Self-serving bias

Meaning: Self-serving bias is an attributional bias in which people explain their own successes with internal, dispositional causes (ability, effort) and their own failures with external, situational causes (bad luck). Two accounts are given: a motivational one, in which the pattern protects self-esteem, and a cognitive one, in which people expect to succeed and so credit themselves when they do. The effect is common but not universal; it varies across cultures and tends to be weaker in people with depression.

On the MCAT: A passage describes students who credit a high grade to intelligence but blame a low grade on an unfair exam, or athletes who credit wins to skill and losses to referees. You name the bias or predict that attributions shift with the outcome. It is paired with attribution theory, locus of control or self-esteem.

Common confusion: Do not confuse it with the fundamental attribution error, which concerns explaining other people's behavior by overweighting disposition over situation. Self-serving bias concerns your own outcomes and depends on whether the result was good or bad. The actor-observer bias is different again: situational explanations for your own behavior but dispositional ones for others'.