The self-serving bias

The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intentions. A pedestrian hit me and went under my car. 

The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him. 

I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision. I did not see the other car. 

As I approached the intersection, a stop sign suddenly appeared in a place where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in time to avoid the accident. 

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle, and vanished. My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle. 

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How does this bias affect incident or injury analysis Think of Judy s near-hit experience. She protected her self-esteem by overestimating external causes and underplaying internal factors. This aspect of the self-serving bias is illustrated by the list of explanations for vehicle crashes given in Figure 6.12. The external and situational excuses given in Figure 6.12 were taken from actual insurance forms submitted by the drivers. 

It is important for us to acknowledge how perceptions can be biased. Outsiders tend to blame the victim victims look to extenuating circumstances. We should empathize with the self-serving bias of the victim because it will reduce the person s distress. It will shift attention to external factors that can be controlled more easily than internal factors related to a person s attitude, mood, or state of mind. 

This research-based principle is referred to as the "self-serving bias" (see Chapter 6) and is sure to warp injury analyses formerly called "investigations" (Chapter 9). Placing blame for a mistake on outside variables is just a basic defense to protect one s self-esteem. 

Statements like "I was fatigued," "I didn t know the proper procedure," or "My mind was on other things," are far less probable than "The work demands were too severe," "The trainer didn t show me the correct procedure," or "Excessive noise and heat distracted me." My advice is to accept the self-serving bias and allow people their ego-protecting excuses. Then, search for measurable external factors (including behaviors) that can be changed to reduce the probability of another injury. 

Babcock, L., Wang, X., and Loewenstein, G. (1992), "Choosing the wrong pond Social comparisons in negotiations that reflect a self-serving bias," Quarterly journal of Economics m, 1-20. 

A victim s natural tendency to reveal a self-serving bias when discussing an incident— by putting more emphasis on external, situational causes—should be supported by the work culture. This reduces the victim s distress and puts the focus on the observable factors, including behavior, most readily defined and influenced. I detail processes for doing that in Section 3. 

Finally, when an AC discharge is operated with a blocking capacitor between the power supply and one of the electrodes, that electrode will assume negative self bias. Such an average negative voltage on this electrode can serve to accelerate ions toward it with considerable energies. 

In summary, BPMs provide two important functions (1) as a separator between the acid and alkaline solutions to avoid self-neutralisation and (2) to provide various ion transport schemes in the four regions as described above according to bias voltage, and serve as a reactor for splitting H2O into H+ and OH ions. 

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