Question

Vanessa has an important presentation coming up at work, but she fears that she will do a poor job. the week before the presentation, she claims that she is feeling under the weather; she leaves work early almost every day and barely practices her presentation at all. even though she may not realize what she is doing, vanessa is setting herself up so that she will have an "excuse" in case the presentation does not go well. social psychologists refer to this pattern of behavior as ____.

Answer 1

I believe the answer is: self-handicapping

self-handicapping refers the situation when people knowingly reduce their efforts to do something in fear of facing failures. In general, self-handicapping is being done by people with low-self esteem and tend to see themselves as inferior compared to others regardless of the situation.