Strategic failure in social interaction: Evidence for expectancy disconfirmation processes.

Two experiments were conducted to test the idea that individuals may fail strategically in order to lower the expectations that others hold for their performances. In a pilot study, participants reported that, when lacking confidence, they would be particularly uncomfortable and anxious with high expectations and would attempt to lower them strategically. In Experiment 1, socially anxious and nonanxious participants were led to believe that an interviewer's high or low expectations were due to a prodigious amount of effort or to very little effort. Socially anxious individuals tended to fail strategically when confronted with high as opposed to low expectations presumably based on a prodigious amount of previous effort. In Experiment 2, individuals high or low in social anxiety were led to believe that an interviewer held either high or low expectations for them. High-anxiety participants, led to believe their initial performance would affect high expections, showed much poorer initial performance relative to all other groups. These findings show that individuals who are particularly doubtful about their ability to perform up to par will sometimes fail strategically at the outset of social interaction as a means to create lower and safer standards. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)