Self-Handicapping: The Paradox That Isn’t (The Springer Series in Social Clinical Psychology) - Hardcover

Higgins, Raymond L.; Snyder, C.R.; Berglas, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306435403 ISBN 13: 9780306435409

Publisher: Springer, 1990

Synopsis

The concept of self-handicapping can be legitimately anchored in a vari­ ety of intellectual contexts, some old and some newer. As this volume reminds us, Alfred Adler was perhaps the first to articulate the signifi­ cance of various self-defeating claims and gestures for protecting the self­ concept. Thus the apparent paradox of "defeat" in the interests of "pro­ tection. " More recently (but still more than 30 years ago), Heider's "naive psychology" added attributional rhetoric to the description of self-defeat­ ing strategies. While predominantly cognitive in its thrust, the attribu­ tional approach incorporated several motivational influences-especially those involving egocentric concerns. Heider hardly violated our common sense when he suggested that people are inclined to attribute their performances in a self-serving manner: the good things I caused; the bad things were forced upon me. The notion of self-handicapping strategies, proposed by Berglas and myself a little more than a decade ago, capitalized on these homely truths while adding a particular proactive twist. We not only make ex­ cuses for our blunders; we plan our engagements and our situational choices so that self-protective excuses are unnecessary. In doing so, we use our attributional understanding to arrange things so that flawed and failing performances will not be interpreted in ways that threaten our self-esteem.

About this title

Synopsis

Self-handicapping is a protective psychological mechanism for controlling the conditions of performance in order to provide a built in attribution for failure. The apparent paradox is that the choice of inhibiting conditions makes failure more likely, thus undermining the very competence image that self-handicapping is designed to protect. This vol

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0306435403
• ISBN 13: 9780306435409
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312