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Self‐Deceptive Coping: Adaptive Only in Ambiguous Contexts
Author(s) -
Johnson Edward A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00316.x
Subject(s) - excuse , psychology , ambiguity , social psychology , attribution , coping (psychology) , anagrams , mood , deception , task (project management) , clinical psychology , computer science , management , political science , law , economics , programming language
Two experiments investigated claims for the efficacy of self‐deceptive coping (e.g., Sackeim, 1983, 1988). In Study I the performance of self‐deceivers on solvable anagrams was found to he remarkably poor relative to that of non‐self‐deceivers after both groups were exposed to unsolvable problems. The starkly unambiguous failure experience may have precluded self‐deception. Therefore, in Study 2 participants were exposed to unsolvable problems either with or without an excuse. Self‐deceivers who encountered failure with an excuse subsequently performed much better on the solvable tasks than those without an excuse. These findings suggest that the use of self‐deception following threat is constrained by the availability of contextual ambiguity (e.g., excuses). The effect of the excuse was not related to participants' mood or attributions for performance.