Blaming luck, claiming skill: Self-attribution bias in error assignment
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Abstract
Mistakes are valuable learning opportunities, yet in uncertain environments, whether a lack of reward is due to poor performance or bad luck can be hard to tell. To investigate how humans address this issue, we developed a visuomotor task where rewards depended on either skill or chance. Participants consistently displayed a self-attribution bias, crediting successes to their own ability while blaming failures on randomness, an effect that influenced their subsequent decisions. Computational modelling revealed two underlying mechanisms—a distorted perception of ability and a positivity bias in the skill condition. Notably, while distorted self-perception shaped behaviour, it did not affect confidence; instead, self-attribution bias led to overconfidence in external blame. These findings suggest a more complex picture in which self-attribution biases arise from both perceptual distortions and post-decision evaluations, highlighting the need for an interplay between experimental design and computational modelling to understand behavioural biases.
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- Authors
- Okamoto, N., Taylor, M., Kubo, T., Ishii, S., De Martino, B., & Cortese, A.
- Affiliations
- Kyoto University (JP)
- University College London (GB)
- Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (JP)
- Venue
- PLOS Computational Biology
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2025-12-16
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- e1013787
- ISSN
- 1553-734X (ISSN-L)
- 1553-7358
- PMC
- PMC12753049
- OpenAlex
- W4417402417
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 1.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- new_version (2025-12-30)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS Computational Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (JPMJER1801)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP22H05156, JP22H04998, JP22H05163)
- Innovative Science and Technology Initiative for Security (JPJ004596)
- Japan Trust International Research Cooperation Program of the National Institute of Information and Communication
- JST SPRING (JPMJSP2110)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Keywords
- self-attribution bias, luck versus skill, overconfidence, reward uncertainty, visuomotor task
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Computer Simulation, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Psychomotor Performance, Reward, Self Concept, Computational Biology, Young Adult
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