sample size of 217 participants from 3 continents: Europe, Asia, and America. Findings showed that gender, age, marital status and equity sensitivity are significantly linked to pay gap perceptions. Specifically, the study found that individuals reported higher pay gap discrimination against their own gender and benefitting the opposite gender. The limitations of this study include its small sample size and cross-sectional design, which affects the generalizability of its findings. This research contributes to the literature on employee compensation, as it features some factors that are linked to individual pay gap perceptions. Theoretically, the paper suggests that self-serving bias and gender role theories potentially influence individuals’ wage and justice perceptions. The paper also provides insights that could help HR professionals design better compensation and communication practices.

When thinking you are better leads to feeling worse: Self-other asymmetries in pro-social behavior and increased anxiety during Covid-19.

Self-serving biases (e.g., beliefs that one tends to perform better than peers) are generally associated with positive psychological outcomes like increased self-esteem and resilience. However, this tendency may be problematic in the context of collective action problems, wherein individuals are reliant on others' pro-social behaviors to achieve larger goals. We examined this question in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, and recruited participants for an online study (n = 1023) from a university community in Spring 2020. We found evidence for self-peer asymmetries in Covid-related knowledge and restriction behavior, such that participants reported that they knew more about Covid-related symptoms, were doing more to stop the spread of the disease, and were more pro-socially motivated in doing so than peers. Actual peer reports indicated that these were overestimations. This self-enhancement comes with a cost: the perceived self-peer restriction behavior asymmetry had an indirect effect on the positive relationships both from Covid-specific worry and from perceived stress to general anxiety symptom intensity during the early lockdown period. People tended to have more severe symptoms of anxiety when they were more worried about Covid-19 and when they reported greater perceived stress, especially when they underestimated others' contributions to public health action relative to their own. This suggests that lack of trust in others' pro-sociality may be personally maladaptive for mental health.

They Saw a Game! Impact of Consumers’ Self-Serving Bias on Moral Disengagement and Subsequent Tolerant Responses Toward Athlete Scandals

Abstract: This research attempted to examine the tolerant responses of sport fans to scandalized athletes by drawing on fans’ self-serving bias and attribution theory. To this end, we conducted a quasi-experimental study ( n = 219). The results of SEM analysis indicate that fans with a high team identification reported a greater level of external attribution than those with low team identification, while fans with low team identification reported a greater level of internal attribution than those with high team identification. Also, external attribution had positive impacts on moral disengagement, while internal attribution had negative impacts. We found that sport fans become more forgiving by activating moral disengagement. The present study further extends the literature by investigating how the level of team identification can evoke differential consumer responses toward a wrongdoer and enabling practitioners to make informed decisions on whether they should keep ties with troubled athletes.

Diversity, equity and inclusion in employee-queer customer interactions in the hospitality service setting: including multiple stakeholders’ perspectives

PurposeDrawing from cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) and attribution ambiguity theory (AAT), this paper aims to examine how employees interact with queer customers within the hospitality service and the ways that queer representations regulate emotions when discriminated against by normative gender roles.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a mixed method. Study 1 used firm-level secondary data to analyze hospitality firms’ efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the effects on firms’ profit margins and customer satisfaction. In Study 2, an experimental design was used to understand how employees’ assailing behavior toward queer customers interacts with employee feelings of guilt and impacts their sabotage and organizational citizenship behavior via self-serving bias. Study 3 further explored how queer customer victimization interacts with stress to influence their perceptions of organization DEI authenticity and corporate social responsibility (CSR) through resilience.FindingsHospitality firms’ DEI efforts were associated with varying outcomes, including higher profit margins but lower customer satisfaction, while guilt weakened the impact of employees’ assailing behavior on their outcomes and customer stress amplified the effect of assailing behavior on queer customers’ perceptions of DEI authenticity and CSR through resilience.Research limitations/implicationsHospitality organizations should take proactive measures to address self-serving bias among employees. Moreover, fostering an inclusive culture is crucial, with managers playing a pivotal role in facilitating discussions and creating an environment that values diversity, inclusivity and respect for all employees.Originality/valueThe study makes a remarkable contribution to hospitality literature by focusing on CDT and AAT in providing valuable implications for DEI advocators to be aware of the tensions between heteronormativity and queer representations in service encounters.

Challenges in Data Driven Decision Making in the Early Stages of a Startup

Entrepreneurship is usually considered a chaotic process paved with uncertainties. Without a method to the madness, entrepreneurship can become detrimental to the well-being of the entrepreneur. The early stage of a start-up refers to all important activities that help identify a potential business from an idea. This discovery process is characterized by stress and uncertainty which makes data-driven decision-making particularly challenging. Unlike mature phases (post-launch and product-market fit phase) where data is available in plenty, early phase decision-making depends on either limited data or generating one’s own data. Uncertainty gives rise to biases in decision-making. The two most negatively impacting biases are confirmation bias and self-serving bias. In combination, they affect the way an entrepreneur in the early phase interprets both data and the consequences of his/her decision. Through a qualitative interview-based study involving 30 entrepreneurs in the early phase and 10 entrepreneurs in the mature stage, this study focuses on recognizing the presence of these biases and proposes a habit-based process for grooming early-stage entrepreneurs. The scientific principles underlying the proposed framework have been detailed out and pragmatic solutions for improving early-phase decision-making have been derived.