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Unattainable Goal Choice as a Self‐Handicapping Strategy 1
Author(s) -
Greenberg Jerald
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1985.tb02340.x
Subject(s) - psychology , task (project management) , social psychology , selection (genetic algorithm) , attribution , conjunction (astronomy) , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , physics , management , astronomy , economics
Selection of an extremely difficult performance goal is conceptualized as a self‐handicapping strategy–an attempt to externalize outcomes threatening one's self‐image. In a laboratory study, male college students were led to believe they had succeeded at a task that was either relevant or irrelevant to their self‐images. In conjunction with this, subjects were led to believe that the success they had experienced was either contingent upon or not contingent upon their effort. Consistent with a self‐handicapping strategy, extremely difficult performance goals were selected on a subsequent task when success at a previous task was not contingent upon workers' e]ffort, but only in the personally relevant condition‐i.e., when task performance had attributional implications for workers' s]elf‐images. Personally irrelevant tasks led to a realistic downward revision of performance aspirations in response to noncontingent success.