You know that ‘voice’ inside your head. The one who, as you walk past a mirror, unabashedly says, “Your hair is messed up, fix it.” That ‘jury’ inside your head saying things that you would never let other humans say. What if I told you that, unconsciously, that ‘voice’ is actually protecting your ego instead of harming it? One way in which that ‘voice’ uses in order to protect our ego, is called self-handicapping. Self-handicapping is defined by Jones and Berglas (1978) as a self-defending maneuver by either creating or claiming obstacles in preparation for a failing performance. This study looks to determine if there is a relationship with self-handicapping and gender, as well as to see if neuroticism and self-esteem are predictors of self-handicapping.
…show more content…
Self-handicapping can be used in two ways, one to protect our self-esteem, and the other is to enhance our self-esteem. Dianne Tice (1991) conducted four studies to determine differences between self-protection and self-enhancement as motivations to self-handicap. Contrary to other research, her first study found no gender differences in the ratio of men and women self-handicapping. She also found a crossover relationship between high self-esteem participants practicing less when an opportunity to appear outstanding and to enhance their image arises, verses low self-esteem participants practicing less to protect themselves from possible failure. She concluded that high self-esteem people are primarily concerned with image enhancement, whereas low self-esteem people are primarily concerned with protecting their image. Something that Tice did not assess in her study was to see if overall, high self-esteem or low-self-esteem participants generally self-handicap more often. What she did discover is the motivations behind the reasons high self-esteem and low self-esteem people handicap. The next logical step would be to see who self-handicaps more. Based on her findings, we predict that high scores on self-handicapping will be negatively correlated with
Self-handicapping can be used in two ways, one to protect our self-esteem, and the other is to enhance our self-esteem. Dianne Tice (1991) conducted four studies to determine differences between self-protection and self-enhancement as motivations to self-handicap. Contrary to other research, her first study found no gender differences in the ratio of men and women self-handicapping. She also found a crossover relationship between high self-esteem participants practicing less when an opportunity to appear outstanding and to enhance their image arises, verses low self-esteem participants practicing less to protect themselves from possible failure. She concluded that high self-esteem people are primarily concerned with image enhancement, whereas low self-esteem people are primarily concerned with protecting their image. Something that Tice did not assess in her study was to see if overall, high self-esteem or low-self-esteem participants generally self-handicap more often. What she did discover is the motivations behind the reasons high self-esteem and low self-esteem people handicap. The next logical step would be to see who self-handicaps more. Based on her findings, we predict that high scores on self-handicapping will be negatively correlated with