Self-Serving Bias:

Self-Serving Bias:

Self-Serving Bias is a common cognitive bias where people tend to attribute their successes to internal factors (like their own abilities or efforts) and their failures to external factors (like bad luck or other people).

Examples:

• Success: “I aced the test because I’m smart and studied hard.”
• Failure: “I failed the test because the teacher made it too hard.”

Purpose:

Self-serving bias helps protect self-esteem and reduce feelings of guilt or failure. It acts as a psychological defense mechanism.

Downsides:

• Can lead to overconfidence
• Inhibits learning from mistakes
• May cause conflicts in relationships if one always blames others

In Psychology:

It’s studied in attribution theory, which explores how people explain the causes of behavior and events.

Shervan K Shahhian