| This study investigated whether women in a predominately male work environment (i.e., sport organizations) use self-handicapping as a protective strategy. The implications of the presence of self-handicapping in athletic administration provide a psychologically-based alternative explanation as to the disproportionate hiring and retention of women in sport organizations and leadership at the athletic director position. The psychological concept underlying Self-Handicapping Theory is that there are certain behaviors that people use as self-protective strategies when people care about their performance but doubt the likelihood of their success, especially in new endeavors (Berglas & Jones, 1978). Although females have been involved in organized sporting activities for decades, their leadership (i.e., athletic directors) of NCAA athletic departments could be considered a relatively new endeavor. In fact, since the inception of Title IX, the number of women occupying athletic director positions has drastically decreased (Acosta & Carpenter, 2010). Therefore, the current study examined Self-Handicapping Theory through the lens of various societal constraints (i.e., Human Capitol Theory, hegemony, homologous reproduction, and sex segregation) that have created an intimidating environment for women in their pursuit of and promotion into athletic department leadership. The study sought to determine if female administrators use the strategy of self-handicapping to protect themselves from the threat of failure in pursuance of the athletic director position in NCAA Division I membership institutions (Hirt, Deppe, & Gordon, 1991).;Self-handicapping provides an opportunity to diminish the threat of failure by obscuring low ability as the reason for failure. In the case of behavioral self-handicapping, this is achieved by actively creating an obstacle that impedes performance. However, while this reduces internal attributions in the event of failure, it also makes failure more likely to occur. The literature on self-handicapping has revealed that multiple factors -- such as gender (Hirt, McCrea, & Kimble, 2000), self-esteem (Harris & Snyder, 1986), self-focus (Kimble & Hirt, 2005), self-efficacy (Hirt, McCrea, & Boris, 2003), and self-presentation concerns (Kolditz & Arkin, 1982) -- determine whether self-handicapping occurs and the forms it takes (McCrea, 2008; McCrea, Hirt, Hendrix, Milner, & Steele, 2008). The Self-Handicapping Scale (SHS; Rhodewalt, 1990), the Self-Esteem Scale (SES; Rosenberg, 1965), and the New General Self-Efficacy Scale (NGSES; Bandura, 1997) were integrated, modified for the context of sport, combined with various demographic items, and used as a 51-question survey instrument (Athletic Administrator Survey [AAS]) to identify self-handicappers within sport organizations. Male and female athletic administrators (N = 229) employed by NCAA Division I institutions and attending the 2012 NCAA Convention were used as the sample for this study to determine their usage of self-handicapping in athletic administration and the different ways in which they use the psychological protective strategy. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) run on the AAS found that through varimax rotation techniques there were two factors that needed to be analyzed in the SHS. The factor used in this study to analyze the data was comprised of eight questions that measured the core concepts of self-handicapping. The main finding of this study was that women use self-handicapping at almost three times the propensity than their male counterparts (t = -75.627, df = 227, p < .05). This research study also found that women at the Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) position self-handicap more than those in any other auxiliary athletic administrative position (F (2, 226) = 4.388, p < .05). The results of this research study suggest that Self-Handicapping Theory may at least partially explain the disproportionate hiring and retention of women in the athletic director position in NCAA Division I. |
