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Abstract The influence of Perfectionism, Self-esteem and Self-efficacy on Self-handicapping in studying was investigated in relation to individualism and collectivism in students in the United Kingdom and Lebanon. One hundred and twenty eight participants (64 UK and 64 from Lebanon) completed the Individualism and Collectivism Scale; the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale; the Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory; the Self-handicapping Scale; the Generalised Self-efficacy Scale; and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. Results indicated that Lebanese students showed characteristics of both collectivist and individualist societies whereas the British students were more individualistic. Lebanese students tended to have higher scores on measures of Self-esteem and all forms of Perfectionism than British students, but similar scores on Self-handicapping and Self-efficacy. Regression analyses showed that Lebanese and British students with higher Self-esteem scores and fewer internal self-motivations to be perfect report Self-handicapping less often. British students who report Self-handicapping have lower Self-efficacy scores and higher Self-reliance scores than those who Self-handicap less often, and being female is associated with slightly higher Self-handicapping in the Lebanese. In conclusion, reported Self-orientated Perfectionism and Self-esteem were the major predictors of Self-handicapping in both cultures, and there were other minor differences, supporting the theory that self-handicapping is partly due to feelings of self-doubt.

. Introduction At times, some people intentionally impede their own performance, if they feel uncertain of their ability to succeed and fear failure. This process of self-handicapping, recently reviewed by Urdan and Midgley (2001), involves strategies of externalization so that an individual can excuse failure and internalize (accept credit for) success. Thus a person’s ability attributions can be protected and/or enhanced ( Hobden & Pliner, 1995). It has been argued by McCrea and Hirt (2001) that the motivation for self-handicapping is primarily to protect self-esteem, by defending beliefs about domain specific abilities. There is a continuing debate as to whether self-handicapping strategies are primarily motivated by private esteem or public esteem. Higgins, Snyder, and Berglas (1990) suggested that self-handicappers are mostly concerned with safeguarding the self, and do this through the construction of obstacles to good performance. By comparison, Kolditz and Arkin (1982) suggested that self-handicapping occurs in order to manage impressions, and thus protect oneself from the judgment of others. It thus appears that there are two possible reasons why a person self-handicaps. It may be that people from collectivist societies self-handicap for different reasons than those from individualist societies. Hofstede (1980) stated that individualism is characteristic of most English speaking countries, while collectivism is most typical in Eastern countries. Behaviour within collectivist cultures is largely regulated by ingroup norms, whereas in individualist cultures behavior is more likely to be regulated by a person’s own likes, dislikes, and cost-benefit analysis ( Triandis, McCusker, & Hui, 1990). Triandis et al. suggested that in collectivist cultures more emphasis is placed on ingroup fate, ingroup achievement, family integrity, obedience and security whilst in individualist cultures emphasis is placed on personal fate, personal achievement, pleasure and competition. Self-handicapping in collectivist societies might be motivated more by needs to protect public esteem (manage impressions), whereas in individualist societies it might result more from the necessity to protect private self-esteem. A cross-cultural investigation might shed light onto the sources of motivation to self-handicap. Another factor that should be considered when studying the cross-cultural motives for self-handicapping is perfectionism. Hobden and Pliner (1995) suggested that self-orientated and socially-prescribed perfectionists might well self-handicap for different reasons as their perfectionistic tendencies are derived from two very different sources, the former being internal with the latter being external. Thus, perfectionism’s influence on self-handicapping may differ in individualist and collectivist cultures and this will be examined. The concept has been identified as a multidimensional construct, both personal and social, consisting of Self-orientated Perfectionism, Socially-prescribed Perfectionism, and Other-orientated Perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991). Self-orientated perfectionists strive for high personal standards of perfection. Socially-prescribed perfectionists believe that other people, often parents, have very high standards and expectations of their performance (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990), while Other-orientated perfectionists believe that other people around them should be perfect. The majority of research on perfectionism has focused on predominantly Westernized samples or has simply not accounted for, or reported on, the sample’s cultural identity. Research comparing perfectionism across cultures is extremely scarce. Researchers have looked at ethnic differences in perfectionism within the USA (Chang, 1998 and Nilsson et al., 1999) but these studies are not entirely cross-cultural, as the participants were all raised within the same culture. Nilsson et