explanation is that excuses help people to present a favourable image to others. In order
to explore further this tendency for people to internalise their successes and to externalise
their failures, try the research exercise in Box 2.4.
Box 2.4 Exploring the self-serving bias by analysing sports reports in
newspapers (based on McIlveen, 1992)The “self-serving” attributional bias is a tendency for people to make internal attributions
for success and external attributions for failure. They do this mainly to protect their self-
esteem. But as this tendency has been usually tested using laboratory paradigms in which
the participants have little personal interest in the outcomes under consideration, it is
difficult to generalise such research to everyday life settings. This problem can be
overcome, however, by taking advantage of a naturally occurring situation in which
people are asked to give explanations for events which occured in their lives and which
affect them in significant ways (Lau and Russell, 1980). A good example of such a
situation is the post match interview with football managers. In this situation, self-serving
biases are likely to occur as managers try to explain the apparent causes of match
outcomes (see McIlveen, 1992).
Hypothesis
That victories in football matches will be attributed more frequently to internal than to
external factors whereas defeats will be attributed more frequently to external than to
internal factors.
Instructions
The first step in this exercise is to locate possible attributional content in newspaper
coverage of football matches. In particular, you should try to find twenty attributions for
team success or failure in matches involving the Premiership and/or First Division in
England. Both tabloid and broadsheet daily newspapers should be consulted in this
regard. Look out especially for quotations from players or managers that contain a
possible explanation for the outcome of the match. The match result could be coded
crudely as a success if the attributor’s team won the match and a failure if the team lost
the match. The perceived cause of the attribution should be deemed internal if the player
or manager referred to something personal about the team (e.g,, its character or ability) in
the explanation provided. Conversely, the locus of causality may be deemed external if
the player or manager attributed the result to something outside the team or its players
(e.g., bad weather).
Analysis
A 2×2 contingency table should be constructed in which outcome (success or failure)
and perceived cause (internal or external) are the row and column
variables, respectively. Next, enter the number of attributions that fall into each of the
four categories in this table. Then, using a chi-square test (check your statistics
book/notes to find out how to use this test) work out the statistical relationship between
Motivation and goal-setting in sport 47