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A. E. Kelly's (2000) thesis that psychotherapy clients benefit from withholding negative information is considered in light of current social-psychological theory and research. Positive illusions about oneself are associated with indexes of mental health; this is consistent with treating therapy as positive identity development. Self-presentation can shape self-concept, even apart from the feedback that an audience might provide; the social construction of identity is a powerful process, suggesting that withholding negative and presenting only positive information is adaptive. However, evidence concerning the level of identification of one's actions suggests complexities in understanding ways clients might deal with disclosing negative information; the authors argue that the impact on self-concept is probably more complex than A. E. Kelly's characterization and that the implications are of a broader scope than indicated so far.

A strategy related to self-handicapping in which individuals supply a comparison other with a performance advantage rather than handicap their own performance was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1 greater other-enhancement was found among men than among women. In addition, men engaged in the most other-enhancement when expecting that their performance would be compared with that of a coparticipant. In Experiment 2 the hypothesis that subjects would facilitate their coparticipant's performance primarily under conditions of uncertainty and competition was supported. A defining feature of contemporary Western society is the extraordinary emphasis placed on achievement and success. Striving for success seems to pervade every aspect of human interaction from the classroom, to the playing field, to the corporate boardroom. This emphasis on achievement and success suggests that people might make every effort to ensure possession of the necessary resources to maximize performance. Individuals would be expected to reach for any and every advantage to facilitate performance, including eliminating obstacles or disabilities that might interfere with success. Nevertheless, recent research shows that individuals are sometimes willing to create impediments to performance, making failure more likely. Berglas and Jones (1978) labeled this intriguing finding "self-handicapping."

The impact of performance outcome, task difficulty, and level of test anxiety on attributional accounts for performance and achievement-related affect was explored. Subjects high and low in test anxiety (Sarason, 1972) worked on tasks of varying difficulty, evaluated their own performance, and then responded to two types of attribution items, inventories of major affective reactions (Izard, 1972), and a measure of cognitive interference (Sarason and Stoops, 1978). Meaningful attributional accounts were uncovered; in particular, performance outcome and task difficulty had independent effects on subjects' attributional judgments. Cognitive interference was implicated as a factor contributing to the attributional predispositions of persons differing in test anxiety, and it was a major determinant of affective reactions. In addition, subjects' affective responses were predictably associated with their perceived performance outcome, their level of test anxiety, the difficulty of the task, and subjects' attributional accounts of the factors influencing their performance. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive components and phenomenological experience of test anxiety and the consequent impact anxiety may have on achievement-related behavior.