Self-handicapping In College Students With Learning Disability And The Influencing Factors

Self-handicapping is a strategy of self-worth protection, which refers to the use of artificial barriers that reduce the negative effects of bad performance. In recent years, researchers are interested in studying the self-handicapping phenomenon. However, few studies focus on the usages of self-handicapping in the college students with learning disability. In addition, the internal factors and its influence on learning motivation are still unknown. This research uses experiment and questionnaire to study the different aspects of self-handicapping, including its applied condition, the internal factors and its influence on learning motivation in the college students with learning disability.In Study 1, we adopted both questionnaire and experiment method to measure the characters of self-handicapping and the consistency of the two forms of self-handicapping. In study 2, the same questionnaire in study 1 and Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to explore the internal factors of self-handicapping, such as personality traits, achievement motivation and hope, including the explicit and implicit compositions. In study 3, we explored the influences of self-handicapping on learning motivation.Below are the main findings of this dissertation:(1) There were significant differences in the usage of behavioral and self-report self-handicapping between the college students with and without learning disability. The college students with learning disability were more likely to adopt the behavioral self-handicapping, whereas the college students without learning disability tended to use self-report self-handicapping. There were no consistencies between the usage of behavioral and self-report self-handicapping.(2) Self-handicapping was affected by the achievement motivation and hope. And the personality traits acted as a mediator between these influences and self-handicapping. The implicit components had no direct effects on self-handicapping.(3) The learning motivation was not influenced by the usage of self-handicapping among college students with learning disability. However, the learning motivation of the students without learning disability was affected by the usage of self-handicapping.