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Excuses Gone Awry

An Analysis of Self-Defeating Excuses

  • Chapter
Self-Defeating Behaviors

Abstract

Bob faced a dilemma. His oft-stated ambition was to be a social worker. In fact, he had been one briefly but lost his job because he was unable to overcome his obsessive fears about things that might happen to him when he went to work. Over the course of several months he skipped twice as many days of work as he attended, and he ultimately agreed to “resign” his position. Now he needed only to complete a correspondence course to regain his certification.

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Higgins, R.L., Snyder, C.R. (1989). Excuses Gone Awry. In: Curtis, R.C. (eds) Self-Defeating Behaviors. The Plenum Series in Social / Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0783-9_5

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