Self-handicapping: A clever strategy?

I was never really a fan of people who make excuses for themselves, I find it frustrating and disappointing. However, I have come to realize that I was being somewhat hypocritical. Self-handicapping is our attempt to control the way other people make attributions about us (Berglas & Jones, 1978). We do this by placing obstacles in our path in order to create an external attribution versus an internal one. Basically speaking, we make an excuse for our failure that (we think) does not reflect on our abilities. There are two kinds of self-handicapping: real/behavioral and feigned/self-reported. “Real” self-handicapping is when we place visible obstacles in our path to success, and “feigned” is when claim that were difficult obstacles preventing our success.

I believe I was quick to judge those who employed the strategy of real self-handicapping, while I was oblivious to (or choosing to ignore) the fact that I do sometimes dish out feigned self-handicaps myself. I know I’ve been the person that says to my friends before a test, “I’m so nervous, I didn’t study at all for this test.” When the reality is that I did study. Maybe I didn’t study as much as I had originally intended to, but nevertheless I studied until I at least felt comfortable with the material.

Now that I am aware of what I’m saying, I’m going to try and be better about my little comments. I don’t like when people make excuses for themselves, and it has been shown that people do not like it when others handicap themselves and that other people pick up on what you’re doing. Here I am trying to avoid internal attributions, but really that’s what is happening anyways. So no, self-handicapping is not a clever strategy.

Berglas, S., & Jones, E. E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 405-417.

Shine On

Since Nick got to be discussed in class, I’ll just incorporate him into my blog as well J

You are about read about my recent run in with the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect is the belief we hold, in which we think the social spotlight shines brightest on ourselves (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000). Basically, we believe that other people take notice of our appearance, actions, and so on, more than they actually do.

A family friend recommended that I go listen to this Houston-based group as a possible band to play at Nick and I's reception. So I looked up when and where they were playing, and it just so happened that they were playing this past weekend at a bar in Houston. So I dragged Nick with me to go listen to this group. We walked in to place and I’m pretty sure we lowered the average age in the room by about 25 years. So I’m already feeling like we stick out like a sore thumb (keep this in mind as you keep reading).

We were having a great time, dancing, people watching (extremely interesting), and enjoying some wine (well I was at least)! And then clumsy me happened… I knocked over my wine glass, spilling my last two sips of red wine on my nice jeans. Of course, the first thing I think of is the spotlight shining on me. There wasn’t an actual spotlight, but in my mind there might as well have been. I was the person causing the commotion; everyone, for sure, was noticing me. I’m like really embarrassed at this point. Aside from believing that everyone noticed, I’m now also thinking that they must all be thinking that I’m an idiot or that I’m drunk or something along those lines. Then of course I also have the “Oh shit” response because it’s RED wine.

Nick was very nice and came to my rescue. He very calmly reminded me that no one was paying any attention to us. Everyone was still dancing or mingling; it really did appear that no one had noticed.

I later, and after much debating, let Nick convince me to dance, even though I was positive that everyone would notice the red wine stain on my jeans. Once again, Nick brought me back to reality reminding me that my jeans were dark, it was dark in the room, that not that much wine actually spilled on me, that we don’t know any of these people and will probably never see them again, and that if someone is close enough to my thigh to notice the spot then they are too close.

All in all, it was fun night and the band was great, but I definitely thought my spotlight was shining brightly that night.

Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 211-222.

This is Nick, for everyone who doesn't know him and would like to be able to put a face with a name!

Crucial First Impressions

I feel as if the typical personal story relating to primacy is one where someone makes a bad first impression and then due to the primacy effect it takes a long time to reverse. However, I have an example that it somewhat the opposite of what one would expect…

First impressions are critical. Social scientists have shown that information presented earlier in a sequence often has a greater impact than information presented towards the end of a sequence; this occurrence is called the primacy effect (Asch, 1946).

I have always been told that first impressions are very important. A couple years ago, I was asked by a neighbor if I could babysit for her two girls (one of our other neighbors had recommended she call me). Of course I said I would, I did not know the girls at the time so I showed up with I big smile on my face and we played games and watched a movie and I tried really hard to be the “cool” babysitter. Little did I know that these girls were brats. After babysitting for them a couple more times, I had had it. They were rude, obnoxious, fought the entire time, and never listened to what I would say. I used to babysit for a lot of different families, and these were by far the worst kids I had ever babysat. So I tried to start being “less fun” in hopes that they wouldn’t want me to babysit as often. And when they would call to ask if I was available, I would make up all sorts of excuses. However, no matter how “not fun” I acted or how many times I said no I was still the first person they would call. Apparently my first impression was outshining all of my more recent behavior. I did not want to have to tell the parents that their kids were terrible and I did not want to babysit for them.

Finally, I think they started to get the hint, and the phone calls came less often. But this was definitely one situation where I wished that I hadn’t made a good first impression. I was trapped by the primacy effect J

Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258-290.