CLAIMING DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AS A SELF-HANDICAP - A PROTECTIVE SELF-PRESENTATION STRATEGY

This experiment addressed circumstances in which greater characterological depression is associated with public disclosures of depressive symptoms. Participants first completed a “social accuracy” test where they believed that an experimenter was either aware or unaware of the performance outcome. One half of them were told that a negative mood could handicap their performance on an upcoming test. When receiving such information, more depressed participants were more likely to claim negative mood when they believed that the experimenter was aware of an initial success or was unaware of an initial failure. Under both of these conditions, the self-presentational benefit of a self-handicap should be high because public success may produce a pressure to maintain a positive impression and private failure may produce a pressure to protect oneself from revealing negative attributes. © 1991, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.