Self-handicapping and defensive pessimism strategies: Analysis of their prevalence in university environments and gender differences
Keywords:
active self-handicapping, claimed self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, prevalence, university studentsAbstract
For some students, poor performance is synonymous with low personal competence. In order to protect their own feelings of worth, these students purposely engage in the adoption of complex strategies such as self-handicapping or defensive pessimism. Although these types of strategies fulfill their self-protective objective in the short term, their recurrent use usually entails significant long-term damage to health and academic performance. The present study aims to analyze the prevalence of self-handicapping (active and claimed) and defensive pessimism in a sample of university students. 592 students (Mage = 21.31; SDage = 3.18) from the University of Corunna took part in the research. To analyze the prevalence in the use of these three strategies, a frequency analysis was carried out, both with the sample as a whole and as a function of gender. Regarding the last variable, a contingency table was made and Pearson's chi-square (χ2) statistic was calculated. The results obtained showed a frequent use of self-handicapping and defensive pessimism strategies in 15-20% of the surveyed students. Regarding gender, it was observed that male students used the active self-handicapping strategy with a significantly higher frequency than female students. These findings are discussed and analyzed in light of their educational implications. In this sense, some guidelines are provided to be taken into account by teachers to reduce the tendency of students to resort to self-worth protection strategies.
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