Student Tendencies to Self-handicap in Law School

Self-handicapping is a set of behavioral strategies employed before a performance that permits the individual to avoid receiving information that threatens self-esteem. Catherine Ross Dunham (Elon University School of Law) reports her findings on self-handicapping law school student behavior in Hidden Obstacles in the Mass Culture of American Legal Education: An Empirical Analysis, 32 Okla. City U. L. Rev. 237 (2007) [Westlaw]. The results of Dunham's study suggest that "an individual student's self-attributed achiever type correlates to the student's year in law school and GPA. Most significantly, the results of the study suggest that a law student's GPA correlates with the student's self-handicapping score and, further, that GPA is predictive of his self-handicapping score." [JH]