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Other-Handicapping: Providing Another with an Excuse for Failure

Richards, Brian J.

Abstract Details

2010, Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, Psychology (Arts and Sciences).
Self-handicapping is an esteem-protecting strategy whereby individuals prospectively generate impediments to successful performance so that their abilities will not be called into question in the event of failure (Berglas & Jones, 1978; Jones & Berglas 1978). Demonstrations of this phenomenon are replete in the social psychological literature, and thus to extend this work beyond the domain of the self, the current study investigated whether individuals would also be willing to handicap the performance of a close other. Male participants brought a close male friend to the lab. The friends were separated and each was primed into either an interdependent or independent self-construal. Each participant believed that his friend was taking two intelligence tests for a separate study on intellectual assessment. In the contingent feedback condition, participants were led to believe that their friend had performed well on the first test because of his ability, whereas in the noncontingent feedback condition participants were led to believe that their friend’s initial success was due to luck. Because lack of preparation could be used to excuse poor performance, it was expected that participants would allocate less practice time to their friend before he took the second test when they expected him to perform poorly (noncontingent condition) compared to when they expected him to perform well (contingent condition). Consistent with predictions, participants did in fact allocate less practice time to their friends in the noncontingent condition compared to the contingent condition, but this effect only occurred when participants were primed into an independent self-construal. The results of this study suggest that participants in the independent condition tried to protect their friends’ self-esteem by prospectively erecting an external attribution for his expected failure.
Keith Markman, PhD (Advisor)
Mark Alicke, PhD (Committee Member)
Justin Weeks, PhD (Committee Member)
117 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Richards, B. J. (2010). Other-Handicapping: Providing Another with an Excuse for Failure [Master's thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1276101473

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Richards, Brian. Other-Handicapping: Providing Another with an Excuse for Failure. 2010. Ohio University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1276101473.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Richards, Brian. "Other-Handicapping: Providing Another with an Excuse for Failure." Master's thesis, Ohio University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1276101473

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)