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Self Serving Bias

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If I hosted a Psychology and Christian Life Seminar, the three studies I would present are stereotypes, the self-serving bias, and the cognitive dissonance theory. I would reflect on how these studies correspond with our human nature and how they affect our spiritual lives. Christians are saved by Jesus, but we still continue to sin like the rest of the world. These studies relate to us and to society as a whole. We are to avoid certain behaviors related to these behaviors and improve our Christ-like attitudes. The first study is the concept of stereotypes. Stereotypes are “sets of beliefs about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors of members of a particular group” (Nevid, 2015, p. 447). This concept is important because everyone, …show more content…
The self-serving bias is “the tendency to attribute personal successes to internal or dispositional causes and personal failures to external or situational causes” (Nevid, 2015, p. 449). When we succeed, we credit the successes to ourselves and only ourselves. If we fail, we blame others or the environmental factors relating to the failure. It is important to be aware of the self-serving bias and how it affects your daily life. Even though it “helps bolster self-esteem” (Nevid, 2015, p. 449), it also bolsters haughtiness and pridefulness. This can lead to a selfish attitude and ignorance to failure. If we fail, we may become angry at others and the world instead of accepting our failures. Sometimes when we succeed, we get caught up in ourselves and forget to thank God. God helped us succeed, therefore we should thank Him. With failure, some might blame God and become angry at Him. We need to learn to accept failure and move on with our lives. We should remind ourselves and others that God uses failures and setbacks in our lives to further His plans for us and to make successes. When we accept failure, we humble ourselves before God and others. By humbling ourselves, God will exalt us. As James says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10, New International

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