The relationship between academic self-handicapping and psychological factors among young Hungarian adults

Abstract

Self-handicapping is a defence mechanism that can be employed before performance situations, serving to protect one’s self-concept and social image by obscuring the link between performance and abilities (Török et al., 2016). This study aimed to investigate the relationship between academic self-handicapping and mindset, self-efficacy, goal orientation, perfectionism, and social support among young Hungarian adults. A total of 120 participants aged between 18 and 28 years (M = 21.82, SD = 2.05 years) took part in the study. Participants completed six online questionnaires, employing a convenience sampling method. The questionnaires included the SHS-H Self-Handicapping Scale (Török, 2020), the Mindset Questionnaire (Jagodics et al., 2020), the Goal Orientation Questionnaire (Pajor, 2013), the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (Kopp et al., 1993), the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al., 1990), and the Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Questionnaire (Papp-Zipernovszky et al., 2017). Results indicated that perceived social support, adaptive perfectionism, self-efficacy, and performance-approach goals exhibited a significantly negative correlation with the use of self-handicapping. Conversely, maladaptive perfectionism and performance-avoidance goals displayed a significant positive correlation with self-handicapping. No significant correlations were observed with the other two types of goal orientations or with growing and fixed mindsets.