KNES 413 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Sunk Costs, Learned Helplessness
12 Oct 2019
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KNES 413 – Lecture 9 – Self-Handicapping Theory
Thursday October 10, 2019
Self-Handicapping
• Proactively reducing effort and/or creating performance excuses in order to protect oneself from potentially
negative feedback in evaluative environments
• Discuss an example of self-handicapping that you have witnessed or experienced in each of the following
contexts: sport-in competition, PE, sport-in training, exercise. Include 2 examples each of reducing effort and
creating excuses.
o One
o Two
Self-Destructive Behaviours (Baumeister & Scher, 1988)
• Deliberate or intentional behaviour that has clear, definitely or probably negative effects on the self or on the
self’s projects
o Primary self-destruction
▪ Desires to harm the self, chooses actions that will likely or certainly harm the self
o Trade-offs
▪ Harm to self is foreseen, but not desired
o Counterproductive strategies
▪ Harm to self is not foreseen, nor desired
• Evidence was not found for primary self-destruction, but was found for trade-offs and counterproductive
strategies
Trade-Offs
• Harm to self is foreseen, but not desired
• There are some benefits, but some self-harmful costs; accept some harms to achieve the benefits
• Competing goals
• Pursuing one will undermine achieving the other
• Making a poor choice, which involves harm to self
• Harms the self, but harm often accepted reluctantly
What leads to making self-destructive choices in trade-off scenarios?
• Misuse, misunderstanding, or neglect of information regarding likelihood of harm
• Immediacy: if one goal is proximal, one distal, tend to favour the proximal
• Emotional states:
o Desire to end negative emotions
o Desire to perpetuate positive emotions
• Desire to escape self-awareness
o Especially after/if have history of failure/rejection
Trade-offs and self-handicapping
• The first type (creating obstacles) is always considered self-destructive by Baumeister. The second type only
when the excuse is cultivated, not just claimed.
o Do you agree? Are there ways in which claiming excuses can harm the self?
• Why would people engage in creating obstacles?
o Discounting
o Augmentation
