This study examined the relationship between academic motivation, competitiveness, and self- handicapping behaviors in 748 high school students. It found that amotivation and extrinsic motivation positively predicted self-handicapping, while intrinsic motivation negatively predicted it. Students higher in self-handicapping reported lower intrinsic motivation and preference for difficult tasks. They also reported higher levels of avoiding competition due to fears of poor performance or damage to self-image. The study suggests that redirecting students away from hypercompetitive behaviors and extrinsic motivations could help reduce self-handicapping.

1. Deci, Edward L., et al. "Motivation And Education: The Self-Determination Perspective."
Educational Psychologist 26.3/4 (1991): 325. Academic Search Complete.
Main points:
 In order to increase motivation must promote greater self determination
o A greater sense of choice more self initiation of behavior and a greater personal
responsibility
o Promoting self determination is the avenue to attaining outcomes such as
creativity
 The key elements to promote students:
o Autonomy support and interpersonal involvement
 Parents and teachers are involved- more curiosity
 Autonomy support by adults begins with taking the childs fram of reference
o Understanding the basis of their child’s motivational and cognitive frame
 Analyzing the beginning of what motivation means to the person, may help gain
perspective on how to harness that and use it productively
 Teachers who supported autonomy influenced the classroom in students having more
intrinsic motivation
 Conceptual imderstanding and personal adjustment are the most important educational
outcomes
 Grolnick found that elementary school students who reported more autonomous
motivation for doing school work in general evidenced greater conceptual learning and
better memory than did children who reported less autonomous motivation
 College sutents who learned text material in order to put it to use reported more
intrinsic motivation for learning and showed greater conceptual understanding than
did students who learned material in order to be tested
 Students who learned material in order to be tested let to lower interst and poorer
conceptual learning
Quotes:
“Motivated actions are self-determined to the extent that they are engaged in whilly volitionally
and endorsed by one’s sense of self, whereas actions are controlled if they are compelled by
some interpersonal or intrapsychic force” (326-327)
“”Self-determination theory does address the energization issue as well as the direction issue,
and it does so by postulating about basic psychological needs that are inherent in human life”
(327)
“[Need]…allows one to specify the contextual conditions that will facilitation motivation,
performance and development” (328)

2. “Extrinsically motivated behaviors…are instrumental in nature. They are performed not out of
interest but because they are believed to be instrumental to some separable consequence” (328)
“Internalization is a proactive process through which people transform regulation by external
contingencies into regulation by internal processes” (328)
“External regulation refers to behaviors for which the locus of initiation is external to the person,
for example, the offer of a reward o the threat of a punishment”
“Introjected regulation taking in but not accepting a regulation as one’s own”
“Identified regulation occurs when the person has come to value the behavior and has identified
with and accepted the regulatory process”
“Integrated regulation the moste developmentally advanced form of externisc motivation”
“the identifications are reciprocally assimilated with the individual’s other values needs and
identities”
“autonomous self regulation”
Summary:
The purpose of this article was to define the self determination theory and its application towards
education. The self determination theory “distinguishes between self-determined and controlled
types of intentional regulation” Meaning, motivation is self determined when engaged in
voluntarily with autonomy. Other theories have not addressed the issue of energization of
behavior. This theory addresses innate need such as “needs for competence, relatedness, and
autonomy.” Primarily, this article focuses on the idea that motivation is innate and can grow
within the right context (ie the college student example) and the right enviornent.
The role of different aspects of academic motivation and competitiveness in explaining self-
handicapping by Damjan Simek and Darja Kobal Grum (2010)
Article Abstract:
In the present research on self-handicapping, the goal was to examine the role of different types
of academic motivation according to the level of self-determination. Since the existing research
on self-handicapping has examined only the role of interpersonal competition, we also aimed to
explore the role of different kinds of competition, i.e., the role of the reasons that motivate
people to participate in competition, and the role of the reasons for the avoidance of competition.
748 high school students participated in the study. Regarding the role of academic motivation in
self-handicapping the prevailing role of amotivation stood out. Intrinsic motivation predicted

3. self-handicapping negatively, but extrinsic motivation proved to be a positive predictor. The
factor structure of the Academic Motivation Scale only enabled differentiation of the reasons for
education on the level of three basic types. With regard to the role of the different dimensions of
competitiveness in self-handicapping, results show that those denoted by fear of failure and self-
worth protection proved to be more characteristic of self-handicapping than those defined by a
high valuation of the importance of quality of task accomplishment. Among others, our research
suggests that by diverting students away from hypercompetitive values, functionality of self-
handicapping can be decreased.
Quotes:
“Intrinsic motivation refers to performing an activity for pleasure and satisfaction derived from
it, while extrinsic motivation refers to engaging in an activity as a means to an end”
“External regulation, the least self-determined type of extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that
is determine through rewards and constraints”
“”These behaviors [proposed by Deci] are controlled in part by the environment, but also by
internal reward/punishment contingencies (guilt, ego enhancement, shame or obligation)”
“Integrated regulation…occurs when regulations are the most autonomous…fully assimilated
with the self “
“Amotivation refers to the lack of intentionality…the absence of motivation”
“For education amotivated individuals do not believe that they can influence future events”
“characterized by lack of initiative and by negative or conflict emotions toward school tasks”
Competitiveness: “the rate of domination of a certain type of motive in that individual”
“competitiveness is a multi-dimensional construct, where two dimensions are characteristic:
competition gains the others and struggling to do a task better than the other person”
Avoidance of competition: “self image concerns refer to the individual’s fear about the
consequences of completion as related to the outcome, performance concerns refer to the
individual’s fear about the consequences of competition as concerns the process of performing a
task”
Self-handicapping “’any action or choice of performance setting that enhances the opportunity to
externalize failure and to internalize success’”
Methods:
 748 students from nine grammar schools in nine Slovene major cities (46% boys and
50.4% girls ages 15-19)

4.  Used the “Self-Handicapping Scale” which comprised of 25 statemtns designed to assess
an individual’s proclivity to display self-handicapping behavior
 Created statements and students were asked to rate them on a 0-5 scale
 Used “The Academic Motivation Scale” which is a r8 item scale measuring intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation as well as amotivation
 Used the “Competitiveness/Mastery Questionnair” to measure different reasons to
participate in competition.
 Used the “self-Image concerns scale” and “Performance concerns scale”
 “Distraction of Attention Scale” 16 items
 Had the students complete a booklet filled with questionnaires (40mins long)
Results:
“The analysis showed a number of statistically significant relationships with self-handicapping.
The intercorrelations among the variables appear in Table 1. Self-handicapping was most
strongly and positively associated with all three reasons for avoidance of competition: the
performance concerns, self image concerns and distraction of attention, as well as with
amotivation for education. The participants higher in dispositional self-handicapping also
reported higher hypercompetitiveness. Participants higher in self-handicapping reported a lower
preference for difficult tasks, lower intrinsic academic motivation, lower personal development
competitiveness, lower satisfaction that comes from improving performance on a task well done,
and lower motivation to put forth effort. No statistically significant relationship with
selfhandicapping was found for the need to win or for extrinsic academic motivation.”
Amotivation was a positive predictor of self-handicapping and intrinsic motication was a
negative predictor of self-handicapping. Extrinsic motivation was a positive predictor of self-
handicapping.