TITLE:
Self-Affirmation Buffers Claimed Self-Handicapping? A Test of Contextual and Individual Moderators
AUTHORS:
Sarah Tandler, Malte Schwinger, Kristina Kaminski, Joachim Stiensmeier-Pelster
KEYWORDS:
Self-Handicapping, Self-Affirmation, Self-Esteem, Self-Regulation
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.5,
April
9,
2014
ABSTRACT: Researchers
have argued that the strategies individuals use for self-esteem regulation are
interchangeable. In the present study, we examined whether previous
self-affirmation reduces the amount of subsequent claimed self-handicapping.
More importantly, we tested potential moderators of these effects. Following
negative feedback on an intelligence test, 56 female college students were
given the opportunity to affirm themselves either within the threatened
intelligence domain or within a
domain unrelated to the source of threat (e.g., musicality). Results revealed
that subjects handicapped less when they had previously affirmed themselves in
a domain which was unrelated to the threatening domain (contextual moderator).
However, these effects were moderated by dispositional self-esteem (individual
moderator). High self-esteem participants claimed fewer handicaps the more they
felt self-affirmed whereas claimed self-handicapping among low self-esteem
participants was not affected by previous self-affirmation. Altogether, our
findings suggest certain limitations on the substitutability of self-protection
processes.