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Show Me a Hero?

Do we really need this type of explanation?

Dr. Steven Berglas, writing at Psychology Today, claims:

My decision to blog stems from a veritable lifetime of studying the question: "They had the world in the palm of their hands...what made them do it?"

This question appears in headlines, dominates the airwaves, and passes over virtually every intelligent person's lips, after people like Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, or Martha Stewart engage in self-destructive, career-threatening (or career terminating) behavior.

Actually, as my graduate school classmates know, my self-handicapping theory grew out of an awareness of how I personally coped with excessive expectations to excel as a student and an athlete.

While my success--and my fall-from--grace, was neither as significant nor dramatic as, say, Eliot Spitzer's was, but I was cognizant of doing things to "screw-up" that I could have avoided and, like Spitzer, should have been able to conceal.

From the introspective analysis of my early "failures," plus intensive study of why superstars expect rules to be broken for them--or break them on their own--I made it my life's work to understand why the brightest and best get caught behaving illegally or unethically when far better options are at their disposal.

Hmm, isn't it easier just to say we aren't that good as spotting regressions to the mean, and the positive luck in our past?

And as such, we start thinking that we are totally responsible for all of our success?

I am sure that a certain amount of self handicapping goes on, but I suspect that it doesn't explain the dramatic public falls from grace.

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Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on July 07, 2008 (boomark / email).