When Darren's classmate earns a D on an essay for their history class, Darren figures the classmate is unmotivated and should have spent more time working on the paper and less time socializing. The classmate is disappointed with her grade, but she knows she didn't have much time to work on the essay because she had to work double shifts the entire week before the paper was due. The different attributions for the low grade on the essay illustrate

a. the actor-observer bias.
b. defensive attributions.
c. the self-serving bias.
d. cognitive dissonance.

This term explains that people are more likely to attribute their own actions to situational causes, and others' to internal causes. This occurs more often with negative outcomes.

One of the possible causes for this phenomenon is that when we are the actors, we cannot see ourselves in the process, which leads to focusing on external factors.

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