The concept of self-handicapping can be legitimately anchored in a vari- ety of intellectual contexts, some old and some newer. As this volume reminds us, Alfred Adler was perhaps the first to articulate the signifi- cance of various self-defeating claims and gestures for protecting the self- concept. Thus the apparent paradox of "defeat" in the interests of "pro- tection. " More recently (but still more than 30 years ago), Heider's "naive psychology" added attributional rhetoric to the description of self-defeat- ing strategies. While predominantly cognitive in its thrust, the attribu-...