Self-Defeating Behaviors

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Rebecca Curtis

      Pages 1-7

3. How Self-Defeating Behaviors Develop and Persist

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

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   2. Belief Perseverance and Self-Defeating Behavior

      • Morgan P. Slusher, Craig A. Anderson

      Pages 11-40

   3. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Self-Defeating Behavior

      • James L. Hilton, John M. Darley, John H. Fleming

      Pages 41-65

   4. Trying and Giving Up

      • Norman T. Feather

      Pages 67-95

4. Self-Defeating Responses to the Threat of Unpleasant Outcomes

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

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   2. Excuses Gone Awry

      • Raymond L. Higgins, C. R. Snyder

      Pages 99-130

   3. Making Things Harder for Yourself

      • Mel L. Snyder, Arthur Frankel

      Pages 131-157

   4. Fear of Success

      • Donnah Canavan

      Pages 159-188

   5. Choosing to Suffer or to…?

      • Rebecca Curtis

      Pages 189-214

   6. Toward an Understanding of Self-Defeating Responses Following Victimization

      • Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Carol E. Thomas

      Pages 215-234

   7. Learned Helplessness

      • Christopher Peterson, Lisa M. Bossio

      Pages 235-257

5. When Situational, Responses Become Personality Dispositions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 259-259

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   2. Self-Handicapping Behavior and the Self-Defeating Personality Disorder

      • Steven Berglas

      Pages 261-288

   3. Controversies Concerning the Self-Defeating Personality Disorder

      • Thomas A. Widiger, Allen J. Frances

      Pages 289-309

   4. The Paradox of the Self

      • Timothy J. Strauman

      Pages 311-339

6. Conclusions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 341-341

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   2. Integration

      • Rebecca Curtis

      Pages 343-361

7. Back Matter

   Pages 363-379

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In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands. And ate of it. I said: "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitter-bitter," he answered; But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart. " Stephen Crane The Black Riders and Other Lines "It is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering," wrote Bernard Knox (1982, p. 149) in his introduction to Oedipus Rex. This is done by showing some causal connection between the hero's free will and his suffer­ ing, by bringing to the fore the interplay of the forces of destiny and human freedom. Knox states that Freud was wrong when he suggested that it was "the particular nature of the material" in Oedipus that makes the play so deeply moving, and not the contrast between destiny and human will. Knox believes that this play has an overpowering effect upon us, not only because we share the tendency of Oedipus to direct" our first sexual impulse towards our mother" and "our first murderous wish against our father," as Freud tells us, but also because the theological modification of the legend introduced by Sophocles calls into question the sacred beliefs of our time (Knox, 1982, pp. 133-137).

• Free Will
• Freud
• Motivation
• Therapeut
• attention
• attribution
• behavior
• cognitive theory
• evaluation
• freedom
• masochism
• nature
• personality
• psychology
• social psychology

• Department of Psychology, Adelphi University, Garden City, USA

  Rebecca C. Curtis

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