pant receivers (those that actually interacted with the actor and received an expression), and third party, non-participant observers (those who watched the actors give an expression to a participant receiver). This allowed Floyd to distinguish between attribution-makers who should or should not have personal implications from the behaviors of the actors. Floyd hypothesized that expressions of disliking would be more likely to provoke attributions from the participants than the expressions of liking. He believed that observers would be less likely to make attributions than participants would for nonverbal expressions of liking and disliking. It was thought that expressions of disliking would be attributed to more internal causes by the observers than the participants. Thus, he also believed that the participants would more likely attribute expressions of liking to internal causes than the observers. All four of the hypotheses were supported from the research. Although, the self-serving bias was proposed to predict attributions for the person who the behavior belongs to, it can also be used to predict the behavior of observers when the behaviors have personnel implications for the self. Floyde explains: When others’ behaviors carry implications for the self, then the self is motivated to formulate attributions that cast those implications in the most positive manner. When others’ behaviors carry no implications for the self then as the fundamental attribution error suggests, the self should be motivated to conserve cognitive energy and make a dispositional attribution (Floyd, 2000). Self-Serving attributions carry over into all aspects of life. One prime example of self-serving attributions is in sport spectators. Wann & Schrader (2000) examined whether high-identification fans and low-identification fans differ in attribution depending whether the identifying team wins or l...
