 For example, if a person gets promoted, it is because of his/her ability and competence whereas if he/she does not get promoted, it is because his/her manager does not like him/her (external, uncontrollable factor).Originally, researchers assumed that self-serving bias is strongly related to the fact that people want to protect their self-esteem.However, an alternative information processing explanation is that when the outcomes match people's expectations, they make attributions to internal factors.