Citation

Van Raalte JL. Aust. J. Sci. Med. Sport 1994; 26(3-4): 45-48.

Affiliation

Springfield College, Massachusetts, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Australian Sports Medicine Federation)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8665276

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.

Language: en