self-defeating
adjective
-dē-\
Definition of self-defeating
: serving or tending to defeat oneself or itself : counterproductive: such as
a : acting to defeat its own purpose a self-defeating argument You kind of realize that violence can be a self-defeating strategy, because it just gives the other guy an incentive to attack you back in revenge.— Stephen Pinker
b : being or involving an attitude of defeatism Procrastinators tend to be more stressed than other people — even before they start procrastinating. According to a recent study, that's possibly because they have self-defeating thoughts like, "I'm simply too stupid to benefit from more studying, so I'll just hang out on Facebook."— Shana Lebowitz
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