Self-Serving Bias in Performance Goal Achievement Appraisals: Evidence From Long-Distance Runners

While working with a long-distance running event organizer, the authors of this study observed considerable differences between event participants' official finish time (i.e., bib time) and their self-reported finish time in the post-event survey. Drawing on the notion of self-serving bias, we aim to explore the source of this disparity and how such psychological bias influences participants' event experience at long-distance running events. Using evidence of 1,320 marathon runners, we demonstrated how people are more likely to be subject to a biased self-assessment contingent upon achieving their best finish time at the event. The study samples were split into record-high-achieved and record-high-missed groups, and the self-serving biases of each group were explored. Results from the t-test comparing record-high-achieved and -missed groups showed that runners in the record-high-missed group were significantly more likely to report a positively biased finish time than runners in the record-high-achieved group (p < 0.01). Additionally, results from logistic regression showed that as runners missed their best finish time by a wider margin, the probability of reporting a positively biased incorrect finish time increased. Lastly, we conducted an additional t-test and revealed that runners who are subject to self-serving bias showed a lower level of overall event satisfaction. The current study suggests one way to bypass the adverse effects of participant sport event participants' worse-than-expected athletic performance. We specifically suggest that the event organizers target runners who had worse-than-expected performance and make extra efforts on non-race service attributes (e.g., finish line experience, rest and recovery area, and transportation after the event) because these runners are more likely to be unsatisfied with the event.

Automated summary

This study explores the source of the disparity between participants' official finish time and their self-reported finish time in a long-distance running event. It demonstrates how individuals tend to have a biased self-assessment when they achieve their best finish time at the event, and how this bias influences their overall event satisfaction.