Perfectionism – the tendency to demand of others or of one’s self an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, particularly when this is not required by the situation. (APA, 2009)

Procrastination – people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions—which, unfortunately, are increasingly available. Procrastination in large part reflects our perennial struggle with self-control as well as our inability to accurately predict how we’ll feel tomorrow, or the next day. (Procrastination, 2015)

Self-Handicapping – a strategy of creating obstacles to one’s performance, so that future anticipated failure can be blamed on the obstacle rather than on one’s own lack of ability. If one succeeds despite the handicap, it brings extra credit or glory to the self. The theory was originally proposed to explain alcohol and drug abuse among seemingly successful individuals (APA, 2009).

 College for students is a very stressful time and also very competitive. Students are competing for those top grades and doing everything they can to achieve them. Those high grades attack the top jobs, the higher money, and more prestige. When students strive for perfection they set unrealistically high goals to meet. Often times the student does not view themselves as reaching those same goals they set ( Karner-Huţuleac, 2014). Setting the goals at such high levels the student is setting themselves up for failure. To protect themselves student will engage in self-handicapping to protect them from the negative effect of failure. Self-handicapping is a way of protecting our self-esteem from the negative effects of our own perfectionism. People create excuses to explain why they did not reach those goals, or why they did poorly on a test. The self-handicapping is usually already established and put in place before an event takes place. In the long run using self-handicapping to retain self-esteem represents a self-destructive mechanism because it encourages the lack of responsibility and effort, but also self-awareness. A consequence, of using a self-handicapping strategy is the person facilitates desirable attributions for success as well as for failure.

Research also supports the theory that perfectionism is negatively related to academic performance. Evidence has shown there are links between perfectionism and writer’s block. Perfectionists are also more likely to experience a phobia towards essay writing, and male perfectionist tend to self-handicap more when they fear they will not do well on a measured academic event ( Karner-Huţuleac, 2014)

Many people procrastinate, they put task off until the next day or some later date. Procrastinators inhibit judgements of performance; hence, judgements of true ability. Their perceived (or actual) ability at the task is never known, so the procrastinator continues to protect a “vulnerable self-esteem.” For this individual it is sometimes better to do nothing than risk failure and look foolish (Ferrari, 1991). Often those who procrastinate view their self-worth solely on task and this ability is determined how well they perform on completed task. When people procrastinators view their self-worth solely on task ability, and their ability is determined only by how well they perform on completed tasks. By delaying task completion, procrastinators inhibit judgements of performance (Ferrari, 1991)

Perfectionism, procrastination, and self-handicapping each by itself leads to negative academic scores. Also any combination of these three will lead to a greater negative influence on academic scores and lower self-esteem.

References:

Karner-Huţuleac, A. (2014). Perfectionism and self-handicapping in adult education. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 434 – 438, 434 – 438.

APA. (2009). APA Concise Dictionary of Psychology. Washington D. C.: American Psychcological Association.

Ferrari, J. R. (1991). Self-Handicapping by Procrastinators: Protecting Self-Esteem,. Journal of Research In {erspma;otu, 245-261.

Procrastination. (2015). Retrieved December 6, 2015, from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/procrastination

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