The Interactive Effect of Contingency Feedback and Self-Construal on Self-Handicapping Behavior

Abstract

Self-handicapping, the creating or claiming of obstacles to one's performance to influence explanations given for subsequent outcomes, has been shown to have both attitudinal and behavioral consequences for employees and their organizations. Given the wide-ranging impact of self-handicapping, it is important to understand the conditions under which self-handicapping is more or less likely to occur. Accordingly, the present research tested the hypothesis that, under conditions shown to elicit such behavior, namely the experience of non-contingent feedback, individuals with an independent self-construal would be more likely to engage in self-handicapping than those with an interdependent self-construal. Two experiments were conducted, one of which was conducted in the lab and the other on-line via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The results that emerged across both studies provide support for the focal hypothesis. Theoretical contributions to the self-handicapping and self-construal literatures are discussed, as are practical implications.