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Overstatements of Self-evaluations by Students with Psychoeducational Problems

As part of an investigation of the relationship between self-efficacy, self-concept, and expectancy of success, 19 students with learning and behavior problems were administered several self-evaluation measures. Unfortunately, the experimental procedures failed to counter a previously noted tendency of such students toward overly positive self-evaluative statements. Because of the persistence of this phenomenon, the originally planned study was aborted and efforts were initiated to explore the overstatement tendency as a self-protective coping strategy. The results support previous findings indicating that the students' positive self-evaluations represent a selective tendency and are not due to an inability to make accurate self-evaluative judgments. The findings also support an interpretation of such overstatements as a form of self-protective behavior; in this context, however, a new concept, “protective avoidance,” is offered as a broader construct for understanding selective overstatements and related behavior.