Self-worth protection strategies and self-esteem in a sample of university students
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Abstract
The high academic demand that characterizes the university stage leads some students to prioritize the protection of their own beliefs of personal worth before getting a poor performance. With this self-protective goal in mind, strategies such as self-handicapping or defensive pessimism stand out for their relatively high prevalence in university environments. However, previous research showed controversial results regarding the relationship (positive or negative) between these strategies and the students’ self-esteem. This study aimed to analyze if there were differences in the level of self-esteem according to the degree (low, medium or high) of self-handicapping (behavioral and claimed) and
defensive pessimism strategies. 691 students (Mage = 21.35; SD = 3.75) from the University of A Coruña took part in the study. 594 participants (86%) were women. The levels (low, medium, and high) of self-handicapping (behavioral and claimed) and defensive pessimism were determined based on the 33rd and 66th percentiles, which were taken as cut points. The differences in selfesteem (dependent variable) according to the level of each self-protection strategy (assigned independent variables) were analyzed using a three-factor ANOVA. Additionally, the effect size was estimated using the Cohen d statistic. In the three considered strategies, the results showed that the medium group was significantly related with higher levels of self-esteem than the low and the high group. These results suggest that self-handicapping and defensive pessimism achieve the goal of protecting self-esteem when their use is moderate, but they would be less effective when their use is high. The psychoeducational implications of these results are discussed, paying special attention
to those factors of the university teaching-learning process that may increase the vulnerability of some students to the self-protection strategies.
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