The Model of Academic Self-handicapping in High School Students: The Role of Cognitive Error, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Neglect, and Psychological Security

 Self-handicapping includes any activity a person uses to increase the opportunities to externalize failure, provide an excuse for failure, or attribute success to internal factors. According to the research, self-handicapping results in multiple negative academic, social, and psychological consequences for students. It is possible to improve students' academic performance by identifying the factors related to self-handicapping and psychological security and trying to solve them. Dealing with self-handicapping is crucial because it strengthens many undesirable and ineffective student behaviors. Instead of using effective solutions for educational problems, they get used to denial behaviors to evade their problem. The purpose of the present study was to explain the model of academic self-handicapping in students, considering the role of variables of cognitive error, childhood trauma, emotional neglect, and psychological security.

 This descriptive-analytical research adopted structural equation modeling. The statistical population included all high school students of Behshahr City, Iran, in the academic year 2021-2022. The number is around 7500, according to the Behshahr City Education Administration (July 2022). In this research, the sampling method was purposive. Because at least the number of samples must be 20 times the observed variables, 380 people were enough to be compatible with structural equation modeling. However, in this research, a sample of 421 people was agreed upon to increase the power of generalization. The inclusion criteria were as follows: being a high school student, living in Behshahr, lacking behavioral problems, and having physical health. The exclusion criteria included having a chronic disease, being absent or not completing or incompletely filling in the questionnaires, and refusing to continue cooperation. The study data were gathered via the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) (Bernstein et al., 2003), the Psychological Security Questionnaire (Maslow, 1942), the Emotional Neglect Questionnaire (Downey and Feldman, 1996), the Cognitive Distortions Questionnaire (Abdollahzade and Salar, 2010), and the Educational Self-Handicapping Questionnaire (Midgley & Urdan, 2001). To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. In the descriptive statistics section, central and dispersion indices (mean and standard deviation) were used. In the inferential statistics section, the Pearson correlation coefficient and path analysis modeling were used. The research data were analyzed at a significance level 0.01 using SPSS version 24 and LISREL version 10.2 statistical software.

 The results showed that the effects of psychological security (p<0.001, β=-0.42), childhood trauma (p<0.001, β=0.17), cognitive errors (p<0.001, β=0.18), and emotional neglect (p<0.001, β=0.21) on academic self-handicapping were direct and significant. Also, the effects of childhood trauma (p<0.001, β=-0.30), cognitive errors (p<0.001, β=-0.29), and emotional neglect (p<0.001, β=-0.31) were direct and significant on psychological security. The indirect effects of childhood trauma (p<0.001, β=0.13), cognitive errors (p<0.001, β=0.12), and emotional neglect (p<0.001, β=0.13) on academic self-handicapping were significant due to mediator role of psychological security. The resulting fit indices for the tested model were at a suitable level (RMSEA=0.052, NFI=0.96, CFI=0.98, GFI=0.95, AGFI=0.92).

 According to the findings, students enduring cognitive error, childhood trauma, emotional neglect, and psychological insecurity are at risk of suffering from academic self-handicapping. Psychological security as a mediator variable between childhood trauma, cognitive error, and emotional neglect with academic self-handicapping plays a decisive role in students.