Sport performance attributions: a special case of self-serving bias?

Abstract

In laboratory studies, it has been found that people tend to take credit for success and to blame external factors for failure. In sport studies, this self-serving bias has not been consistently demonstrated. Two studies explored factors hypothesized to account for differences between attributions made in laboratory and field settings. Study 1 was a laboratory experiment in which subjects performed a stair climbing task. It was hypothesized that these subjects would not make self-serving attributions because the laboratory setting had been designed to include features of athletic settings. Counter to the hypothesis, results indicated self-serving bias effects. Study 2 was a field study in which elite tennis players made attributions for their match performances. As in past sport research, self-serving attributions were not found. These results support contentions that sport settings differ from laboratory settings and that further theorizing is needed to explain self-serving bias processes in sport.