Psychology

RESEARCH PAPER

Coping Strategies as Mediating Variables Between Self-serving Attributional Bias and Subjective Well-Being

Pilar Sanjuán • Alejandro Magallares

Published online: 18 March 2013 � Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Self-serving attributional bias (SSAB) is defined as the tendency to attribute

positive situations to internal, stable and global causes, and negative situations to external,

unstable and specific causes. SSAB, like other manifestations of the self-enhancement

motive, is aimed at protecting self-esteem, and therefore expected to be associated with

well-being. Furthermore, given the features of this bias, this possible positive association

between SSAB and well-being could be mediated by coping strategies. In this study, we

wanted to analyze the relationships among SSAB, coping strategies and subjective well-

being. Two hundred and five individuals (90 male and 115 female, mean age = 35.99,

ranging from 22 to 50) participated voluntarily in this study. Path analysis showed that

SSAB had an indirect effect on life satisfaction (the cognitive component of subjective

well-being) through the affect balance (the emotional component of subjective well-being).

In turn, SSAB had both a direct and an indirect effect on affect balance. The indirect effect

was through the use of problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring coping

strategies as well as the non-use of avoidant ones. These results suggest that well-being

promotion programs should aim at encouraging the use of problem solving and positive

cognitive restructuring coping strategies, as well as promoting healthy attributional styles.

Keywords Self-serving attributional bias � Positive attributions � Affect balance � Life satisfaction � Subjective well-being � Problem solving coping � Positive cognitive restructuring coping � Avoidant coping

P. Sanjuán � A. Magallares School of Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain

P. Sanjuán (&) Facultad de Psicologı́a, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, C/Juan del Rosal, 10 – Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

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J Happiness Stud (2014) 15:443–453 DOI 10.1007/s10902-013-9430-2

1 Introduction

Self-serving attributional bias (SSAB) is defined as the tendency for individuals to explain

positive situations through internal (the cause of positive situations comes from within),

stable (the cause of positive situations will continue in the future), and global (the cause of

positive situations will arise in lots of different areas) causes, and negative situations

through external (the cause of negative situations comes from someone or something else),

unstable (the cause of negative situations will not repeat itself in the future), and specific

(the cause of the negative situation only arises in specific circumstances) causes (Mezulis

et al. 2004). SSAB is considered to be one of the manifestations of the self-enhancement

motive, or tendency to see oneself in a positive way (Baumeister 1998; Taylor and Brown

1988). Research has shown that the different ways of self-enhancement, including SSAB,

seek to protect self-esteem (Campbell and Sedikies 1999), which is the best predictor of

well-being in individualistic countries (Cross and Markus 1999; Heine 2001). Therefore,

researchers have also proposed that SSAB may be associated with well-being.

In research on the relationships between SSAB and well-being, most studies have used

indirect measures of well-being, that is, assessing negative symptoms, such as anxiety or

depression. Results of these studies have shown that SSAB is negatively associated with

psychological distress (Sweeney et al. 1986) and psychopathologies, such as depression

(Alloy et al. 1997; Mezulis et al. 2004), anxiety (Fresco et al. 2006; Mezulis et al. 2004) or

schizophrenia (Moore et al. 2006).

However, well-being is not merely the absence of psychological distress or psycho-

pathology (Keyes 2002). People who are not depressed or anxious are not necessarily

happy or satisfied, so it is important to investigate the relationships between SSAB and the

positive side of well-being. For that reason, we focus here on subjective well-being (Diener

2000; Diener et al. 2002), which is so called because it highlights that what is most

important is not the objective measures on quality of life but how people subjectively

perceive and interpret reality and how that in turn makes them feel. Subjective well-being

has two components, one cognitive and the other affective. The cognitive component

entails the evaluation of life satisfaction as a whole, while the affective one refers to

predominance of positive over negative affect or affect balance.

So far no mechanism has been proposed to explain the negative association between

SSAB and psychological distress, or its possible positive relationship with well-being.

Explanatory styles have been suggested to influence outcomes through their effects on

expectations about future controllability of events (Peterson and Bossio 2001). People who

display this bias perceive themselves as responsible for positive outcomes and they believe

that the causes of these positive results will persist over time and will affect different life

areas. On the other hand, they do not consider themselves responsible for negative results

and they believe that the causes of these negative outcomes will not persist over time and

will not affect other life areas. Therefore, one may suggest that people showing this bias

believe that they can increase the likelihood of positive events and diminish that of neg-

ative ones. Thus, these expectations would trigger the use of effective coping strategies.

