For social psychologists, a self-defeating behavior is any behavior that normally ends up with a result that is something the person doing the behavior doesn't want to happen. If you are trying to accomplish some goal, and something you do makes it less likely that you will reach that goal, then that is a self-defeating behavior. If the goal is reached, but the ways you used to reach the goal cause more bad things to happen than the positive things you get from achieving the goal, that is also self-defeating behavior. Social psychologists have been studying self-defeating behaviors for at least 30 years. And although they have identified several things that seem to lead to selfdefeating behaviors, much more can be learned about what self-defeating ...