I didn't do it! Or did I? :O

For those of you who have seen 3 Idiots (I recommended this Bollywood movie in the last blog I wrote, remember? So you guys, better watch it now.. lol), do you recall Chatur saying “I didn’t do it” every time he farted and used to claim all the credit for the tested he scored on? Well, he was exercising what psychologists say, Self-Serving Bias (Gonzales, Pederson, Manning, & Wette, 1990; Weary 1980; Zukerman 1979), a self-deception technique.

Self serving bias is a pattern in which people claim all the credit for all the good that they do and deny their blame for failure attributing it to environmental factors. Haven’t we seen numerous politicians do the same during and after election (sometimes, they even seem to take credit for the work they haven’t done.. wonder what term will psychologists come up with to address this issue.. lol)?

I remember that when I visit a party and am complimented on how I look, I tend to (secretly) attribute it to the few minutes that I have spent dressing up. But many times I blame the not so-good-night sleep for the presence of dark circles and puffy face when I do not seem to be doing well on the appearance scale.. lol

In one of the studies, students were randomly told whether they had done well on a test or not. Those students who received positive results rated the test to be fair and effective than those students who got negative feedbacks (Kunda, 1990; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Holt, 1985; Wyer, & Frey, 1983). Haven’t we done this at some point or the other- in school for tests, in office for a presentation, in family for an outcome of the incident?

We all have done one or the other tricks to deceive our own self into believing something false, by giving ourselves credit for all the good that is done and not taking any blame for the pain of failure. So folks, next time that you see your friend doing this, please understand that they might be doing it only as a way to protect themselves from blow of failure that they might have experienced!

Doing it her way,

Nupur

P.S. that doesn’t mean that when I tell you the next time that we meet at a party that I had a looong stressful week which has led to the dark circles under my eyes and the puffiness on my face, that you reject my reasoning saying that she is only coping up with the failure of Not receiving compliments ;)