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Self-handicapping: The interplay between self-set and assigned achievement goals

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Abstract

This study examined the combined impact of self-set goals and manipulated goal contexts on self-handicapping to better understand how self-set goals affect responses to different performance-oriented achievement contexts. Participants reported their self-set goals and later completed an achievement task in a goal-context condition (performance-approach, performance-avoidance, no-goal). Before the task, participants had the opportunity to self-handicap (behaviorally and claimed). The results showed that self-set performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals positively predicted behavioral self-handicapping, but only in a performance-avoidance context. Additionally, self-set mastery-avoidance goals were found to predict claimed self-handicapping, regardless of the context condition. These results show that self-set achievement goals shape individuals behaviors associated with threat and promise in achievement situations.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our lab assistants (Beth Achille, Brett Anderson, Irfan Bhanji, Lindsay Donnelly, Evelyn Fabian, Brian Mueller, Jack Olin, Jillian Parsons, Nilay Patel, Bridget Schleich, and Ryann Yellin) for their help in data collection. We would like also like to thank the committee members George Neuman and John Skowronski for their helpful suggestions during the research process. Finally, we would like to thank Deborah Jeske and several anonymous reviewers for their help with previous versions of this article.

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  1. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Chelsea M. Lovejoy & Amanda M. Durik

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  1. Chelsea M. Lovejoy
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  2. Amanda M. Durik
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Correspondence to Chelsea M. Lovejoy.

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Lovejoy, C.M., Durik, A.M. Self-handicapping: The interplay between self-set and assigned achievement goals. Motiv Emot 34, 242–252 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-010-9179-4

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