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To investigate the contribution of private perceptual biases and public descriptive distortions to self-serving attributions, a 2 (performance outcome) X 3 (response mode) factorial experiment was conducted. After receiving false feedback indicating that they had done well or poorly on a social-intelligence test, subjects' causal attributions for their performance were assessed on a device that was presented as either an infallible lie detector (reliable bogus pipeline), a fallible lie detector (unreliable bogus pipeline), or an apparatus without any lie-detectorlike properties. Regardless of response mode-even when subjects thought that misrepresentations of their true feelings would be detected-they made more internal attributions for their positive outcomes and more external attributions for their failures. In addition, subjects made more external attributions in the unreliable-as compared to the reliable-bogus-pipeline conditions. These results suggest that biases in private perceptions of causality and distortions in public descriptions of it both contribute to the attributional asymmetry following valenced outcomes.The tendency for individuals to take personal responsibility for their successes and to attribute their negative outcomes to situational causes has been referred to by terms such as the self-serving bias (e.g., Miller & M.

Previous research has shown that Ss placed in a forced-compliance situation will change their attitudes to justify their behavior under conditions in which they appear to be personally responsible for producing aversive consequences. In the present study 117 undergraduates were provided with either high or low initial choice for engaging in counterattitudinal behavior that produced aversive consequences. After performing the behavior, they received feedback from 3 observers which indicated that (a) all attributed low decision freedom to the Ss, (b) all attributed high decision freedom, (c) 2 attributed low freedom and 1 attributed high, or (d) 2 attributed high freedom and 1 attributed low. Attitude change toward the counterattitudinal position was obtained only when Ss had high initial choice and when a majority of the observers attributed high decision freedom. The data fail to support the contention that dissonance-like effects are irreversible. Also, Ss rated observers who attributed low decision freedom as more accurate than ones who attributed high freedom if they were initially assigned low choice or if the majority of observers attributed low freedom. Results suggest that attitude change is a tactic used to justify antinormative behavior when the behavior cannot be excused through responsibility denial. (30 ref)

To test directly cognitive and motivational explanations of self-serving biases in the field, 141 male and 116 female alpine ski racers provided attributions for their performance in competitions varying in rank on a 5-level hierarchy developed by the United States Ski Association. This hierarchy, which reflects the importance of races, functioned as a naturally-occurring manipulation of ego-involvement. Results supported the cognitive rather than the motivational explanation of divergent attributions for success versus failure. Racers made more internal attributions (to ability and effort) when they did well rather than poorly, but their ego-involvement in the race had no effects on their attributions. Consistent with previous field research, external attributions (to task difficulty and luck) were not affected by performance outcome.

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