Another experiment, by Martin Seligman and colleagues, examined whether there was a correlation between explanatory styles and the performance of swimmers. After being given false bad times on their preliminary events, the swimmers who justified their poor performance to themselves in a pessimistic way did worse on subsequent performances. In contrast, the subsequent performances of those swimmers who had more optimistic attributions concerning their poor swimming times were not affected. Those who had positive attributions were more likely to succeed after given false times because they were self-handicapping. They attributed their failure to an external force rather than blaming themselves. Therefore, their self-esteem remained intact, which led to their success in subsequent events. This experiment demonstrates the positive effects that self-handicapping can have on an individual because when they attributed the failure to an external factor, they did not internalize the failure and let it psychologically affect them.