al. reported that African American students scored significantly higher on other-orientated perfectionism than White American students, while Chang reported that Asian Americans were generally more perfectionist than Caucasian Americans, especially on measures of parental expectations and parental criticisms. Findings such as these suggest that cultural differences may well exist regarding perfectionism. However, it is evident that cross-cultural research in this area is extremely sparse at present, and this study will extend this area of knowledge. In addition, since only one study has looked at the frequency of perfectionistic thoughts, and attempted to create a measure of perfectionist cognitions (Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & Gray, 1998), this study will try to ascertain whether culture affects levels of perfectionistic thinking. Another influential factor that may influence self-handicapping is self-esteem. Cross-culturally, it is interesting to look at self-esteem, as it appears that cultural influences have an effect on its acquisition and maintenance. Ip and Bond (1995) looked at students from the US, Japan and Hong Kong and showed that US participants had higher levels of self-esteem. Self-esteem has also been looked at in relation to perfectionism. Using a US sample, Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, and O’Brien (1991) found no relationship between self-orientated perfectionism and self-esteem, but self-esteem was found to be negatively correlated with socially-prescribed perfectionism and positively correlated with other-orientated perfectionism. A further concept that comprises a component of the self is that of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy may well differ from culture to culture, as a person from a collectivist culture might well develop their self-efficacy from those around them whereas an individual from an individualist society might derive their self-efficacy more from their own experiences of success and failure. Bandura (1995) suggested that the best source of self-efficacy is derived from personal mastery experiences, and personal experiences are often emphasised to a greater extent within individualist societies (Triandis et al., 1990). Individual sources of self-efficacy will not be addressed in this study, but we will assess whether self-efficacy is higher in an individualist culture and if this influences self-handicapping levels in that culture. Lynch (1999) argued that self-handicapping arises from feelings of self-doubt and a concern about one’s ability level, and if this is the case then self-handicapping should be higher for people with lower self-esteem and lower self-efficacy. Hart, Gilner, Handal, and Gfeller (1998) reported that self-orientated perfectionism and other-orientated perfectionism were associated with low self-efficacy, whereas socially-prescribed perfectionism correlated positively with self-efficacy, but cultural considerations were not taken into account. Thus, the literature suggests that a number of cross-cultural differences might be found in relation to individualism-collectivism, perfectionism, self-handicapping, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. It was predicted that individuals from an individualist culture (United Kingdom) would have higher levels of Self-reliance and Distance from Ingroups than people from a collectivist culture (Lebanon) who would have higher levels of family integrity and Interdependence (relying on important figures surrounding an individual). Although Lebanon is not the most extremely collectivist of cultures it is predominantly more collectivist than individualist as the family commands primary loyalty in Lebanese society and integrates people into strong, cohesive groups (Collelo, 1989). It was also hypothesised that the British would have higher levels of self-orientated perfectionism than the Lebanese, who would have higher levels of other-orientated and socially-prescribed perfectionism. Previous research, with US students, lead to the prediction that British students would have higher levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy than the Lebanese. The inter-relationships between these variables were examined for each culture separately, to determine whether culture affected the patterns of connection to self-handicapping, and whether this resulted in different levels of self-handicapping.

Results Differences between British and Lebanese test scores, and between male and female participants, were compared by means of t-tests. There were no significant gender differences on any of the test scores. There was a significant association between study country and religion, with 45% of Lebanese being Christian, 50% being Muslim and 5% having no religion, whereas in the British sample 45% were Christian and 55% had no religion, χ2(2, N = 126) = 57.95, p < 0.0001. The results of the MANOVA, Hotelling’s Trace, indicated significant differences between the two groups on the measures, F(11, 116) = 27.39, p < 0.001. This difference was examined by post-hoc t-tests, shown in Table 1, revealing no significant differences between Lebanese and British students in levels of Self-reliance, Interdependence, Self-handicapping and Self-efficacy scores. However, the Lebanese students had significantly higher scores than British students on all other measured variables except Family Integrity, which yielded higher scores for British students. Examining the individualism scores shows that both samples had similar levels of Self-reliance and Interdependence, falling just on the individualistic side of the middle of the range. They were also similar in Interdependence, tending slightly towards collectivism. Differences did appear for Distance from Ingroups; the Lebanese were significantly more collectivist than the British students but both groups were on the collectivist side of the range, t(126) = 2.40, p < 0.05, d = 0.42, but this is only a small to medium size effect. The clearest difference between the two cultures was in terms of scores on Family Integrity, on which the Lebanese were far more collectivist than the British students who were on the individualist end of the range, t(126) = 15.07, p < 0.001, d = 1.60. Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations of Personality Scores for the Lebanese and British Students Lebanese British t p M SD M SD Individualism scores Self-reliance 28.05 5.07 29.58 5.64 −1.61 0.109 Distance from ingroups 12.11 2.49 11.08 2.37 2.40 0.018 Family Integrity 4.69 1.52 8.19 1.07 −15.07 0.001 Interdependence 11.97 3.08 11.45 2.58 1.03 0.306 Perfectionism Self-orientated 71.38 13.46 58.97 17.66 4.47 0.001 Socially-prescribed 62.05 10.09 48.38 14.38 6.23 0.001 Other-orientated 61.86 8.84 50.25 11.05 6.57 0.001 Perfectionist Cognitions 51.69 17.85 44.48 20.63 2.11 0.037 Self-handicapping 73.91 8.27 76.25 9.39 −1.50 0.137 Self-esteem 31.03 4.32 28.17 4.46 3.68 0.001 Self-efficacy 30.42 3.80 29.58 4.37 1.17 0.246 Note: df = 126 throughout. Table options Lebanese students have significantly higher scores on all of the three Perfectionism subscales than the UK students (effect sizes of Cohen’s d = 0.74 for SOP, d = 0.97 for SPP, and d = 1.01 for OOP), which are large effect sizes. Lebanese students reported having significantly more Perfectionist Cognitions than British students, t(126) = 2.11, p < 0.05, d = 0.37. The groups show similar scores on Self-handicapping and Self-efficacy, but the Lebanese had significantly higher Self-esteem scores, t(126) = 3.68, p < 0.001, d = 0.62. Both groups had good Self-esteem and Self-efficacy with scores around 30, and middle of the range mean scores for Self-handicapping. Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients were performed on the test scores for Lebanese and British samples separately, to see if different relationships exist. Table 2 shows that the number of Perfectionist Cognitions correlated highly with the other measures of Perfectionism for both groups, and the relationship with Self-orientated Perfectionism was significantly higher for the British students, z = 2.39, p < 0.05. For the Lebanese sample Self-handicapping was related only to Self-esteem, r(62) = −0.41, p < 0.001, and no other correlations with this factor were significant. This was not true for the British sample, where Self-handicapping negatively associated with Self-orientated Perfectionism, r(62) = −0.42, p < 0.001. Self-esteem was significantly positively correlated with Self-efficacy for both the Lebanese and the British students at around r = 0.4. Table 2. Intercorrelations Between Scales and Subscales for Lebanese and British Students 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lebanese students Perfectionism 1 Self-orientated – 0.40* 0.39* 0.51a,* −0.23 −0.06 0.35a 2 Socially-prescribed – 0.35a 0.39 −0.10 −0.24 0.12 3 Other-orientated – 0.24 −0.19 0.14 0.23 4 Perfectionist Cognitions – −0.04 −0.12 0.11 5 Self-handicapping – −0.41* −0.21 6 Self-esteem – 0.43* 7 Self-efficacy – British students Perfectionism 1 Self-orientated – 0.61* 0.64* 0.76a,* −0.42* −0.09 −0.09a 2 Socially prescribed – 0.69a,* 0.50* −0.12 −0.30 −0.16 3 Other-orientated – 0.44* −0.28 −0.07 0.19 4 Perfectionist Cognitions – −0.17 −0.27 −0.10 5 Self-handicapping – −0.34 −0.34 6 Self-esteem – 0.48* 7 Self-efficacy – Note: A Bonferroni correction means that only relationships at * p < 0.001 are significant. a These correlations for Lebanese and British students are significantly different at p < 0.05. Table options Two stepwise multiple regression analyses, including individualism scores, age and gender, were used to determine which variables best predicted Self-handicapping in each country. A significant model was produced for the Lebanese students, adjusted R2 = 0.25, F(3, 63) = 7.99, p < 0.001, and for the British students, adjusted R2 = 0.38, F(4, 63) = 10.67, p < 0.001. For the Lebanese students Self-orientated Perfectionism, ß = −0.23, Self-esteem, ß = −0.48, and Gender, ß = 0.23, were entered into the equation whereas for the British students Self-orientated Perfectionism, ß = −0.52, Self-efficacy, ß = −0.26, Self-reliance, ß = −0.23, and Self-esteem, ß = −0.25, were entered. With the exception of Self-reliance for the British, none of the four measures of Individualism/Collectivism, and neither SPP or OOP, or Perfectionist Cognitions were predictors of higher reported levels of Self-handicapping. It appears that Self-orientated Perfectionism and Self-esteem are the factors that significantly predict reported levels of Self-handicapping for both groups of students, with those students who have higher Self-esteem scores and more internal motivations to be perfect being less likely to report Self-handicapping than those with lower Self-esteem scores and fewer internal motivations to be perfect. For the British students both Self-efficacy and Self-reliance are also influencing factors, whereas they are not influencing the Lebanese for whom being female is a predictor of higher Self-handicapping scores. The British students who report being self-handicappers have fewer internal self-motivations to be perfect, have lower Self-efficacy, lower Self-esteem and are more self-reliant/individualistic.