Educational Psychology / Unit 7 EDP 0639 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Self-Handicapping and Social Goals
Captions available
The idea
Failure-avoidant students may self-handicap, procrastinating, giving minimal effort or setting unrealistic goals so failure can be blamed on something other than ability. Students also pursue social goals, such as pleasing the teacher.
In practice
A student who parties before an exam has a ready excuse.
Where people slip
Choice, relevance, feedback on improvement and collaboration over competition encourage mastery goals instead.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Educational Psychology