Final answer:
a) Self-serving bias . The term describing the tendency to credit success to personal factors while attributing failures to external circumstances is self-serving bias. This bias is related to attribution theory and helps maintain a positive self-image by providing favorable explanations for our actions.
Step-by-step explanation:
The term that describes the tendency to attribute successful outcomes to internal causes and unsuccessful outcomes to external, situational causes is self-serving bias. This cognitive bias helps protect our self-esteem by allowing us to take credit for our success, attributing it to our own abilities, talents, or effort, while blaming failures on external factors beyond our control. This is culture-dependent, and it serves as a psychological defense mechanism to maintain a positive self-image.
Self-serving bias is a part of attribution theory, which considers how individuals explain events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Attributions are categorized based on locus of control, stability, and controllability. An internal locus of control assumes personal responsibility, while an external locus attributes outcomes to external circumstances. Stability addresses whether these circumstances are expected to change, and controllability relates to the individual's perceived influence over those circumstances. The self-serving bias gravitates towards internal attributions for successes and external for failures.
To illustrate with an example, if a student believes they performed well on an exam due to their intelligence (an internal, stable, and controllable factor), but attribute a poor grade on a paper to the professor's dislike of them (an external, possibly unstable, and uncontrollable factor), they are demonstrating self-serving bias.