"Self-Serving" Attributions to Valenced Causal Factors A Field Experiment

TLDR: This article conducted a field experiment in which ski racers were randomly assigned to manipulated outcomes and then made attributions for these outcomes and found that participants attributed success more than failure to internal, facilitating factors, and failure more than success to internal debilitating factors.

Abstract: Previous field studies of self-attributions have used correlational methodologies. Consequently, one cannot be sure that the performance outcomes themselves produced the divergent attributions typically found. To address this problem, a field experiment was performed in which ski racers were randomly assigned to manipulated outcomes and then made attributions for these outcomes. A second problem with previous research concerns the wording of items assessing attributions. The wording itself might sometimes produce divergent attributions in the absence of any self-serving motivations. To address this issue, subjects made attributions to positively and negatively valenced factors. Although divergent attributions were found, they do not appear to be self-serving. Although participants attributed success more than failure to internal, facilitating factors, they also attributed failure more than success to internal, debilitating factors. These results support the information-processing, rather than the motivati...