Self Serving Attribution

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Self-serving attributions are explanations of one’s successes by internal factors, and attributions of one’s failures to external factors. This procedure is common in everyday life and could be a hindrance to one’s ability to reach their full potential. My personal example is related to school, an area where internal motivation leads to success, but blaming failures on others is a much easier way out. In one of my classes the requirement is to present on two topics to our class. The professor and the TA mark our presentations during both the actual presentation and the question and answer period. Although this is a normal procedure for many classes, our class lacks a grading rubric, which is where my personal example of self-serving attributions is derived from. On one presentation, I did very well and was pleased with the mark and took all the credit for my success based on the hard work and time I had put into creating and practicing the presentation. On the other presentation, I did not fare as well, and my mark was not as high as the first. This led me to place blame of my decreased performance on the lack of a rubric, and thus to unfair or inconsistent marking. However, when the situation was in my favor, I took credit for the success. After learning about this concept I can now see the fault in my logic and how by attributing my poor performance to external factors rather than myself, I can harm my future performance and personal improvement. By being more internally motivated about my performance I can avoid the harming factors of heuristics. Striving to please others or just to meet the basic requirements is an underlying issue related to the use of heuristics. One should always look within themselves for their motivation and for criticism, rather than looking to others and using external

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