Excuses, Excuses

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on January 6, 2009 at 11:16 am


Some people sabotage themselves by setting up an excuse for failure before even trying something.

Psychologists have studied this sort of behavior since at least 1978, when Steven Berglas and Edward E. Jones used the phrase “self-handicapping” to describe students in a study who chose to take a drug that they were told would inhibit their performance on an exam (the drug was actually inert).

The urge goes well beyond a mere lowering of expectations, and it has more to do with protecting self-image than with psychological conflicts rooted in early development, in the Freudian sense. Recent research has helped clarify not just who is prone to self-handicapping but also its consequences — and its possible benefits.

Link -via Lifehacker


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COMMENT

14 comments to "Excuses, Excuses"

  1. Gauldar
    January 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am

    One of the many mental traps I can relate to. I’ve been reading a good book on how we set our selves up to fall into them, and how to notice them and prevent ourselves from falling into them.

  2. paco
    January 6th, 2009 at 11:42 am

    What’s the name of the book, Gauldar?

  3. Scrabbler
    January 6th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

    Thank goodness! Now I have an even better excuse about why I performed poorly in college.

  4. Gauldar
    January 6th, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    http://www.amazon.ca/Mental-Traps-Andre-Kukla/dp/product-description/0 385662491

    I picked up a copy for $4.99 in the clearance section at the Indigo book store near me.

  5. Idil
    January 6th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    What does Freud know, anyway.

  6. Gauldar
    January 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    Idil,

    What does Freud have to do with anything?

  7. Gauldar
    January 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    Ahh, I just re-read it.

    The urge goes well beyond a mere lowering of expectations, and it has more to do with protecting self-image than with psychological conflicts rooted in early development, in the Freudian sense.

    I guess tend to mentally block out the word “Freudian” whenever I come across it. I used to roll my eyes whenever that name was mentioned. He was too sure of himself with subjects that had more depth then he explained them to have. I consider his work “Micky Mouse Psychology”.

  8. Edward
    January 6th, 2009 at 5:14 pm

    This is an interesting conundrum. Ben Franklin said that planning for failure is superior to planning for success. My opinion is that one should plan for both and not allow excuses for either.

  9. sw
    January 6th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    i definately have this problem

  10. Christophe
    January 6th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    I didn’t do because I was on Neatorama.

  11. Christophe
    January 6th, 2009 at 11:23 pm

    darn, the brackets are gone… It’s the fault of the brackets, not mine, no, no!

    I didn’t do - fill up the blank - because I was on Neatorama.

  12. Alex
    January 7th, 2009 at 2:44 am

    We had a similar story on Neatorama a while ago, about how to raise smart children (hint: don’t tell them they’re smart)

  13. Rocky Rook
    January 7th, 2009 at 10:30 am

    This all reminds me of that Austrailian back-country sheep herder who won that uber-long footrace. He just didn’t know any better!

  14. Ali S.
    January 7th, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    Self-entrapment? Well, it’s accurate in some sense since I do sometimes end up trapping myself with excuses not to work or study. But then they always end up getting blown out of proportion due to rising issues or complications.


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