The Journal of Psychology, 121(5), 413-421 Anticipatory Excuses in Relation to Expected versus Actual Task Performance JOHN JUNG Department of Psychology California State University ABSTRACT. The relationship between task performance and frequency of posttask excuses was compared with that between performance level and frequency of antic- ipatory excuses made before performance was measured on a classroom exam. Study T used a checklist of 10 statements frequently used by students as excuses for poor performances on examinations and students indicated which statements applied to them. The relationships between excuse frequency, actual performance, and ex- pected performance (relative to classmates) were measured either before or after the first midterm exam for two subgroups. There was a weak inverse correlation between excuse frequency and expected, but not with actual exam scores. Expected scores were uncorrelated with actual exam scores. Anticipatory excuses were less frequent than posttest excuses, whereas expectations about performance were higher before than immediately after the test. Study 2 was based on the second exam of the semes- ter to enable students to have a better basis for their expectations. An open-ended format was used to allow students to express a wider variety of excuses. Accounts were obtained for higher (justification) as well as lower (excuse) expected scores, Expectations of poorer performance led to more anticipatory excuses whereas ex- pected improved scores were correlated with more pretest justifications. Thus, even though students are poor predictors of actual performance, the relationship between frequency of anticipatory excuses and expected performance parallels that obtained for excuses made after task performance. EXCUSES ARE A FORM OF IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT (Schlen- ker, 1980; Scott & Lyman, 1968) that people use to extricate themselves from actions for which they may otherwise be blamed or punished. Most research on excuses (Snyder, Higgins, & Stucky, 1983) has been on postperformance Requests for reprints should be sent to John Jung, Department of Psychology, Cali- ‘fornia State University, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840. 413 Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.416 __ The Journal of Psychology excuses when the shortcoming has already occurred. When excuses are of- fered after a poor performance or a transgression, there may be less blame and retribution from others (Snyder et al., 1983). However, excuses are also often made prior to task performance, perhaps because they may offset the embarrassment and other adverse consequences expected to occur from an expected failure. Thus, they may serve the same function as postperformance excuses. By making advance excuses, there may be less embarrassment or retribution than if excuses were made after the fail- ing. The excuse-maker can claim, “I told you so” when the performance turns ‘out to be inadequate. Whereas it is clear that excuses made after poor performance may be motivated by impression management concerns (Schlenker, 1980), anticipa- tory excuses may prove superfluous if eventual performance is actually ade- quate. However, because students are often unable to predict their test out- comes accurately, anticipatory excuses may still occur. One hypothesis is that anxiety prior to an exam may lead to excuses as a type of nervous activity. If this is the primary basis for anticipatory excuses, they should bear little rela- tionship to actual performance. Another explanation is that anticipatory excuses are a type of coping strategy in the event of failure. Making excuses in advance of poor perform- ance may be regarded as more credible to observers than those offered later, which might be discredited as just “excuses.” Furthermore, if the poor per- formance does not occur, the student may be perceived as modest for having made so many unnecessary advance excuses. Consequently, anticipatory ex- cuses may be made even if the person really does not expect failure because there may be little to lose and much to gain. Study 1 The study of naturally occurring excuses is difficult because a sufficient num- ber of occurrences may require a lengthy period of observation. One situation that avoids this problem is used in the present set of studies, which examines anticipatory excuses in an evaluative situation—classroom examinations. Even though students often may not know how good their actual per- formance will be, they usually have expectations. If anticipatory excuses are made to protect self-esteem in the face of expected poor levels of perform- ance, there should be an inverse correlation between expected performance and frequency of anticipatory excuses. In the present study, students were asked to predict their test score and then asked to check off a list of common excuses that they believed might account for their expected performance. Students who expected to do as well or better than average would not be expected to check many excuses whereas Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.Jung__415 those who expected to do lower than average would. This study involves a comparison of anticipatory and postperformance excuse frequency with ex- pected and actual test performance. Method Subjects and procedure. A class of 144 students (58 males and 86 females) in an introductory psychology course served as subjects. Exams with either a pretest or a posttest of expected performance and excuses were placed on alternate desks in the lecture hall. This procedure was designed to create two equal groups, but, unfortunately, students did not occupy the seats in se- quence, with the result being that 86 students received pretests and only 58 had posttests Marerials. A list of common excuses that have been received by instructors was obtained by informal interviews of three instructors: I did not study enough I did not have enough time to study. The test was not fair. Today is not my lucky day. I feel a bit sick today. 