The effectiveness of coping strategies is a complex issue, which depends on the nature

of the stressor, the degree of controllability and duration of the coping process (Lazarus

1999); however, taking into account the possibility of reducing psychological distress by

using coping strategies, research has also shown that coping strategies focused on primary

and secondary control (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995; Rothbaum et al. 1982) are consis-

tently associated with lower psychological distress (Folkman and Moskowitz 2000;

Stanton et al. 2007). Primary control involves changing the situation, that is, problem

444 P. Sanjuán, A. Magallares

123

solving, and it includes both action-oriented (e.g., active coping) and cognitive decision-

making (e.g., planning) types of coping strategies. Secondary control involves changing

one’s own assessments of situations, that is, a positive cognitive restructuring (e.g.,

acceptance and positive reappraisal). In contrast, strategies focused on the avoidance of the

situation or on emotion intensification are systematically associated with greater psycho-

logical distress (Litman and Lunsford 2009; Moskowitz et al. 2009). In relation to coping

strategies focused on primary and secondary control, that is, on problem solving and

positive cognitive restructuring, some authors (Skinner et al. 2003) distinguish them as

separate categories; however, different factor analysis studies have found that these two

types of strategies load onto a single factor (Litman and Lunsford 2009; Yi-Frazier et al.

2010).

Our first goal was to examine the relationships among SSAB, coping strategies, and the

two components of subjective well-being. According to the suggestions presented above,

we hypothesized that SSAB would be positively associated with problem solving and

positive cognitive restructuring coping and negatively related to avoidant coping.

With respect to the relationships between SSAB and well-being, this bias has been

shown to have consequences, especially in the emotional experience (Koenig 1997;

Mezulis et al. 2004; Sweeney et al. 1986). People have also been found to use their

emotional experience in forming judgments of how satisfied with their lives they are

(Schwarz and Clore 1983, 2007). Taking both findings into account, we expected affect

balance to mediate the positive relationship between SSAB and life satisfaction. This

mediation has been tested in a previous study with two samples of women, one Spanish and

the other Danish (Sanjuán and Jensen 2013), but it also needs to be corroborated in men.

We also expected the positive relationship between SSAB and affect balance to be, in turn,

mediated by coping strategies. Figure 1 presents the model that includes the set of

hypotheses to be tested.

2 Method

2.1 Participants

Two hundred and five individuals (90 male and 115 female, mean age = 35.99, Standard

Deviation = 8.46, ranging from 22 to 50) participated in the study. To recruit participants,

SSAB

AVOIDANT COPING

AFFECT BALANCE

PS and PCR COPING

-

+ +

-

LIFE SATISFACTION

+

Fig. 1 Proposed model on relationships among self-serving attributional bias, coping strategies, affect balance and life satisfaction. SSAB self-serving attributional bias, PS and PCR problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring

Coping Strategies as Mediating Variables 445

123

we contacted different workplaces in various urban areas of Spain. Employees were

informed on the general purposes of the research and those who voluntarily wanted to

participate filled out the different questionnaires in a booklet. All participants had man-

agement positions in diverse companies, each with varying degrees of responsibility. Most

participants (89.6 %) were either married or living with a partner. On average, the par-

ticipants had completed 15 years of education. Eighteen (8.8 %) had finished elementary

school, 80 (39 %) had finished high school, and 107 (52.2 %) were holders of a university

degree.

2.2 Measures and Procedure

All the subjects who agreed to participate in the study were asked to complete the fol-

lowing questionnaires in this order:

Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al. 1982; Spanish adaptation:

Sanjuán and Magallares 2006). The ASQ is a self-report instrument containing twelve

hypothetical situations, six negative and six positive. For each situation, subjects decide

what they believe would be the major cause of the event and they indicate on three 7-point

scales the extent to which they would explain these events with internal, stable, and global

causes. A rating of ‘‘1’’ on the scales indicates an external (totally due to other people or

circumstances), unstable (the cause will never again be present), and specific (the cause

influences just this particular situation) explanation, while at the other end a ‘‘7’’ reflects an

internal (totally due to me), stable (the cause will always be present), and global (the cause

influences all situations in my life) explanation.

Two scores, corresponding to explanatory style for positive and negative situations,

were calculated. These scores were computed by averaging items of positive or negative

situations respectively. A self-serving attributional bias score was calculated by subtracting

attributions for negative outcomes from attributions for positive outcomes. This score

provides an index of the direction or valence (negative or positive) of bias as well as its

magnitude. While a positive score reflects a SSAB (or stronger attributions for positive

than for negative outcomes), a negative score reflects a reversed SSAB (or weaker attri-

butions for positive than for negative outcomes).

Coping operations preference enquiry (COPE; Carver et al. 1989; Spanish adaptation:

Crespo and Cruzado 1997). This self-report assesses 14 coping strategies through 53 items.

Participants were asked to report how often they used these different strategies to cope with

different situations in 7-point scales ranging from ‘‘0’’ (‘‘Not at all’’) to ‘‘6’’ (‘‘extremely’’).

For purposes of this study the following strategies were evaluated: active coping and

planning, suppression of competing activities, positive reinterpretation, personal growth,

acceptance, denial, focus on and venting of emotions, restrain coping, substance use, and

behavioural and mental disengagement. Higher scores on the different subscales mean

greater use of each type of coping strategy.

Positive and negative schedule (PANAS; Watson et al. 1988; Spanish version: Sandin

et al. 1999). This is a 20-item measure that evaluates 2 dimensions: positive affect (10

items) and negative affect (10 items). The response scale was a 5-point Likert-type. Par-

ticipants were asked to report how they usually felt. Positive and negative affect scores

were computed by averaging items of positive or negative affect scales respectively. The

negative affect score was subtracted from the positive affect score to obtain a measure of

affect balance. Thus, a positive score reflects a predominance of positive over negative

affect, while a negative score reflects a predominance of negative over positive affect.

446 P. Sanjuán, A. Magallares

123

One advantage of affect balance over one-dimensional measures of positive and negative

affect is that it controls for extremity biases (Schimmack and Diener 1997).

Satisfaction with life scale (SWLS; Pavot and Diener 1993; Spanish version: Cabañero

et al. 2004). This is a 5-item measure of global life satisfaction, or a person’s satisfaction

with life as a whole, rather than any specific domain. Participants are asked to rate the

extent of their agreement to these items across a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0

(strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). A score was computed by averaging the 5 items.

Higher scores on the SWLS reflect greater life satisfaction.

3 Results

3.1 Preliminary Analyses

In order to group the different coping strategies following the recommendation of the

authors of COPE (Carver et al. 1989), an exploratory factor analysis, using a principal

components method with Varimax rotation (Kaiser normalization), was carried out with

different COPE subscales. Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, which was statistically significant

(v2 = 527.01, df = 45, p \ .000), and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of

sampling adequacy, which exceeded the minimum requirement of .5 (KMO = .74),

showed the suitability of the participant data for factor analysis.

Although there is no agreement on whether positive cognitive restructuring strategies

and problem solving strategies load on a single factor (Carver et al. 1989; Litman and

Lunsford 2009; Yi-Frazier et al. 2010) or whether they should be treated separately

(Skinner et al. 2003), our results, which can be seen in Table 1, showed that these two

types of strategies load on the same factor.

In accordance with the results of this factor analysis two scores labelled as problem

solving and positive cognitive restructuring (PS and PCR) strategies and avoidant strate-

gies were computed by averaging item scores corresponding to subscales which were

included in each of these factors.

Analyses conducted with different demographic variables showed that there were no

differences in any of the psychological variables in terms of gender, educational level,

Table 1 Rotated matrix, eigen- values and percentage of variance accounted for the two factors obtained

Coefficients in bold are those corresponding to the scales that comprise each factor

Factor 1 Factor 2

Active coping and planning .74 -.42

Suppression of competing activities .73 -.02

Positive reinterpretation .76 -.03

Personal growth .68 -.43

Acceptance .44 -.17

Denial -.19 .78

Focus on and venting of emotions .45 .53

Behavioural and mental disengagement -.23 .64

Substance use -.08 .60

Restrain coping .29 .44

Eigenvalue 2.61 2.13

% of variance 26.13 21.31

Coping Strategies as Mediating Variables 447

123

cohabitation type or age. Therefore, these variables were not taken into account in further

analysis.

3.2 Path Analyses

Table 2 shows descriptive statistics and Pearson intercorrelations among psychological

variables.

Path analyses were carried out with AMOS software (Arbuckle 2011). Because of the

high reliabilities reached in all scales used, we decided to introduce the manifest variables

in the model. Although, the use of manifest variables could lead to misestimation of the

path coefficients, some authors suggest that this bias would be greatly mitigated if the

instruments used to measure these manifest variables achieved high reliabilities, or high

internal consistency, i.e., when all the items (or latent variables) measure the same con-

struct or manifest variable (Coffman and MacCallum 2005).

The proposed model in Fig. 1 did not fit adequately [v2(5) = 17.33, p = .004;

CFI = .948; NFI = .931; RMSEA = .110] (Byrne 2010; Kline 2011). Therefore, and in

order to obtain an acceptable fit, we added not hypothesized direct links (from SSAB to

affect balance, and from different coping strategies and SSAB to life satisfaction). When

these relationships were added, the fit was good [v2(1) = 1.418, p = .284; CFI = .998;

NFI = .994; RMSEA = .045], however, only the direct link from SSAB to affect balance

was statistically significant, while the others were not (PS and PCR coping—life satis-

faction: b = 0.12, t = 1.072, p = .284; avoidant coping—life satisfaction: b = -0.09,

t = -.738, p = .461; SSAB—life satisfaction: b = 0.05, t = .686, p = .493). When these

non-significant direct links were removed, the resulting model showed an excellent fit

[v2(4) = 3.95, p = .413; CFI = 1; NFI = .984; RMSEA = 0]. The statistics associated

with the path coefficients can be seen in Table 3. Indeed, this model was similar to the

proposed model, except that the latter did not include the direct link from SSAB to affect

balance. According to the final model SSAB has an indirect effect on life satisfaction

through the affect balance. SSAB has, in turn, both a direct effect an indirect effect on

Table 2 Correlations and descriptive statistics

1 2 3 4 5

1. SSAB –

2. Life satisfaction .31** –

3. Affect balance .46** .56** –

4. PS and PCR coping .35** .33** .48** –

5. Avoidant coping -.35** -.32** -.49** -.19* –

Mean 1.09 3.84 1.43 3.84 2.07

SD 0.99 1.16 1.04 0.69 0.61

Skewness .69 -.54 -.17 .08 .29

Kurtosity .09 .50 -.16 .07 -.18

a .83 (ESP) .80 (ESN)

.88 .84 (PA) .89 (NA)

.84 .77

SSAB self-serving attributional bias, PS and PCR problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring, ESP explanatory style for positive situations subscale, ESN explanatory style for negative situations subscale, PA positive affect subscale, NA negative affect subscale

* p \ .01; ** p \ .001

448 P. Sanjuán, A. Magallares

123

affect balance. The indirect effect was through the use of problem solving and positive

cognitive restructuring coping strategies as well as the non-use of avoidant ones. See Fig. 2

for this model.

4 Discussion

This study has examined the relationships among SSAB, coping strategies and subjective

well-being. The results show that SSAB not only maintains an inverse relationship with

measures of emotional distress, as previous studies had already shown (Alloy et al. 1997;

Fresco et al. 2006; Mezulis et al. 2004; Moore et al. 2006; Sweeney et al. 1986), but it is

also directly related to the two components of subjective well-being (affect balance and life

satisfaction).

As expected, we have also found that SSAB was positively related to PS and PCR

coping strategies and inversely associated with coping strategies focused on avoidance. In

turn, our study shows, as many previous studies have found that well-being is associated

with the use of strategies focused on PS and PCR and non-use of those focused on

avoidance (Folkman and Moskowitz 2000; Litman and Lunsford 2009; Moskowitz et al.

2009; Stanton et al. 2007).

Most interesting are the results that show that SSAB has an indirect effect on life

satisfaction through the affect balance. At the same time, SSAB has both a positive direct

effect on affect balance, and an indirect effect on it through a positive relationship with

problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring coping strategies as well as a negative

association with avoidant ones.

Current data confirm those obtained in a previous study with two samples of women

(Sanjuán and Jensen 2013) in another sample that also included men. Both studies show

that the association between SSAB and life satisfaction is mediated by affect balance.

Given this positive relationship between SSAB and emotional well-being, this bias may be

suggested to be a healthy way to explain situations, serving as protection for individuals

against emotional distress. This means that self-serving appraisals would be used as a

strategy to maintain psychological health when people have to face stressful situations.

The fact that the relationship between SSAB and life satisfaction was mediated by affect

balance, also allows us to suggest that judgments on life satisfaction depend, at least partly,

on a positive emotional balance. However, the direction of the relationship between affect

balance and life satisfaction is still unresolved, because although some previous studies had

shown that people use their emotional experience to form judgments of how satisfied with

their lives they are (Schwarz and Clore 1983, 2007), other studies suggest that life

Table 3 t statistics and standardized path coefficients for each parameter in the output path model

b t p

SSAB ? avoidant coping -.211 -5.182 .001

SSAB ? PS and PCR coping .242 5.254 .001

SSAB ? affect balance .231 3.705 .001

Avoidant coping ? affect balance -.608 -6.392 .0001

PS and PCR coping ? affect balance .515 6.121 .0001

Affect balance ? life satisfaction .628 9.616 .0001

SSAB self-serving attributional bias, PS and PCR problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring

Coping Strategies as Mediating Variables 449

123

satisfaction judgments activate thoughts about positive or negative life circumstances that

respectively induce either a positive or a negative current mood (Gärling and Gamble

2012). Longitudinal studies that measure both constructs at different times are essential to

understand the direction of this relationship.

