For example, imagine a young child ("X") who often demands help from his mother ("Y") for tasks he could probably do himself. When Y says X should do it himself, X often says "I can't" and then offers rationalizations for that statement. Note that X knows he can probably do it, and Y knows he can probably do it. X's intuitive calculation is: if I attempt to do it myself, I might fail, which would decrease my social status, or I might succeed, which leaves my social status unchanged. If I get Mommy to help me, then I'm controlling Mommy's behavior, which increases my social status. I can get Mommy to help me by claiming I can't do it, so I'll try to justify the assertion "I can't do it".

The situation might have other factors-- the child might not want to do the task, or might be willing to do it once, but might not want it as an ongoing obligation.

Considered as a status transaction, the mother might see it as the child having a lower status if obligated to do the task.

The account of self-deception still seems very plausible-- not only is it more convenient for the child to say "I can't" rather than "I won't", but the child may well come to believe that they can't.

Leaving that sort of thing out reminds me of what I didn't like about Who Moved My Cheese? -- the mouse would have starved long before they found the cheese. There's more to life than motivation, even though motivation is a huge factor.