Self-handicapping: Are you sabotaging yourself to avoid evaluation or failure?

I was watching an old episode of Grey’s Anatomy – my only TV addiction – where a lawyer who’s about to take the Bar exam in a few days for the fifth time is brought in for severe burns in her hand. She says that before she took some practice tests, she wanted some tea so she put on a pot of water, set the timer and after 30 minutes the smoke alarm went off. When taking the pot off the stove she held on to it too long leading to severe burns. She explains that she should have known better and that whenever she is studying for the Bar that she can't focus on anything with all the stuff that she has to know. She complains how bad it is with what happened to her hand with the exam coming up. With all the complaining you would think she would be happy about the news when the doctor says they can get her fixed up and she'll be fine and can take the test, but instead one can clearly see the shock on her face… Well, in the end it becomes clear that she couldn’t stand taking the risk of failing yet another Bar exam:

“Can you imagine failing the Bar five times? It's absurd and pathetic. I can't sit for two and a half days to prove again to everyone how pathetic I am.”

This is a perfect example of the lengths people would go – although this one is quite extreme – to sabotage themselves prior to an important and potentially self-defining challenge. The name for this tendency in social psychology literature: self-handicapping. It is said to occur when

"people actively try to “arrange the circumstances of their behavior so as to protect their conceptions of themselves as competent, intelligent persons.” (Jones & Berglas, 1978, p.200)

Other examples:

• the athlete getting drunk the night before the game;
• the student who stays up too late studying so that the exhaustion impedes test performance;
• the employee who “gets” sick or sleep-deprived before important presentations;
• the expat/the immigrant who keeps on postponing taking that language course that would surely increase his chances of getting a promotion/job

Research has established that self-handicapping is motivated by uncertainty about one's ability or, more generally, anticipated threats to self-esteem. It is quite an ironic strategy when you think about it. The individual is so concerned about protecting self-esteem that they set themselves up for poor performance! The catch: they now have a good excuse for why they failed and it is not about their intelligence, talent or competence.

Here is what makes it an even more ironic and risky approach: Self-handicapping only offers a strategic advantage "in those settings where the attributional implications of performance are more important than the success of the performance itself" (Jones & Berglas, 1978; p. 201). Meaning, if the “why you failed” is more important than “you failed”. The outcome doesn’t change (you still underperform) but the explanation for failure doesn’t reflect on your intelligence, talent or competence.

Now, it works if that’s what is important or what you care about. But it is rarely the case that the outcomes does not matter! In other words, many times when we self-handicap to avoid self-evaluative feedback, the success of the performance really does matter.  The lawyer from Grey’s Anatomy won’t be able to avoid the failure even if she has the excuse of the “burned hand”. Yes, maybe it decreases the impact of the failure on her self-esteem because people will say “Oh, but she had a burned hand”, but really, she will know what really happened. And if she succeeds despite the burned hand – even a better outcome than passing the test without a burned hand!*

However, once the person uses self-handicapping over and over again, people stop being sympathetic about his excuses. Actually, self-handicapping is also self-deception focused strategy. It is not only targeting to protect your self-image in front of others, but you are also trying to deceive yourself into thinking “if you didn’t have that excuse you could have pulled it off successfully!” So you’re postponing putting yourself out there and give it all to see if you can actually pull it off. In other words, it is a reflection of the fear of not being able to make it if you were to give it your best.

How about you? Have you been tempted to literally create an excuse that would prevent you from being at your best? How did you rationalize your following suboptimal performance?  And of course, what would be a better strategy to deal with being evaluated or fear of failure?

Here’re a few ideas:

1. Awareness, awareness, awareness! I think this is my default advice for any kind of coping and adopting a better strategy. Be more mindful of your thinking and behavioral patterns.
2. Reframe the upcoming test/project/presentation also as a learning goal, rather than only as performance goal. Even if you fail – what can you learn from it?
3. The above strategy requires having a growth mindset, that is believing that with effort, focus and perseverance people can improve their performance and qualities. If you don’t have growth mindset (you can test it here), adopting it would open up great perspectives for you!
4. Make a it a choice! Weigh the costs and benefits of self-handicapping and then actively choose to (if you will) or not to do it. So, at least take the self-deception out own the equation. 

 *  Research shows that high self-esteem people self-handicap to enhance success, whereas low self-esteem people self-handicap to protect against the self-esteem threatening implications of failure.  

References:

Jones, E.E, & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through self-handicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of under achievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200-206.

Dweck, Carol. (2006). The New Psychology of Success.

Time travel: Will I really want to go for a run at 6 a.m. tomorrow?

How many times have you found yourself being puzzled about not being able to follow up on your goals although you were so convinced when you set them? Examples?

• Checking emails is a time drain, I’ll only check them twice a day.
• I will meditate for 10 minutes every morning before breakfast.
• I’ll go to the gym every other day.
• I will never procrastinate and hit the send button 30 seconds before the project submission deadline.
• I will speak up more in meetings.
• I will be a better listener/ more patient with my “difficult” colleagues.

I bet you can help me expand the list!

The funny part is that each time we are so convinced that “it will work this time!” We must be making some serious error or false assumption somewhere, don’t you think? Well, here’s one phenomenon that sheds some light on what might be happening.

In his book Stumbling on Happiness Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert talks about presentism - the tendency to let our current experience to influence one’s view of the past and the future. In other words, when we evaluate the past or think about the future we take our present experience (e.g., mood, state of mind, motivation) as an anchor.

Among its many interesting implications presentism also influences the goal pursuit. Broadly speaking, the goal pursuit involves two steps. First we select a goal; then we implement the chosen goal. Presentism plays a role in both of these steps – this time I’ll focus on the first one.

