Exploring Causes of the Self‐serving Bias

Shepperd, James A.; Malone, Wendi; Sweeny, Kate

doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00078.x

Cited by 222 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…54,55 For example, researchers found that students and teachers each attributed student success to themselves, but attributed student failure to one another. [56][57][58] Similarly, students who scored poorly on an exam were more likely to question the exam's validity than students who scored well.…”

Section: Self-serving Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Psychology of Biased Self-Assessment

Karpen

2018

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

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While the accreditation standards of most health-related disciplines emphasize the importance of selfawareness and accurate self-assessment, decades of social psychological research suggests that these standards will be difficult to attain. Indeed, a host of sub-conscious cognitive processes conspire to ensure that self-assessments are unjustifiably charitable. The review describes said cognitive processes, discusses the most common manifestations of biased self-assessment, and offers guidance on interventions. The review's overarching theme; however, is that because self-enhancement is so deeply engrained, it will be impossible to eradicate at a global level. The most effective interventions may be those that help students to function in spite of imperfect self-knowledge.Keywords: self, self-awareness, self-assessment, self-knowledge, bias, psychology Unbiased self-knowledge seems critical for professionals who routinely make life and health altering decisions.1-5 Indeed, Standard 4.1 of the Standards 2016 and Domain 4 of CAPE addresses it directly: The graduate is able to examine and reflect on personal, knowledge, skills, abilities, beliefs, biases, motivation, and emotions that could enhance or limit personal growth. Several lines of research in clinical education, however, suggest that both students' and clinicians' self-knowledge is often biased. 6-14The goal of this manuscript is to demonstrate that completely unbiased self-knowledge is neither attainable nor desirable, because bias is deeply engrained, and because the mechanisms that cause bias occur below awareness. 15 Consequently, the manuscript also argues that interventions that help students Consequences of Biased Self-AssessmentBefore entertaining solutions to a problem, one should assess its extent; hence, the manuscript reviews common situations in with peoples' estimates of their character, abilities, or future prospects are more optimistic than reality warrants. The manifestations include, the better than average effect, low correlations between ability estimates and actual performance, and One of the most common manifestations of biased self-knowledge is low correlations between ability estimates and actual performance. For example, only seven out of twenty papers in a meta-analysis of practicing physicians' self-assessment accuracy reported a moderate positive correlation between physicians' self-assessment and their performance; the remaining papers reported either non-significant or negative correlations. Like knowledge of one's abilities, knowledge of one's traits is imperfect. 21 The Big Five personality inventory-an instrument that classifies respondents in terms of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism-only correlates with related behaviors at 0.34 when the behaviors are performed in a lab 22 and 0.27 when the behaviors are performed outside of a lab. 23 In one of the most thorough investigations of the relationship between self-reports and behavior, researchers asked participants to wear an...

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Section: Self-serving Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Psychology of Biased Self-Assessment

Karpen

2018

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

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“…Thus, the results may be less generalizable to smaller worksites and other geographical areas. Second, it is possible that some participants externalized responsibility for some adverse events, by attributing fault to other factors (public vehicles for example) in cases where the event may have been contributed to by actions of the participant (Shepperd et al, 2008).…”

Section: Availability and Perceived Effectiveness Of Safety Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common hazards and their mitigating measures in work zones: A qualitative study of worker perceptions

2015

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Road construction and maintenance activities present challenges for ensuring the safety of workers and the traveling public alike. Hazards in work zones are typically studied using historical crash records but the current study took a qualitative approach by interviewing 66 workers from various work zones in Queensland, Australia. This supplemented and enhanced the limited available data regarding the frequency and nature of work zone crashes in Australia, provided worker insights into contributing factors, and assessed their opinions on the likely effectiveness of current or future approaches to hazard mitigation. Workers may not be aware of objective data regarding effectiveness, but their attitudes and consequent levels of compliance can influence both the likelihood of implementation and the outcomes of safety measures. Despite the potential importance of worker perceptions, they have not been studied comprehensively to date, and thus this study fills a significant gap in the literature. Excessive vehicle speeds, driver distraction and aggression towards roadworkers, working in wet weather, at night and close to traffic stream were among the most common hazards noted by workers. The safety measures perceived to be most effective included police presence, active enforcement, and improving driver awareness and education about work zones. Worker perceptions differed according to their level of exposure to hazards.

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“…Locke read many accounts of travelers and contemporary histories of the peoples in Europe, North America, and other places (Shepperd et al 2008). The problem was not a lack of interest in evidence but that the information he had was heavily tainted with colonial prejudice and the belief in an enormous gulf between "civilized man" and "savage man."…”

Section: Locke Like Hobbes Relies On a Common Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Modern scholarship backs him up with a great deal of research on what is now called "self-serving bias" (Shepperd et al 2008), but even if those sources had been available, Locke would not have needed to get bogged down citing them, because all people have experience with other people. Locke can rely on that shared experience to give them a good reason to accept his point.…”

Section: Locke Like Hobbes Relies On a Common Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%