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Perception of self-handicapping behavior in the workplace: Not that great

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Abstract

Previous studies that have examined the effectiveness of self-handicapping behavior as an impression management strategy have shown different results between students and workers. In order to generalize the results among workers, the present study examined the perception of self-handicapping behavior in the workplace by replicating and extending Park and Brown’s study (Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(2), 124–132, 2014) to workers in South Korea. To this end, 252 workers evaluated a target whose behavior (self-handicapping vs. control) and outcome (success vs. failure) were manipulated. Participants assessed the target in terms of attributions (to ability, effort, external factors, and luck) and their willingness to socialize and collaborate with the target. Results revealed that workers generally evaluated self-handicapping targets more negatively than control targets.

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Notes

  1. An interaction between behavior and gender was also found, F(1, 211) = 4.78, p = .03, η2 = .02. Simple effects analyses revealed that when the target self-handicapped, women attributed both success and failure to effort more than men did, F(1, 211) = 7.12, p = .008, η2 = .03. When the target did not self-handicap, simple effects of gender were not significant, F(1, 211) = .24, p = .62. This is in line with previous research claiming that women value effort more than men (e.g., McCrea et al., 2008). However, such results do not pertain to our research topic of whether self-handicapping behavior is an effective impression management strategy; hence, there was no discussion of these findings.

  2. An interaction effect between behavior and gender was also significant, F(1, 211) = 6.65, p = .01, η2 = .03. Further analyses revealed a marginally significant simple effect of behavior among men such that men attributed both success and failure to external factors more in the self-handicapping condition than in the control condition, F(1, 211) = 3.75, p = .05, η2 = .02. A simple effect of behavior was not found among women, F(1, 211) = 2.92, p = .09. As mentioned in Footnote 1, these results were not discussed because they did not pertain to our hypotheses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, South Korea

    Heesung Shin & Sun W. Park

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  1. Heesung Shin
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  2. Sun W. Park
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Correspondence to Sun W. Park.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Shin, H., Park, S.W. Perception of self-handicapping behavior in the workplace: Not that great. Curr Psychol 40, 910–918 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-0013-6

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