Let's play the blame game: The distinct effects of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism on attributions of success and failure during goal pursuit

- Self-critical (SC) perfectionists use the self-serving bias in a distorted manner.
- Personal standards (PS) perfectionists use the self-serving bias more adaptively.
- SC perfectionism was related to attributing goal attainment to external factors.
- PS perfectionism was related to attributing failure more to external factors.
- In study 2, PS perfectionists were less willing to reset goals they abandoned.

In the present study, we examined whether personal standards and self-critical perfectionism differentially related to how people attributed their success and failures in pursuing their personal goals. In two studies (Ns = 185 and 240), participants set three week-long (Study 1) and semester-long (Study 2) goals, and at the end of the week or semester answered questions about goal status, internal and external attributions, and likelihood to reset the goal. Mulitlevel analyses showed that self-critical perfectionism was related to attributing goal attainment to external sources; this was not the case for failure or abandonment. Conversely, personal standards perfectionism was related to attributing failure more to external sources. Overall, these results highlight differences in how perfectionism influences the use of the self-serving bias.