1 did not sleep well. The text was not well written. Lectures were too difficult. I’m too tense and nervous. Other: (specify) Seeravayne Procedure. On the pretest, students checked off as many of the statements on the list of excuses that they believed applied to them and rated their expected performance relative to classmates on a 5-point scale before taking the test. For the posttest group, immediately after completing the exam, the same questionnaire was given to obtain their expected performance and to identify which statements on the list of excuses applied to them. The term excuses was not used to describe the list to the students. The exam had 100 multiple- choice items and was the first of three exams for the semester. Results As indicated in Table 1, the mean exam score was 66.7 for the pretest excuse group and 64.7 for the posttest excuse group, which was not significant, 1(142) < 1.0. The mean number of excuses was not significantly different for Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.416 The Journal of Psychology TABLE 1 Means and Correlations for Pretest, Posttest, and Postfeedback Measures ——— Pretest group Posttest group. Measure, 1 2 3 1 2 3 Expectancy Excuses ~.27 —.26 Exam Score 48 — 12 AL AS Mean 2.88 1.30 66.7 2.65 1.53 64.7 Note. 1 = Expectancy, 2 = Excuses, and 3 = Exam Score. the posttest group, 1.53, and the pretest group, 1.30, (142) = 1.1, ns. How- ever, the mean expectations regarding exam scores were higher for the pretest group than for the posttest group (2.88 vs. 2.65), (142) = 1.73, p < .05. Significant correlations were found between actual exam scores and pre- test and posttest expectations, r(84) = .48, p < .001 and 7(56) = .41, p < 001, respectively, but they did not differ from each other, Fisher's exact Z = 52. For the pretest group, small correlations were found between excuse fre- quency and expected performance, r(84) = ~.27, p < .01, and between excuses and actual exam scores, r(84) = —12, p > .05, and they did not differ from each other, Fisher's exact Z = 1.1 In the posttest group, excuse frequency and expected performance were weakly related, (56) = —.26, p < .01, as were excuses and actual exam scores, (56) = —.15, ns. The difference between the two correlations was not significant, Fisher's exact Z = .55. The pretest excuses given by students most frequently fell into only a few types: “not enough study” (38%), not enough time to study (19%), and psychological problems such as anxiety or personal problems (23%). Table 2 shows similar patterns of excuses for the pre- and posttest excuse groups al- though there were higher levels for “lack of study” and “amount of time to study” for the posttest group. Discussion ‘The evidence indicates slight support for the prediction that either type of excuses, anticipatory or postperformance, will occur more often for students expecting to do poorly on an exam, as implied by theories about excuses Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.tt (Snyder et al., 1983). One reason for such weak findings may be that students were limited to the excuses on the checklist. Furthermore, the power of sug- gestion may operate so that more excuses might be selected from the checklist than would spontaneously occur, which might mask any relationships. To avoid these possibilities, Study 2 used an open-ended format that asked students how they would account for their expected performance on an exam. Only pretest measures were taken in Study 2. The relationship obtained in Study 1 may also have been weak because it involved the first exam of the semester so it was not possible for students to base their expectations on any valid information about this specific course and/or instructor. Thus, the relationship obtained between excuses and per- formances may have been weakened. A stronger effect should occur for situ- ations where students have more information about the class and have a more realistic basis for forming expectations. Therefore, in Study 2 the question- naire preceded the second test of the semester so students had some realistic expectation about their ability and the instructor's tests. Another difference between the two studies was that in Study 2 the judgment requested of sub- jects was how well they expected to do relative to the first exam rather than hhow well they would do relative to classmates, as in Study 1. Finally, Study 2 was expanded to examine what type of anticipatory ac- counts (explanations) are made for expected high performance rather than only low performance. One would not expect “excuses” to be offered for expected high performance. Impression management theory (Schlenker, 1980) suggests that persons who expect to do well might wish to receive credit and recognition by “‘acclaiming” or giving reasons why they will do well. Success has been attributed to internal and stable factors such as effort TABLE 2 Percentage of Subjects Giving Each Excuse for Study 1 ee Excuse Pretest Posttest Not study enough 38 33 Not enough time to study 19 38 ‘The test was not fair 1 2 ‘Not my lucky day 3 5 Feel a bit sick today 10 6 I did not sleep well 9 2 Text was not well written 2 0 Lectures too difficult 0 ° Too tense and nervous B 7 Other 16 7 Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.48 _ The Journal of Psychology and ability (Weiner, 1974; Zuckerman, 1979). Finally, students who expected to do about the same as on the first test should give neither excuses nor justi- fications unless possibly they expect to repeat very high or very low scores. Study 2 Method Subjects and materials. A class of 152 introductory psychology students (48 males and 104 females served as subjects. A 100-item, multiple-choice exam covering the course material was used in a 1-hr class period. Instructions. Before the test, students were asked to predict their performance relative to their score on the first exam. They were also asked to recall their first exam score. Then they were asked to briefly explain why they expected such an outcome. Scoring. Two judges read the accounts offered for performance. If the account implied that expected performance could have been better due to some factor lowering performance, it was scored as an excuse. A justification was counted if the account implied that some factor led to high or higher than expected performance. The two independent judges were able to agree on all protocols. Results Only 81% of the subjects provided ratings of expected outcome, possibly because they were more concerned with taking the exam. In comparison to the first test, most of these students (45%) expected to do better, whereas another large percentage (36%) expected to do about the same, and only a small percentage (20%) expected to do worse than before, with the mean expectation being 3.19 on the 5-point scale. Table 3 indicates that the expected performance for the test was unrelated with actual performance, r(150) = .04, ns, and the number of excuses was unrelated with actual performance, r(150) = ~.03, ns. The number of jus- tifications was slightly correlated with performance, r(150) = .19, p < .01. The mean number of excuses was only .15, indicating that many did not offer any excuses at all. However, the number of anticipatory excuses was inversely correlated, r(150) = ~.60, p < .01, with expected performance, as predicted, to a greater extent than in Study I. ‘Actual scores on first test were inversely related, r(150) = ~.20 p < 01, with expected scores for the second test. Apparently, students believe in the “law of averages” such that those who did very poorly expected to im- prove whereas those who did very well expected to fall back toward the mean. Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.een ne eee cee TABLE 3 ‘Means and Correlations for Pretest Expectations, Accounts, and Second Exam Scores ——— Second Expectations Excuses _—_Justifications exam Expectations Excuses -.60 Justification 4 —.20 Second exam —.04 03, 19 Means 3.19 15 49 59.5 The mean score was 61.5 on the first exam, and 59.5 on the second. The correlation between the two tests was moderately high, r(150) = .58, p<.0l. ‘The most common excuses offered by those expecting to do lower on the second exam than on the first exam were “not enough study" or “not enough study time available” (25%), material difficulty (12%), illness and lack of motivation (12%), and an excuse, not included in the list used in Studies 1 and 2, “several exams on the same day” (16%). ‘The mean number of justifications was .49. Frequency of justifications was positively associated, r(150) = .54, p < .01, with expected scores, as predicted. Justification and excuses had a weak inverse relationship, r(150) = ~.20,p < 01. Common justifications for expected higher scores on the second exam were effort-related such as “TI studied a lot” (44%) or related to use of a better method of study (24%). Another explanation for higher expectations involved “experience” such as knowing what kinds of tests to expect (10%) When expected performance was for “about the same,” the justification was often based on the expenditure of equivalent amount of study (52%) for both exams. If low performance was expected to be repeated on the second exam, excuses usually involved “insufficient study” (37%) Many subjects (33%) could not recall their actual first exam score, and another 12% reported a letter grade rather than a numerical score. Thus, they ‘were not included in computing the correlation of the actual first exam score and the recalled score, which was significant r(75) = .82, p < .01. Due to this loss of subjects, there was concer that subjects who could not accurately recall their first test scores might not make meaningful predictions about their second exam performance relative to their first exam scores. Therefore, the preceding analyses were repeated for this subgroup. However, the pattern of Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.420 __ The Journal of Psychology correlations was highly similar with those reported for the whole sample and are not presented here. Discussion Although open-ended excuses were relatively infrequent, possibly due to the greater effort to report them, the results of Study 2 more convincingly show that more anticipatory excuses occurred for those who expected lower scores, whereas the number of excuses was not related to actual performance. Over- all, the findings agree with the formulation of Snyder et al. (1983) that antic ipatory excuses occur when the individual expects to do poorly. One advantage of anticipatory excuses over postperformance excuses may be that the latter will be perceived by others as “excuses” whereas the former might even be seen as a form of modesty. If the poor performance materializes, the person can say “I told you so” and minimize blame; if good performance occurs, the anticipatory excuses would be likely to be perceived as modesty. This process might account for the use of excuses as a form of self-handicapping (Jones & Berglas, 1978) in which excuses might lower mo- tivation or performance. One possibility is that anticipatory excuses are strat- egies that backfire and become self-fulfilling or self-handicapping (Jones & Berglas, 1978; Smith, Snyder, & Handelsman, 1982). However, itis possible that for some individuals or situations, the act of making anticipatory excuses could reduce anxiety and hence ironically facilitate performance. In interper- sonal competition situtations where one’s performance is relative to that of others, anticipatory excuses might create an advantage by lulling opponents into false confidence. Unfortunately, correlational evidence of the type in this study is inadequate to address these intriguing questions about the effects of anticipatory excuses. In addition, Study 2 provides evidence that when students expect to do much better, the frequency of anticipatory explanations or justifications is related to expected performance level and to a weak extent, with higher actual scores. In line with attribution theories (Weiner, 1974), attributions for suc- cess involve attributions to effort and ability; in contrast, the accounts for expected poor performance were often in terms of external circumstances such as extenuating factors. REFERENCES Jones, E., & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through self- handicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of underachievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200-206. Schlenker, B. R. (1980). Impression management: The self-concept, social identity, ‘and interpersonal relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.Jung 421 Scott, M. B., & Lyman, S. M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review, 33, 46-62, ‘Smith, T. W., Snyder, C. R., & Handelman, M. M. (1982). On the self-serving function of an academic wooden leg: Test anxiety as a self-handicapping strategy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 314-321. Snyder, C. R., Higgins, R. L., & Stucky, R. J. (1983). Excuses: Masquerades in search of grace. New York: Wiley. Weiner, B. (Ed.). (1974). Achievement motivation and attribution theory. Morris- town, NJ: General Leaning Press. Zuckerman, M. (1979). Attributions of success and failure revisited, or: The moti- vational bias is alive and well in attribution theory. Journal of Personality, 47, 245-287. Received April 23, 1987 Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved.