Self-Handicapping is not something which sounds like a good idea. For me, it brings to mind images of the movie "The Ringer" where the main character pretends to be mentally retarded in order to compete in the Special Olympics. In actuality, the term refers to a way in which people put obstacles in their way before a task (Berglas, S., & Jones, E.E., 1978). This is done so that if the outcome is not favorable, the individual can make an external attribution to his or her failure. On the other hand, if the outcome is favorable the individual can say that they succeeded in spite of the obstacle. This seems convenient, but can go horribly wrong in a number of ways. First, and hopefully most obviously, the self imposed handicap can make you fail at a task which you otherwise wouldn't have failed at. Sure you have a handy excuse, but what good is that really? In addition to this, people see through self handicapping easily, and they don't appreciate it.

The best example of self handicapping which i can think of from my life is my experience with the SAT/ACT. I'll just say this; i studied for neither (i thought i was really hot shit intellectually in high school, no lie). I ended up making really good scores despite this, and this only furthered my boasting. However, if i hadn't done well, i could have just chalked that up to the fact that i didn't bother studying for the test. Win/win, right?

Berglas, S., & Jones, E.E. (1978). Drug choice as a self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 405-417

Tripped up by availability

We all take shortcuts, its just a fact of life. Life is too fast paced to do everything carefully, so sometimes we all sacrifice accuracy for a little speed. When we take shortcuts cognitively, it is called using a heuristic. Heuristics allow us to make decisions quickly, and generally lead us to correct thoughts. However, every once in a while we do get tripped up by our heuristics. When we make lists of things, we tend to use things which are common around us, which is called the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973).

I fell prey to a flaw in this heuristic this past week when someone asked me which car i would buy if i could have anything under 30 thousand dollars. My mind immediately went to cars which we see every day, Hondas, Fords, etc. I gave the person a quick answer (i told them a 2009 Subaru STI, in case you were curious). I later realized that even though the suby was a great car, that wouldn't be the car i would pick. What i would actually pick would be a 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT, which i would take the v6 out of, and instead put in a Chevy ls7 v8, basically making the car into a smaller, lighter, more nimble Corvette for about half the price. Why didn't i tell my friend this? Because nobody drives Fieros. I see STIs all of the time, there are at least two cars that share its body on campus, so when asked for a car of choice, my mind went straight to cars i saw frequently because those are the ones most easily thought through.

400+ horsepower in this? Why yes, I think i would.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-232.

Blog Number One: A Self Fulfilling Prophecy

As i read this week, the concept which resonated most with me was that of the self fulfilling prophecy. As Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) demonstrated, expectations of those around us do in fact have an effect on the way we are treated. In their experiment, Rosenthal and Jacobson administered tests to a group of students, and then randomly selected a group of students which they labeled "late bloomers". This label had no bearing on actual intelligence (hence it being random), but in a follow up analysis they found that the late bloomer group actually experienced a significant gain in intelligence as opposed to the control group. They theorized that the expectations placed on them by being labeled as smarter drove their instructors to pay more attention to them, which in turn actually made them smarter.

I see this effect at work a lot when i watch mixed martial arts fights. In a recent event, a professional boxer fought a more well-rounded wrestling specialist. For the entire run-up to the fight, the boxer worked on different ways to avoid the wrestler's take downs, altering his stance to avoid lead leg kicks, and so on and so forth. However, mere minutes before the fight, he decided to alter his plan of attack and disregard his corner's advice in favor of a pure boxing style because he felt he had to prove that boxing was the superior fighting style. He was taken down almost immediately with a technique which only works on an opponent in a boxing stance, and the wrestler controlled him for a few minutes before seeming to get bored, and choking the boxer using his own fearsome right arm. I believe the more rounded fighter would have won even if the boxer would have stuck to the plan, but his idea that boxing was the superior style certainly fulfilled the 'prophecy' of what one would expect from a fighter and a boxer.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils' intellectual development. New York, NY US: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.