The results found in our study may also be affected by the order in which these variables

were assessed, since the correlations between them have been shown to be higher when life

satisfaction was measured before current mood than when the order of the questionnaires

was reversed (Gärling and Gamble 2012). According to these results and given that we

measured affect balance before life satisfaction; the relationship found in the model

between these variables would be higher if the scale order had been reversed.

Our study has shown that SSAB has an indirect effect on emotional well-being through

its positive relationship with PS and PCR coping strategies and its negative association

with avoidant ones. According to these results, it could be suggested that people who

exhibit this bias report greater well-being partly because they do not avoid confronting

their problems, but try to solve them or evaluate them more positively. Displaying a SSAB

involves believing that one is more responsible for good situations than for bad ones, which

leads to employing more effective coping strategies to maximize well-being.

We want to point out that we have found not only an indirect effect of SSAB in affect

balance, but also a direct effect. Indeed, mediational studies show that the mediation is

usually accompanied by a direct effect. According to Zhao et al. (2010), when both direct

and indirect effects are statistically significant, we would have complementary mediation.

This implies that there is indeed mediation, although another possible unidentified medi-

ating variable may be acting on the direct path. Since explanatory styles have been sug-

gested to influence outcomes through its effect on expectations about future controllability

of events (Peterson and Bossio 2001), future studies should determine whether these

expectations mediate the relationship between these constructs.

Clearly, well-being promotion programs should encourage the use of strategies aimed at

changing the situation or evaluating said situation. But what our data also suggest is that

these programs should also promote the use of healthy attributional styles. Thus, inter-

ventions should be aimed at helping people to make internal, stable, and global attributions

for positive situations, and external, unstable and specific attributions for negative ones.

We must also take into account that the relationship between self-enhancement biases,

including SSAB, and well-being, may depend on the magnitude of biases displayed. In this

sense, if biases are not too extreme, they can be associated with well-being and be

adaptive. In contrast, excessive self-enhancement biases can lead to behavior which is

SSAB

AVOIDANT COPING

AFFECT BALANCE

PS and PCR COPING

LIFE SATISFACTION

Fig. 2 Structural model. SSAB self-serving attributional bias, PS and PCR problem solving and positive cognitive restructuring

450 P. Sanjuán, A. Magallares

123

associated with psychological distress, as people with excessive self-enhancement, may

also perceive themselves as less vulnerable. This can, in turn, lead them to different forms

of risky behavior. This group could also show aggressive behavior when their self-esteem

is threatened. Moreover, given that modesty is generally valued (although there are dif-

ferences depending on the cultural context), people with inflated self-esteem could be

socially rejected.

So far, not much attention has been devoted to SSAB. We believe that research on this

bias provides an opportunity to study the synergic effects of the attributional styles for

negative and positive situations together. Although research has studied both styles sep-

arately, the analysis of their interactive or synergic effects is a goal that is still pending.

Thus, positive attributional style (or relatively stable tendency to explain negative situa-

tions with external, unstable, and specific causes) has been consistently and negatively

related to psychological distress (Alloy et al. 2006; Sweeney et al. 1986). Furthermore,

enhancing attributional style (or relatively stable tendency to explain positive situations

with internal, stable, and global causes) has been positively related to psychological well-

being (Cheng and Furnham 2001, 2003; Sanjuán et al. 2008). The investigation of these

two styles together, permitted by the study of SSAB, may be a very promising research

line. In fact, a study has shown that the interaction between attributional styles for negative

and positive situations could predict psychological distress better than each of the attri-

butional styles taken separately (Sanjuán et al. 2008).

This study was subject to some limitations that deserve mention. Firstly, we analyze the

relationships between SSAB, coping strategies and well-being with a cross-sectional study

and path analyses. Therefore, although our study does not refute the causal model, it cannot

prove it. Additional cross-lagged longitudinal (but preferably experimental) research is

needed to prove causal directions between variables. Secondly, though the scales used here

are reliable measures widely employed in the literature, it is necessary to analyze the

relationships between the different manifestations of self-enhancement, coping and well-

being in future studies, not only by self-reports, but also with more objective criteria. Using

behavioural data would help clarify the relationships between the analyzed variables.

Despite these limitations, the study provides new data on the mechanism through which

SSAB affects psychological health, as well as the potential applications in relation to the

promotion of well-being and the prevention of psychological distress.

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