BIASES IN THE ASSESSMENT OF PERFORMANCE HANDICAPS

We examine whether individuals display biases in their assessment of a performance handicap. Participants (N = 83) who took an intelligence test while listening to distracting music (a environmental performance handicap) received normative information suggesting that they probabl y scored above average or below average. In addition, some participant s believed that they would learn their score at the end of the experim ent and others believed that they would learn their score at a later d ate. As predicted, participants who suspected a below average score an d anticipated feedback immediately after providing their assessments r ated the music as more distracting than did participants who anticipat ed feedback at a later date and participants who anticipated an above average test score. The discussion focuses on cognitive versus motivat ional explanations for biased assessments of self-relevant feedback.