Sunday, March 27, 2011
Week Two: Is the Self-Serving Bias universal?
In my former life, I worked in an educational setting with kiddos who many times lived in less than ideal settings. A number of them were homeless, migrants, or had some previous trauma that left their self-esteem in shambles. While reading the excerpt of Self-Serving Bias, I found myself disagreeing with the researchers Hamachek and Sypher that universally humans are inclined to attribute success to some positive personal factor. I base my opinion on the experience working with these kiddos. Specifically, it was difficult for the older students to accept that had been responsible for something good they had done. More often, they attributed their successes to an external situation (luck, the teacher,etc) because they lacked a positive self-image and it made them uncomfortable to consider themselves anything but negative.
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I agree with your assessment, I think it is more a factor of an external vs internal locus of control. Our readings looked at it a little differently, but I think our self-esteem plays a big role in which focus we associate with. If everything good is out of your control in your formative years, it would make sense that you would assign good outcomes to external factors. Good thought, thanks. bj
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point. I don't believe that we can say any communicative function is universal. Humans are too complex for that. We can certainly indicate patterns and trends in human behavior, but we each encounter myriad factors that will influence the extent to which we mirror those patterns. I didn't get a chance to point to it last night, but there has been work done looking at the relationship between attachment styles and attributions, which seems related to your example. Good insights!
Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. My mother works with developmentally disable children in a public high school setting. Most of them come from homes that are less than ideal. She tells me stories all the time about parents who do not engage with their children and use public school as a "dumping ground". These children have very low self esteem and when they do accomplish something or do well on an exam, they always assume it's because the teacher graded the paper wrong, or the test was to easy, etc...
Very interesting in contrast with this theory.
That is an extremely interest comment on background/what people attribute to their success. It's dually not that hard to believe and sad.
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