Self-sabotage: The science behind knowingly engaging in harmful behavior
Why do some people keep making the same harmful choices, even when they know better? A global study has revealed three distinct decision-making types and why punishment doesn’t work for everyone.
When someone engages in behaviors that actively undermine their own goals, success, or well-being, that’s known as self-sabotage. Sometimes conscious and sometimes unconscious, self-sabotage can manifest in various areas of life, including work, relationships, and personal achievements.
A new study by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, examined self-sabotage, wanting to understand why some people continue to make choices that hurt themselves or others, even when they’ve been punished for it. Instead of assuming everyone responds to punishment the same way, the researchers tested whether people actually learn differently from punishment.
“We found that some people just don’t learn from experience,” said the study’s corresponding author, Dr Philip Jean-Richard Dit Bressel, a behavioral neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at UNSW’s School of Psychology. “Even when they’re motivated to avoid harm and are paying attention, they fail to realize their own behavior is causing the problem.”
