The message matters: The role of implicit beliefs about giftedness and failure experiences in academic self-handicapping.

Abstract

Insight into causal mechanisms underlying underachievement among gifted students has remained elusive. Based on the premise of self-worth theory and implicit beliefs about intelligence, it was hypothesized that entity-focused messages about giftedness would lead to maladaptive academic coping behaviors when gifted status was threatened. Therefore, the current research examined the interactive effect of messages about giftedness as fixed or malleable and success or failure experiences on both behavioral and claimed self-handicapping among a sample of 108 undergraduates attending an elite university. Following a failure experience, participants who had heard an entity message about giftedness engaged in behavioral self-handicapping to a greater degree than those who heard an incremental message about giftedness. Female participants who received an entity message engaged in more claimed self-handicapping after experiencing failure and less claimed self-handicapping after experiencing success. There were no differences in claimed self-handicapping after success and failure for female participants who received an incremental message. This pattern is in line with an impression management strategy. In contrast, implicit messages did not influence male participants' claimed self-handicapping. Implications for motivational theory and educational practice are discussed.

Effects of Ability and Effort Praise on Children’s Failure Attribution, Self-Handicapping, and Performance

“…Mueller and Dweck (1998) found that children praised for ability may display a helpless response pattern after encountering setbacks, including less persistence and impaired performance. These findings are also in line with previous research on children’s self-handicapping, which indicated that behavioral self-handicapping undermines performance (Snyder et al, 2014). …”

“…Self-handicapping, also considered a defensive self-protection strategy, refers to the various ways in which people create obstacles for themselves to provide an a priori excuse for possible failure in the future in order to ensure that inability is not blamed and self-worth is preserved (Snyder et al, 2014; Clarke and Maccann, 2016). In the event of success despite self-handicapping, self-perceptions of ability are elevated and feelings of self-worth are improved or maintained (Berglas and Jones, 1978; Covington, 1992, 2009).…”

“…In contrast, claimed self-handicapping involves only reporting the presence of obstacles, for example, a child may work hard for a test but tell her schoolmates that she hardly prepared, or claim to suffer from test anxiety (Hirt et al, 1991) or a bad mood (Baumgardner et al, 1985), suggested that threats to self-worth can lead individuals to engage in self-worth protection through the use of self-handicapping (Covington, 1992, 2009). For example, it has been found that gifted children—who have most likely experienced repeated confirmation of their exceptional abilities—are more inclined to use self-handicapping behaviors when there is cause for uncertainty concerning future success (Snyder et al, 2014). It is not surprising that children who received praise for ability after successes would feel threatened after they experienced a setback in their achievement.…”

Gifted Students’ Implicit Beliefs About Intelligence and Giftedness

“…In contrast, the evidence is consistent with the idea that implicit beliefs, such as those about intelligence and giftedness, act as schemas that can be activated in particular contexts (e.g., Mueller & Dweck, 1998;Snyder, Malin, Dent, & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014;Yeager, Miu, Powers, & Dweck, 2013). Drawing from the existing research on interventions that aim to change students' implicit beliefs about intelligence toward malleable views (e.g., Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002;Blackwell et al, 2007;Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003), gifted education researchers and educators may do well to examine students' unique belief patterns before intervening or to design interventions specifically tailored to target students' implicit beliefs about giftedness.…”

Explaining the Variations of Definitions in Gifted Education

“…Several studies address misconceptions about gifted education (see: Sak, 2011;Winner, 1996). Some focus on teachers' beliefs and attitudes concerning giftedness (see: McCoach & Siegle, 2007;Moon & Brighton, 2008;Laine, Kuusisto, & Tirri, 2016;Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011), while others focus on students' implicit beliefs about giftedness (see: Makel et al, 2015;Snyder et al, 2014). Research on misconceptions, misbeliefs, and attitudes about giftedness implies that there is some consensus about what giftedness is and how these terms are generally understood by teachers, students, and policy makers.…”