ADHD in Children
Visual Abstract
The self-perceptions and attributions of attention deficit hyperactivity disordered and nonreferred boys
How boys with ADHD see themselves
B Hoza , W E Pelham, R Milich, D Pillow, K McBride
Summarized by:
August 15, 2023
study source
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Jun 1993
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What they studied
How do boys with ADHD see themselves compared to boys without ADHD?
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What they found
Boys with ADHD were more likely to overestimate their abilities, take credit for their successes, while avoiding responsibility for their failures.
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What this means
Boys with ADHD may be more likely to exaggerate their positive qualities to protect their self-esteem in the face of difficulties caused by ADHD.
The self-perceptions and attributions of attention deficit hyperactivity disordered and nonreferred boys
Objectives
This study examined how boys with ADHD viewed themselves compared to boys without ADHD.
ADHD is a challenging condition for young boys to live with. It can make school more difficult. Studies have also linked it to more difficulties in a child's social life:
The study compared 27 boys with ADHD to 25 boys without ADHD. Researchers surveyed the boys on their self-perceptions and depression:
Study Quote
Compared the self perceptions and attributions of attention deficit hyperactivity disordered (ADHD) and control boys.
Results
While boys with ADHD were generally not as well-behaved as boys without ADHD, they were not more likely to feel they were any less well-behaved.
Boys with ADHD also generally reported feeling better about themselves. They thought they were likelier to describe themselves as good athletes than boys without ADHD.
They were also more likely to take credit for their successes and less likely to take responsibility for their failures:
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ADHD boys did not rate themselves significantly worse than controls on global self-worth or most other self-perception subscales. They tended to make internal attributions for positive social outcomes, but they were less likely than controls to accept responsibility for negative social outcomes. They were no more likely to be depressed than controls when potentially confounding items were removed from the CDI.
Study Quote
The ADHD boys viewed themselves as no worse than control boys on self-perceived competence and global self-worth, especially when internalizing symptomatology was taken into account statistically through covariance analyses. In terms of attributions, the ADHD boys were more likely to tak...
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Conclusions
Boys with ADHD were likelier to overestimate their abilities and positive qualities. These may be self-protective to protect their self-esteem and ego in the face of the many challenges brought on by ADHD symptoms.
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This lack of ADHD-control differences may reflect ADHD boys' distorted perceptions and an unhealthy, unrealistic reflection on their functioning. Indeed, perhaps their inaccurate self-reports serve an ego-protective function in the sense that it allows them to save face in the light of academic and social failure.
The authors suggested that it's possible that boys who were diagnosed with ADHD felt that their failures were due to their diagnosis. Therefore, their failures weren't necessarily personal shortcomings that they were responsible for:
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It may be that ADHD children attribute their failures to the fact that they have an attention deficit, a medical problem for which they are not responsible, and that makes positive outcomes more difficult to achieve.
Interestingly, despite the challenges faced by boys and the significant self-protective behavior seen in boys in this study, they were not significantly more depressed than boys without ADHD:
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Initially, our results suggested that ADHD children are more depressed than their normal counterparts. However, this proved to be due primarily to a subset of items on the CDI dealing with behavioral, school, and social problems. When these items were removed and the groups compared on the remaining items, no significant differences resulted.
These results were consistent with more recent studies showing that boys with ADHD may overestimate their performance to compensate for perceived shortcomings. In one study, researchers found that boys with ADHD who were praised were less likely to overestimate their abilities:
Study Quote
The results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding how the attributions and self-perceptions of ADHD boys may mediate their performance in challenging academic and social situations.