Abstract

The present experiment examined the effect of the privateㆍpublic nature of the attribution situation and individual differences in (collective) self-esteem on the self-serving and the group-serving attribution bias. Study 1 examined the hypothesis that the self-serving attribution regarding the performance in an individual task would be obtained only in the private attribution situation but not in the public situation, and that this tendency would be especially shown for the subjects high in self-esteem. The results of Study 1 however, only partially supported the hypothesis: whereas those high in self-esteem demonstrated the self-serving attribution and task evaluation regardless of the nature of the attribution situation, low self-esteem people showed such tendency only in the public attribution sitation. The results of Study 2 demonstrated a strong tendency of group-serving attribution regarding the results of group task performance. The results of Study 2 also showed that the group-serving external attribution was weakened in the public situation. The results also demonstrated teammate-serving attributions on the results of group task performance, which was intensified in the public situation. The results of Study 3 further supported the reliability and validity of the findings in Study 2, obtaining similar group-serving attribution in real-life situation. The theoretical and practical implications of these results were discussed.