CAUSALITY ORIENTATIONS AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SELF-SERVING BIAS

Theoretical work (Deci & Ryan, 1987) has implicated causality orientat ions as potential moderators of defensive attributions. The present st udy examined whether autonomy and control orientations moderate the at tributional tendency to take more responsibility for success than fail ure. We examined both additive and synergistic models of the effect of causality orientations on self-serving attributions. We found that th is self-serving bias disappeared for those with the unique combination of a high autonomy orientation and a low control orientation, thereby supporting a synergistic model. It was also shown that self-serving a ttribution was stronger for performance on a skill task than on a chan ce task. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.