How success enhances self-serving bias: A multinomial process model of the Implicit Association Test

• Zhongyang Wang

  School of Marxism, Wuhan University of Technology, and Office of Academic Research, Zhengzhou Normal University

• Yi Li

  Gyeongsang National University

• Zheng Jin

  Zhengzhou Normal University

• Timothy Tamunang Tamutana

  Zhengzhou Normal University

Self-serving bias is individuals’ belief that leads them to blame external forces when bad things happen and to give themselves credit when good things happen. To evaluate how underlying evaluative associations toward the self or others differ between individuals, and/or how the regulation mechanism of the influence of such associations differs, we used a multinomial process model to measure the underlying implicit self-esteem in these processes with 56 Chinese undergraduate students. The results indicated that participants assessed themselves as being better than others when their performance was followed by a desirable outcome. Subsequent application of the quadruple processes showed that both activation of positive associations toward self and regulation of the associations played important roles in attitudinal responses. Our findings may provide a supplementary explanation to that of previous results, promoting understanding of the mechanism underlying self-serving bias.

1. Yi Li, Gyeongsang National University
   Department of Ethics Education
2. Zheng Jin, Zhengzhou Normal University
   International Joint Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Science
3. Timothy Tamunang Tamutana, Zhengzhou Normal University
   International Joint Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Science

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