Final answer:
Self-serving bias attributes success to one's qualities while blaming external factors for failures, protecting self-esteem.
Step-by-step explanation:
Self-serving bias and confirmation bias are two types of cognitive biases that affect how we perceive and react to information. Confirmation bias causes individuals to only acknowledge information that supports their existing beliefs, potentially leading to misinformation. Self-serving bias refers to the tendency to attribute our successes to internal, dispositional factors and our failures to external, situational factors to maintain a positive self-image. For example, if you ace an exam, you might attribute it to your intelligence rather than the exam's difficulty. This bias helps protect our self-esteem.
On the other hand, confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and recall information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs and ignores contradictory evidence. This bias assists in creating a coherent view of the world but can also lead to mistaken conclusions if we disregard important information that doesn't align with our assumptions, such as ignoring evidence of a professor's kindness when believing they are unkind.