Let the blame games begin | The Self-Serving Bias and its Antidote
Let us start these 5 minutes with a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJVywvj4H0k
As much as we all enjoyed this show and got some good laughs out of it, we see that when looked into closely, The clip shows a cognitive bias at play. This article aims to shed some light on one of those biases; the Self-Serving Bias a.k.a. self-evaluation bias, self-enhancement, self-presentation, self-assessment, all being branches of the same tree. Fundamentally, it is a form of cognitive bias that arises when we humans do not like to admit we are wrong but are ready to gladly take the center stage and credits if we turn out to be correct. Michael Scott’s character in The Office has exhibited the tendency to attribute all successes to himself but all failures to outside factors or people on many occasions. In this particular instance shown in the video, when the top execs applauded, it was only under his guidance that Dwight was able to push forward an idea to them. When they seemingly didn’t like the idea, it was all Dwight’s plan that sank the ship. We have all, at one point in our careers, come to face someone who unjustly takes credit for all successes and disowns responsibility for failures that may come by.
While the aforementioned tendency can almost be considered soul-satisfying and it may even help to cope with failure or self-doubt, it does have some measurable repercussions. I now ask myself, what is wrong with attempts at boosting one’s mood or self-esteem? Pulling from some of the analysis and reports of psychological research and surveys conducted clinically, it was found that well over half of the survey respondents typically rated themselves in the top 50% of Drivers (Svenson,1981), Ethics (Baumhart,1968), Managerial powers (Larwood and Whittaker,1977), Productivity (Cross,1977) and a variety of desirable skills when asked. This includes a large number of people overestimating their own contributions in joint tasks, which we witnessed Michael Scott do so on many occasions. The factors behind how these biases arise can be an area to be explored by itself and might be outside the scope of this article. But, we know that self-serving/evaluation results from different motivations wherein they may be explicitly requested by others or covertly done for own purposes. For instance, in some cases, overly positive self-reports may reflect self-protectiveness or issue-avoidance whereas in other cases the self-report results can be read as self-enhancement or motivational. Prominent areas where such a bias shows its ugly head and is able to throw one off economically, mentally, and socially are during cases of academic evaluations and during employee hiring or appraisal period. A classic example here would be the case of many fortune 500 companies. Today, more and more companies are turning to alternative ways of evaluating a worker’s performance and self-reviews or evaluations are one convenient option.
These methods primarily intend to give the manager valuable data on the quality of an individual’s performance. Referencing from the book ‘How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals’ that found study after study consistently demonstrating that individuals are notoriously inaccurate in assessing their own performance, and the poorer the performer, the higher (and more inaccurate) the self-appraisal, indicates the low validity of the method. Another problem that arises during such reviews is the inability for managers and their staff members to reach a consensus with regards to the meaning of “good performance”. The relationship between self-rank and a manager’s rank or that between self-rank and peer’s rank may seem unbalanced or erratic since it is only natural for the employees to rank themselves higher and hence appear more desirable, further indicating the low reliability and validity of the self-evaluation process. The results from the data gathered during such evaluations have a possibility of exhibiting high-levels of biases (including self-serving bias which skews the employee appraisal results) which ends up costing the company/firm a hefty amount with less actionable results.
Since cognitive biases are systemic deviations in the way we normally think, it can lead to errors in decision making or judgement that may affect an individual, or even a company or an institution. Some implications (apart from monetary) in the longer run include losing the opportunity to improve. The Self-Serving Bias can interfere with our ability to recognize our mistakes and can drastically limit our personal growth. We tend to get so used to using the bias as a shield, that instead of addressing our weaknesses, we are always on the lookout for external factors to blame, thus robbing us of the opportunity to improve and ultimately reflecting on one’s credibility and performance that in turn affect a larger group/company.
So, how might we avoid falling prey to this adventitious form of bias?
As many social psychologists, behavior change designers, and governments must have faced, it is not easy to bring about a drastic change in a well-established system. Asking a company or an institution to abolish a life-long tradition of self-reviews in order to minimize the effects of the self-serving bias, may not be well-received, especially when the acceptance of such review methods took a lot of time, money and effort. Thus, proposing a complete reversal in thinking is not an option. Finding a happy medium between administering a self-appraisal/review and being able to discuss the results with the manager can help establish an honest dialogue within a team as well as come up with actionable pointers or a road-map on how to improve/develop. Thus, not leaving it up to the employee to decipher or ignore the results of such appraisals. Starting with small steps, mindful awareness of this cognitive bias may go a long way and can be applicable not only in a professional space, but personal interactions as well wherein once they learn about common cognitive biases, they can start to notice themselves doing them, and self-correct or notify others.
