The Relationships Between Self-Handicapping Tendency and Narcissistic Personality Traits, Anxiety Sensitivity, Social Support, Academic Achievement

Abstract

The relationships between self-handicapping tendency and narcissistic personality traits, anxiety sensitivity, social support, academic achievement Objective: Successful experiences in life increase motivation of individuals and support their efficacy perceptions, whereas unsuccessful experiences reduce their motivations. Individuals who generally avoid failures can sometimes prefer to be unsuccessful as a self-handicapping strategy. The basic psychological reason underlying this situation is individual’s effort to protect him/herself through attributing reasons of failure to external factors. The main aim of this study is to examine relationships between self-destroying tendency and narcissistic personality traits, anxiety sensitivity, perceived social support and academic achievement. In this context, expression of “narcissistic personality traits, anxiety sensitivity, social support and academic achievement explain self-handicapping tendency significantly” is the main hypothesis of the study. Methods: Sample size consists of 483 university students (female=351 [72.7%]); male=132 [27.3%]). The mean age was 21.25±3.44 years. The data collection tools were Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3, Self-handicapping Scale, Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale and the Personal Information Form. Results: Established regression model explained 31% of total variance in self-handicapping tendencies (F [9;482]=25.16, p<0.01). As narcissistic personality inventory subscales, authority (ß=0.08, p<0.05), self-sufficiency (ß=-0.18, p<0.01) and entitlement (ß=0.11, p<0.01) contributed to regression model significantly, while contribution of superiority (ß=-0.02, p>0.05), exhibitionism (ß=-0.01, p>0.05) and exploitation (ß=-0.03, p>0.05) was not significant. Additionally, anxiety sensitivity (ß=0.39, p<0.01), perceived social support (ß=-0.11, p<0.01) and academic achievement (ß=-0.19, p<0.01) had significant contributions to the model. Conclusions: Self-handicapping is explained significantly by anxiety sensitivity, perceived social support, academic achievement and subscales of narcissism, such as authority, self-sufficiency and entitlement.