As I’ve mentioned last time, it is important to choose not any goal – but rather a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic, Timely). That would sound something like: Running for 45 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 6 a.m. This meets the specific, measurable and timely criteria.

If the person wants and is motivated to take on running for 45 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 6 a.m., that would also make it agreed upon. In other words, the goal has been chosen by the person and not imposed on her by someone else. This corresponds to what some researchers call “self-concordant goals” – that is, goals that are consistent with values and interests of the person.

If it is a realistic goal or not depends on the person’s current level of fitness as well as her weekly schedule. Now, “presentism” plays an important role here – especially with respect your current mood and level of motivation. Research in the area of affective forecasting – predicting how you will feel in the future – suggests that we are pretty bad in our forecasts! That means when you try to predict how you will feel about running tomorrow at 6 a.m. you mainly rely on your current mood which is likely to be quite different from the one you’ll experience 6 a.m. tomorrow.

And this has important implications for the “realistic”ness of your goal. In other words, it seems pretty realistic right now because you are all motivated and determined about making it work but that does not guarantee that you’ll feel that way when it’s time to get out of the bed tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.!

I think this nicely explains why we are puzzled by not being able to follow up on our goals that we were so convinced of when we set them. We base our predictions too much on the present experience and underestimate how fluid our moods and motivation to act could be.

In these situations researchers who study affective forecasting suggest doing some “time travel” – that is, representing the future as though it were happening in the present. To be able to that we need to use mental images of the future more often and more accurately.

For the running example this would mean imagining as vividly as possible your experience of waking up, rolling out of the bed, putting on your running gear at 6 a.m. And doing that 3 times a week. How realistic does it feel? Effortless, somewhat unpleasant, painful, impossible? Making an accurate assessment would make your goal pursuit more successful.

If your goal seems realistic after the “time travel” next steps of implementation are more likely to follow smoothly. But if your goal doesn’t pass the test, you would be better of adjusting it to make it realistic – that would also save you from feeling guilty and discouraged in your goal pursuit each time you hit the snooze button.

Make it automatic!

I wish the title was related to a way that I’ve found to make my blogs automatic but when I am on (a looong) vacation there’s still an inevitable gap. Rather, the title is about how to make our action-taking automatic in order to achieve our goals.

Most of us don’t have a problem in setting goals – you’ve probably heard of at least one version of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic, Timely). What most of us struggle with is the following up part. It is one of the themes that come up quite often in both coaching sessions with clients and casual conversations with friends.

Latest was shared by a friend over the weekend as we cruised in the canals of Amsterdam. He mentioned how much he loves playing the trombone and knows how important to have regular rehearsals , but somehow he can not bring himself to do that. It is quite puzzling for him – why fail to do something that not only he WANTS to do but also ENJOYS to do. I am sure many people can relate to him – I for one always wonder why I don’t go dancing often even though I know that is one of the things I enjoy the most!

So what is one to do to follow up on his goals?

Part of the answer lies in exercising the “self-control” or “willpower” muscle I wrote about a few times before. Another technique I would like to mention this time is called “Implementation Intention”. This framework was developed by Dr. Peter Gollwitzer , a psychology professor at NYU, who is a leading researcher in the area of goal pursuit and motivation. His frameworks outlines the whole process from selecting appropriate goals to goal attainment. I would like to focus on the part where he talks about setting implementation intentions that increase the likelihood of taking successful action to reach our goals. Here are the 5 steps to do that:

Step 1: Set your GOAL INTENTIONS (e.g., “I intend to do regular rehearsals”, “I intend to exercise regularly”)

Step 2: Set a specific plan about HOW, WHEN & WHERE you will take action. (e.g., “practicing every Wednesday and Saturday at home for an hour”, “going running Tuesday and Thursday mornings for 30 minutes and going to the gym every Saturday for 1 hour”).

Step 3: Translate the above plans into implementation intentions in IF – THEN form. (e.g., “IF it is Wednesday, THEN I will practice for 1 hour”, “IF it is Tuesday morning, THEN I will run for 30 minutes”)

Step 4: Make a list of possible distractions you might face along the way (e.g., feeling tired, limited time, TV, other interesting things)

Step 5: Set specific implementation intentions in the form of IF – THEN statements about the actions you’ll take when you encounter these distractions (e.g., “IF I feel tired, THEN I will rest for 15 minutes before my practice”, “IF there is something interesting on TV, THEN I will ignore it (the TV program)”)

The effectiveness of implementation intentions lies in the IF – THEN format. When you encounter the distraction you’ll take the action you’ve decided on without further thought – you almost make it AUTOMATIC! The same applies to goal-directed behavior – the day of the week will act as a trigger to take the subsequent action.

You might be thinking that this all sounds too simple and wondering why IF – THEN statements should make a difference. With these statements what you are doing is mentally linking an anticipated critical situation (e.g., day of the week or being distracted by TV) with an effective goal-directed response. Once “your system” detects the critical situation (and most of the time this might happen even without your conscious awareness) it automatically initiates the stored action linked to that.

This process nicely overcomes a few potential obstacles that you might face otherwise:

a) difficulty in getting started (outlining how, where & when and automating action help with this)

b) reflecting anew on the desirability of goal intention (automating action bypasses this)

c) staying on track (overseeing distractions and having actions ready to deal with them help with staying on track)

Studies have shown that implementation intentions make goal attainment more probable. When combined with setting appropriate goals and a well-exercised willpower/self control muscle you are more likely to achieve your goals by using these tools. So say it: IF I want to achieve my goals THEN I will use implementation intentions!