Aidan Skelly Blog 2

Whenever I do well on a test or quiz, I like to tell myself that it’s because I studied well and I am smart, not that the questions were easy. The opposite is true for when I don’t do so well. I like to tell myself that it wasn’t because I didn’t too well, but rather that the questions were hard and that everyone else I talked to also didn’t do well. This is called the self-serving bias.

The self serving bias occurs when you have a positive or negative outcome and your response to that. When the outcome is positive, we typically like to think that we caused it, making it internal. When the outcome is negative, however, we like to think that it was external factors that caused it, such as bad luck. This bias exists in so many things that we do.

 I think that this applies a lot to people who play sports. When I polevaulted in high school, I usually did well, or at least well to my standards. Occasionally, I would have a bad day if it was cold or windy. Other people would still do well, but if I didn’t, I would blame other things. It was never because I wasn’t warmed up enough, or that I just couldn’t do well. It was always because the wind was tough, or the pole was too cold. I never blamed myself. When I had good days, on the other hand, I would say its because I’m in the zone and I’m doing well.

The same applies in other sports also. My brother’s football team hasn’t won a game in 14 years. But even though they aren’t very good, he always blames the ref afterwards. My dad and I always laugh at him because we can almost always expect “Those calls were bullshit” after the game. My brother would always display to the self serving bias.

A similar effect to this is the fundamental attribution error. This is how we react when someone else does well. When someone does well, a lot of times we start to blame external factors. When a negative outcome occurs, we view it as the person’s fault. We don’t usually think of it as external factors.

To go back to my brother’s football games, when he tries to tell me that the refs were bad, I just sit back and listen to him ramble, even though I know he just lost because they’re bad. While there can be some bad calls in games, I don’t usually view it as the refs fault. This exemplifies the fundamental attribution theory.

I chose to discuss these ideas because out of everything that we talked about, I felt that these were things that I recognize a lot. I see it happen on a regular basis in various aspect of my life, from sports, academics, and much more.