Predicting the interpersonal targets of self-sewing attributions

People will, under certain conditions, attribute failure to an external tar get to avoid an unfavorable self-evaluation. But to what external target do people attribute failure? Based on Fritz Heider's analysis of similarity a nd attribution, we predicted that failure-a negative event-would be attribu ted to a similarly negative external target. Participants worked on a task ostensibly created by three other people and received failure feedback. Sel f-awareness was either high or low, and people believed that their likeliho od of improving in the future was either high or low. The valence of the fi ctional group members was manipulated such that one member was positive, an other was mildly negative, and the third was highly negative. As in past re search, highly self-aware persons who could not improve their failure attri buted failure externally, relative to the other conditions. Consistent with Heider's analysis, these participants perceived the negative roup members as being responsible for their failure relative to self and the positive gr oup member. Implications for the self-serving bias are discussed. (C) 2001 Academic Press.