Abstract
From time to time in the history of science an idea emerges “before its time” and is destined to languish in relative obscurity until the way somehow is prepared for it to assume its rightful place in the order of things. Sometimes, the idea is so precocious that there is no basis in contemporary science or cultural development for its significance to be comprehended or evaluated. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was Democritus’s fifth-century b. c. proposal that the atom was the fundamental building block of matter. It wasn’t until the twentieth-century a. d. that physical science had advanced to the point that Niels Bohr was finally able to describe the atom as we now understand it. There are other times when an idea “submerges” because there are repressive cultural or ideological forces at work. As an instance of this, consider that Copernicus’s heliocentric (sun-centered) model of the then-known universe was actively suppressed by the Catholic church, based on theological convictions that God’s earth must be the center of the universe. Moreover, Copernicus’s later advocates (e. g., Galileo) were zealously persecuted by the Inquisition.
The patient selects certain symptoms and develops them until they impress him as real obstacles. Behind his barricade of symptoms the patient feels hidden and secure. To the question, ‘What use are you making of your talents?’ he answers, ‘This thing stops me; I cannot go ahead,’ and points to his self-erected barricade. (Alfred Adler, 1929, p. 13)
The self-handicapper, we are suggesting, reaches out for impediments, exaggerates handicaps, embraces any factor reducing personal responsibility for mediocrity and enhancing personal responsibility for success. One does this to shape the implications of performance feedback both in one’s own eyes and in the eyes of others. (Edward E. Jones & Steven Berglas, 1978, p. 202)
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Higgins, R.L. (1990). Self-Handicapping. In: Self-Handicapping. The Springer Series in Social / Clinical Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0861-2_1
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