Age and excuses for forgetting: Self-handicapping versus damage-control strategies

Either before or after being interviewed for a volunteer position, a young or old protagonist (i.e., target) gave an excuse for forgetting. Study part icipants (i.e., perceivers) had a higher opinion of the target's memory, we re more confident in the target's capability of performing memory-related t asks, and attributed the target's memory failures more to bad luck when the excuse was given after (damage-control strategy) rather than before (self- handicapping strategy) the interview. Moreover, the excuse given before the interview had no significant effect on perceivers' judgments when compared with data from an earlier study in which the target gave no excuse for for getting. The present findings suggest that a damage-control strategy can am eliorate negative capability impressions.