Our explanations of our own admirable actions are ________ likely to involve situational attributions than our explanations of our own shameful actions.Our explanations of our own actions performed long ago are ________ likely to involve personality attributions than our explanations of our own very recent actions.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

For admirable actions, we are more likely to attribute them to our situational factors, like luck or external circumstances, rather than our personality. On the contrary, for shameful actions, we tend to attribute them to our personality traits like selfishness or stupidity. This is known as self-serving bias. As for the timing of the action, for very recent actions, we are more likely to attribute them to situational factors as they are more salient, while for past actions, we have limited information and hence more likely to attribute them to stable personality traits.

Our Explanations of Our Own Admirable Actions Are ________ Likely