Self-serving Bias in Predicting Marriage Success and Optimistic Judgment

Self serving bias is persons tendency to attribute positive (affirmative) results to self and negative results to external causes. The purpose of this study was to determine the existence of self-serving bias in: (1) predicting marriage success according to matched and no-matched attributes and (2) optimistic judgment among the undergraduate students. Thus 212 individuals were randomly selected (107 girls, 105 boys) from Isfahan University. A hypothetical scenario (Vignette) including marriage fitness characteristics was presented to the participants. Data were analyzed by multiple regression method with effect categorizing coding and t-tests. The findings indicated that the subjects recognized a subset of matched attributes better than asubset of no-matched attributes (p< 0.001). Also, the subjects judged optimistically about the p ossible occurrence of p ositive and negative events (p < 0.001). The female subjects, judged more optimistic than the males did. Contrary to oriental cultures, it seems that self-serving bias is more common in Iranian culture.