Explicit and Direct Self-Serving Bias in Japan

This study reports an experiment that was conducted to reexamine self-serving bias for success and failure among Japanese participants. Previous research has generally failed to find that Japanese participants exhibit a self-serving bias. However, with careful procedures added to reduce evaluation apprehension of participants, the participants in the success condition made more internal attribution than those in the failure condition. The authors discuss self-serving bias and self-critical bias in terms of evaluation apprehension and social norms.