In which of the following instances might you have committed the self-serving bias?

• A. You consistently attribute both your successes and failures to external factors.
• B. You attribute your success on a difficult exam to your intelligence, but blame your failure on the exam being unfair.
• C. You attribute your friend's success to their hard work and your own failure to lack of effort.
• D. You always credit your group for your achievements and take responsibility for your mistakes.

Answer: (B)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Understand the concept of self-serving bias: it is a common cognitive bias where individuals attribute their successes to internal factors (like ability or effort) and their failures to external factors (like luck or task difficulty).
2. Analyze each option by checking whether the person attributes success internally and failure externally, which is the hallmark of self-serving bias.
3. For the first option, attributing both successes and failures to external factors does not fit the self-serving bias pattern because it does not protect self-esteem by taking credit for success.
4. For the second option, attributing success to intelligence (an internal factor) and failure to the exam being unfair (an external factor) perfectly matches the self-serving bias pattern.
5. For the third and fourth options, evaluate whether the attributions protect self-esteem by crediting oneself for success and blaming external factors for failure; if not, they do not represent self-serving bias.