~ Self-Handicapping Behaviors ~
Some Basic Psychological Assumptions -- People desire accurate, diagnostic feedback about themselves
•
•
Social comparison (Festinger)
Attribution theory; know about cause and effect relationships (Heider, Kelley)
 Achievement motivation literature
•
Desire to know correct information about one’s competence
What type of tasks are preferred by those with high achievement motivation as
compared to those with low achievement motivation scores?
But, what if there is a realistic chance that diagnostic information will indicate
one is incompetent?
~ Self-Handicapping Behaviors ~
What is the definition of self-handicapping behaviors?
• Failure will be attributed to external sources
• Success will be attributed to internal factors
(Kelley’s augmentation principle. Augmentation: “If, for a given effect, both a
plausible inhibitory cause and a plausible facilitative cause are present, the
role of the facilitative cause in producing the effect will be judged greater that
if it alone were present (1972, p. 12)” e.g., if one succeeds despite a handicap,
one’s ability will be assigned a greater cause for that success
Self-handicappers do not strive to fail. They are okay with the likelihood of
failure if it can be explained away; and if any success can be enhance one’s ability
~ Self-Handicapping Behaviors ~
What underlies the development of self-handicapping behaviors?
• History of non-contingent reinforcement --- especially for success
• Fosters beliefs that one’s success cannot be repeated; they lack control over
their success (but, the perception that one has partly earned their success is
crucial for self-handicapping to develop)
“ … are never clearly reconciled to the fact that their success is something
arbitrarily bequeathed to them … There is always sufficient ambiguity to feed
the process of self-deception and wishful thinking about competence.”
 Key role of ability attributions for success
______________________________________________________________
Unsuccessful
(know one’s ability;
choose attainable goals,
doable tasks; can readily
assess difficulty level of
tasks/situations
Self-handicappers;
uncertain about
how competent
they are
Successful
~ Self-Handicapping Behaviors ~
Self-handicapping is NOT a strategy for public, self-presentation purposes to
others (e.g., the attributions of others for one’s performance)
Individuals engage in self-handicapping for attributions about one’s own
competence (self-attributions)
 Key role of public vs. private attributions
What was the procedure of the 1st study?
~ Self-Handicapping Behaviors (cont.) ~
How do attributions of ability impact self-handicapping?
Do self-handicapping behaviors occur for both self and other
attributions? What is the evidence for your answer?
Do gender differences exist in the use of self-handicapping
behaviors? If so, why?
• Males in the public condition did not distinguish the difficulty of solvable and unsolvable problems
• Public participants attributed their success for to ability
• Males chose the handicapping drug more than females
• Males attributed more of their success to ability than females
• Public vs. private conditions did not affect drug choices (especially for males)
Not significant
~ Overjustification Effect ~
[a.k.a. Self-Determination Theory]
Explain the basic premise of the over-justification effect?
Why does it occur?
___________________________________________________________
Intrinsic
External rewards are
not clear or obvious;
attributions are to oneself
(intrinsic)
Extrinsic
External rewards are not clear
or obvious; attributions are
made to external sources
Also, the quality of the expected-reward participants was judged to be much lower
Conditions where external reward may be useful or necessary
 When the level of intrinsic interest is initially very low
 When individuals need to engage in an activity for an extended period of
time for it to become attractive to them (e.g., mastery occurs)
~ Overjustification Effect (cont.) ~
What is intrinsic motivation? How do you know it exists?
Can the overjustification effect be explained in operant
conditioning terms? If so, how?
~ Overjustification Effect (cont.) ~
What are the pragmatic implications of the overjustification
effect (e.g., it occurs more often when rewards are directly
connected with performance)?