Across five studies (N = 4151), we investigate a novel barrier that prevents people from making personally beneficial requests: the overestimation of self-presentation costs. Even when deadlines are easily adjustable, people are less likely to request an extension and submit lower quality work when perceived self-presentation costs are higher—such as when the request is visible to a supervisor (Study 1a). Specifically, people are less likely to request an extension when they are concerned with appearing incompetent (Study 2). Yet, other people do not negatively respond to deadline extension requests (Study 1b). Attesting to the importance of self-presentation concerns in shaping extension request behaviors, formal policies that reduce self-presentation concerns increase requests in both online (Study 3) and in-person (Study 4) settings. These findings highlight a novel psychological barrier that prevents people from requesting resources that could increase their performance and more effectively manage their deadlines.

跨越五项研究（N = 4151），我们调查了一个阻止人们提出个人有益要求的新障碍：高估自我展示成本。即使最后期限很容易调整，当自我展示成本较高时，人们也不太可能要求延期并提交较低质量的工作——例如当主管可以看到请求时（研究 1a）。具体而言，当人们担心自己显得不称职时，他们不太可能要求延期（研究 2）。然而，其他人不会对截止日期延长请求做出负面回应（研究 1b）。证明自我展示问题在塑造延期请求行为中的重要性，减少自我展示问题的正式政策增加了在线（研究 3）和面对面（研究 4）环境中的请求。