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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