Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Self-Handicapping
Urdan, Tim, and Carol Midgley. 2001. "Academic Self-Handicapping: What We Know; What More There Is to Learn." Educational Psychology Review 12:2, 115-130.
Urdan and Midgley's paper is a summary of their recent research on the topic of students, especially college students, who use self-handicapping in response to academic challenges. They explore the reasons for it as well as the short- and long-term effects of such behavior.
Their theoretical basis is goal theory, looking to see how goal-setting affects academic performance and the behavior of academic self-handicapping. They conducted four studies over the five years before this article was published, looking at academic self-handicapping from several perspectives and refining their approach with each study.
They defined "self-handicapping" very specifically. They noted that most researchers view it as deliberately setting obstacles in their way of good school performance. Some of those behaviors include procrastination, lack of effort or practice, excuse-making,...
Other possible strategies but which the students might have lessened control over include shyness, moodiness and illness.
Before summarizing their research to date, looking for patterns and divergence from patterns, they summarized the literature on the topic. After reviewing their research, they discussed the implications and pointed the way toward further research.
The analysis of their research as well as other work on the topic demonstrates that self-handicapping behavior is a complex behavior with personal factors affecting both the choice to self-handicap and the methods chosen to accomplish that goal. In most of their research they found that self-handicapping does not stem just because the student has a fear of academic failure. Rather, these students are concerned about how they will appear to others if they perform poorly. If they have a credible excuse for poor performance such as "I would have done better but I didn't…
Social Psychology Statement of the learner intends to research What I would like to be informed about regarding social psychology is all the ways and applications in which this concept can be understood and applied. Not just in scholarly situations but in every-day activities, among friends, at work, or in social situation. Having a good understanding of any aspect of psychology for a student (or any alert person) in these times is
Social Psychology There are two roots from which Social Psychology is derived: sociology and psychology. Sociology is the study of how groups of people interact with each other. Psychology is the study of how individuals think and act on their own. Combining these two areas of study led to the development of social psychology. Social psychology does consider the things sociologists consider, including how large groups work together and what members of
Social Psychology Social Biases Social bias is a concept which should need no explanation, however, unfortunately, that is not the case. In this society, instances of social bias are insidious and all pervasive. They are represented by prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. Also unfortunate, is the fact that social bias is not always obvious because it can manifest in either subtle or blatant form. Furthermore, though not always apparent, individual lives are continuously
Social psychology has only existed as it is defined, within the last eighty years, with growth accelerating in the past four decades. Social psychology enables analysis of the cognitive and social processes in relation to human-to-human interaction. "Social psychology, the scientific study of the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence, and relate to others" (Smith, Mackie & Claypool, 2014, p. 11). It allows people
Social Psychology There are a number of varying definitions of attraction. In an interpersonal, social sense, however, attraction is simply the gravitation between a person towards another due to several factors, some of the most eminent of which are familiarity, similarity, and reciprocity. When all three of these factors are present, there is a strong propensity for attraction to exist between people. Moreover, this combination usually leads to mutual attraction. Familiarity is
Social psychology is the study of human behavior in social situations, showing how social pressures and sociological variables can impact psychological phenomenon such as identity, motivation, personality, or behavior. A quintessential topic in the field of social psychology is bullying. Bullying can be studied from a public health perspective, showing how the external variables such as how a school is designed and the leadership and organizational culture of the school