Self-handicapping and self-deception: A two-way street

ABSTRACT

Deflationists reduce self-deception to a motivated bias, eliminating the need for doxastic tension, divided minds, intentions, or even effortful action. While deflationism fits many cases, there are others that demand more robust psychological processes and complexity. We turn to the empirical literature on self-handicapping to find commonplace examples of self-deception with high levels of agential involvement. Many self-handicappers experience non-trivial doubts, engage in strategic and purposive self-deception, and possess knowledge that must remain unconscious for their project to succeed. This occurs with self-handicapping for the sake of self-esteem regulation. Such self-handicapping not only requires self-deception but also furthers it.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-handicapping
• self-deception
• intention
• unconscious
• motivated bias

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to express their gratitude to the two anonymous referees who provided detailed and very helpful comments. This article has improved substantially thanks to their efforts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Mele (1997, p. 101) and Funkhouser (2019, p. 127) are exceptions in the philosophical literature, though they mention self-handicapping only in passing. Several psychologists have discussed how self-handicapping for the sake of self-esteem regulation involves some level of self-deception. This is explicit in the original presentation of self-handicapping theory by Berglas and Jones (1978), and it is also found in Quattrone and Tversky (1984, p. 248), Snyder and Higgins (1988), Higgins et al. (1990), and Zuckerman and Tsai (2005) among many others. However, there has been no detailed investigation (theoretical or empirical) of this self-deceptive activity as such.

2. How common? “Responses on the Self-Handicapping Scale (SHS) indicated that self-handicapping tendencies were common in this sample with 8 out of 14 items on the SHS being endorsed by the majority of adolescents. For example, 73% of young people agreed that they procrastinated and tended to put things off until the last moment, and 85% agreed that they would do better if they tried harder.” (Warner & Moore, 2004, p. 275).

3. We borrow this term from Funkhouser and Barrett (2016, p. 683), where it used to describe self-deception that is strategic goal pursuit, flexible to changing circumstances, and which demands some retention of the truth (or, at least, non-trivial doubts).

4. While women certainly engage in self-handicapping as well, the rates (at least in experimental studies) tend to be much higher for men (Dietrich, 1995).

5. “Turning first to the self-report data collected just prior to debriefing, only 2 out of 30 noncontingent-success Pandocrin takers explained their choice in defensive terms. The remaining Pandocrin choosers either claimed that the choice was completely arbitrary or that they were helping to make the experiment ‘work’ because, having scored 16 out of 20 on the first test, they had more room for downward than upward movement. Thus, the effects of the drug could be easier to see with Pandocrin than with Actavil. The self-report data, then, are of little help in confirming the theoretical reasoning about self-handicapping.” (Berglas & Jones, 1978, p. 412)

6. Interestingly, results showed an increased tendency in female participants to self-handicap in the public condition.

7. Again, we acknowledge that other-directed self-handicapping, which is purely for the sake of impression management, need not involve self-deception.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Funkhouser

Eric Funkhouser is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas. His research interests include philosophy of psychology/mind and metaphysics. He is the author of Self-Deception (Routledge) and The Logical Structure of Kinds (Oxford).

Kyle Hallam

Kyle Hallam is a PhD student at the University of Arkansas. His research interests include philosophy of psychology, social epistemology, and metaphysics.