The Impact of Perceived Parenting Style and Gender on Self-Handicapping

Self-handicapping (S.H.) is defined as an act of claiming or creating obstacles to provide explanation for subsequent outcomes. Self handicap-ping has two forms: behavioral and claimed. This behavior may be impacted by parenting styles. The aim of the present study is to investigate the impacts of perceived parenting style on S. H. An ex-post facto method is applied targeting a sample of undergraduate students at Shahid Beheshti University. The sample consists of at least 30 subjects in each parenting style group, reaching a total number of 184 (95 females) who completed Self-handi-capping scale and Perceived Parenting Style Questionnaire. MANOVA sho-ws that the total score of S. H. and the score of behavioral type of S. H. were significantly higher among those with an authoritarian parenting style. An interaction is also found between gender and parenting style in self han-dicapping, indicating that the claimed S. H. was more evident among girls in authoritative parenting style, while in authoritarian parenting style the clai-med S. H. is higher in boys. These results indicate that affection and con-trol seem to impact self-handicapping.