After reading a case description of a 20-year-old woman, subjects attributed her personal shortcomings to her weight rather than to herself per se. In particular, people who scored higher on a measure of self-handicapping were even more likely to attribute shortcomings to a person's weight and excuse or overlook them. A person who attributes shortcomings to being overweight will very likely find a sympathetic audience. These results support the suggestion by Baumeister, Kahn, and Tice (1990) that obesity can be a self-handicapping strategy.

This study investigated the relationship between sex‐role orientation and cognitive preferential response style (N = 60). It attempted to use scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to predict the Erlebnistypus (EB) ratio of the Rorschach. Although masculine and androgynous individuals were expected to demonstrate extratensive and intraversive cognitive styles, respectively, no such distinction was apparent. However, feminine individuals did demonstrate significantly an ambitent response style in which neither human movement nor weighted color was dominant. Results were discussed in terms of increased construct validity for both of the measures utilized.