What psychological term refers to the tendency to attribute personal success to internal factors and failures to external factors?

The correct answer is self-serving bias. This psychological term describes a common tendency in which individuals internalize their successes by attributing them to personal traits or abilities, such as intelligence, effort, or skill. In contrast, when faced with failure, individuals are likely to blame external factors beyond their control, like bad luck, difficulty of the task, or situational constraints.

Self-serving bias plays a significant role in maintaining self-esteem and a positive self-image. By viewing successes as a reflection of their own capabilities and failures as a product of external circumstances, individuals can protect their self-worth and mitigate feelings of inadequacy. Understanding this bias is essential for comprehending how people evaluate their performance and manage their self-concept.

The other terms refer to different psychological concepts. The fundamental attribution error focuses on how people overemphasize personal characteristics and underestimate situational influences when interpreting others' behaviors. Confirmation bias involves searching for, interpreting, and recalling information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs. Cognitive dissonance describes the mental discomfort experienced when holding two contradictory beliefs or when actions do not align with beliefs. While all of these concepts are important in psychology, self-serving bias is specifically related to the attribution of success and failure as described in the