Fear of Failure, Self-Handicapping, and Negative Emotions in Response to Failure.

Abstract

Research suggests that students who fear failure are likely to utilize cognitive strategies such as self-handicapping that serve to perpetuate failure. Such devastating motivational dispositions clearly limit academic success. The present study examined negative emotional responses to scenarios involving academic failure among a sample of university students (N = 48). Additionally, among those high in fear of failure, we examined differences in emotional responses involving the self-conscious negative emotions of shame and embarrassment to scenarios involving failure with and without self-handicapping. With respect to the first aim, participants high in fear of failure (FF) reported stronger negative emotional responses to failure than those low in FF. Additionally, among those high in FF, self-conscious negative emotions were less intense in the presence of self-handicapping relative to failure without prior selfhandicapping. Future motivational research will need to sort out the complex relationships between fear of failure, self-handicapping, and negative emotions. (Contains 2 tables)