Know thyself: Misperceptions of actual performance undermine achievement motivation, future performance, and subjective well-being.

2010/01/01 by Young-Hoon Kim, Chi‐yue Chiu, Zhimin Zou · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction #Psychology #Task (project management) #Distraction #Social psychology #Need for achievement #Self evaluation #Academic achievement #Cognitive psychology #Applied psychology #Developmental psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/a0020555

openalex publication_date 2010/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/24

Abstract

Contrary to the popular assumption that self-enhancement improves task motivation and future performance, the authors propose that both inflated and deflated self-assessments of performance are linked to an increased likelihood of practicing self-handicapping and having relatively poor performance in future tasks. Consistent with this proposal, we found that irrespective of the level of actual performance, compared with accurate self-assessment, both inflated and deflated self-assessments of task performance are associated with a greater tendency to (a) practice self-handicapping (Study 1: prefer to work under distraction; Study 2: withhold preparatory effort), (b) perform relatively poorly in a subsequent task (Study 3), (c) have relatively low academic achievement (Study 4), and (d) report a relatively low level of subjective well-being (Study 5). The authors discuss these results in terms of their educational implications.

Citations

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Cited by

• Self-enhancement [wikipedia]