Self-Serving Bias Case Study

Human beings tend to falsely attribute the negative behaviours of others to their character, while they attribute their own negative behaviours to their environment. This happens because we like to believe that we do bad things because of the situations we are in, but somehow we easily come to the conclusion that others do bad things because they are predisposed to being bad. For example, when our boss manages poorly, we believe that he does it because he's ignorant, lazy, playing politics, too "full of him/herself" and is inherently a bad leader. When we manage poorly, we're simply making a mistake because of the pressure we're under, a deadline has to be met, we didn't have enough sleep etc.

Similarly, we often attribute other people's success to their environment and our own success to our character. That's because we like to believe that we

Self-Serving Bias. We tend to equate successes to internal and failures to external attributes. Imagine getting a promotion. Most of us will feel that this success is due to hard work, intelligence, dedication, and similar internal factors. But if you are fired, well obviously it's the state or the economy, a competitor destabilising the market, R&D not being innovative…. (Note - this bias is true for most people, but for those who are depressed, have low self-esteem, or view themselves negatively, the bias is typically opposite. For these people, a success may mean that a multitude of negatives have been overlooked or that luck was the primary reason. For failures, the depressed individual will likely see their own negative qualities, such as stupidity, as being the primary factor.)

As a manager/business leader, being aware of the Fundamental Attribution Error is applicable in a number of ways - are some of my employees struggling or succeeding because of who they are and what they're willing to do, or am I missing something about the context, the structure of their lives, the support that shapes their days and