Better or bitter? The moderating roles of goal orientation and self-compassion in the relationship between approach-avoidance achievement motive and task performance following failure feedback

• Main Author: Lim, Queenie Pei Ni
• Other Authors: Ring Joyce Pang Shu Min
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156742
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Failure feedback is common in an academic context, and individuals’ achievement motive drives one’s post-failure achievement strivings. While achievement motive literature has established a distinction between the approach (Hope of Success, or HS) and avoidance (Fear of Failure, or FF) aspects of nAchievement, empirical research is scarce, especially regarding FF. Thus, this study sought to clarify the HS-FF distinction by investigating the relationship between implicit HS and FF motives and task performance after receiving failure feedback. It further explored whether individual difference variables—achievement goals and self-compassion—moderate the relationship. Traditional goal theorists have postulated that achievement goals are cognitive representations of achievement motives that directly influence achievement-relevant behaviours. However, several research failed to find a significant association between implicit motives and explicit goals. Thus, this study examined it in terms of a moderation relationship. Furthermore, contemporary research has revealed self-compassion as an adaptive response to failure. Hence, this study extends prior research by examining if self-compassion moderates the effect of implicit achievement motives on post-failure task performance. Eighty-four undergraduates completed a PSE inquiring their implicit HS and FF motives, questionnaires assessing their achievement goals and self-compassion, and a cognitive task. The results evinced that implicit achievement motives and explicit achievement goals are two independent motivational constructs. Additionally, hierarchical regression analyses suggest that performance goals orientation may moderate the relationship between implicit HS and post-failure task performance. The findings did not demonstrate a moderating effect of self-compassion. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.