Since it is difficult to hold politicians accountable for personal welfare changes, to protect our self-image we tend to take personal responsibility for positive changes & hold the government responsible for negative changes

How Do Voters Hold Politicians Accountable for Personal Welfare? Evidence of a Self-Serving Bias. Martin Vinæs Larsen. The Journal of Politics, Volume 83, Number 2, May 2021. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/710325

Abstract: Examining a government’s record is difficult. This is a problem for voters who want to hold governments accountable. One solution is for voters to hold governments accountable for changes in their personal welfare. Yet, it is often unclear whether changes in personal welfare are caused by government policies or voters’ own actions. Since voters have a desire to protect their self-image, this ambiguity might fuel a self-serving bias in attribution. That is, voters might take personal responsibility for positive changes in personal welfare and hold the government responsible for negative changes. Using data from election surveys and survey experiments, this article shows that voters attribute responsibility for personal welfare in this self-serving way. This hurts democratic accountability because voters do not reward governments (enough) for improving their personal welfare.