Isabelle’s Article Presentation

Last week, Isabelle gave her first presentation in the lab titled Unmotivated or Motivated to Fail? A Cross-Cultural Study of Achievement Motivation, Fear of Failure, and Student Disengagement that focused on the Quadripolar Model of achievement motivation.

The Quadripolar Model categorizes students into groups based on level of success orientation and level of fear of failure and is used to predict which individuals may be susceptible to self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, and helplessness when it comes to academics. The purpose of the article being presented was to incorporate and strengthen research on achievement and motivation related to success orientation, fear of failure, and disengagement through a cross-cultural comparative design based on the self-worth theory. One study was conducted in Japan and another study was done with an Australian sample that both assessed the students’ tendency to approach success, failure appraisal, and patterns of adaptive learning. It was predicted that fear of failure would positively associate with maladaptive coping mechanisms and specifically positively associated with self-handicapping in the self-protector group. For failure acceptor students, the researchers predicted that there would be an interaction between success orientation and fear of failure in helplessness attributes. Another prediction was that success orientation would negatively associate with self-handicapping and helplessness while positively associating with defensive pessimism.

The interaction between success orientation and fear of failure on helplessness and self-handicapping were significant cross-culturally, with Australian students having higher rates of self-handicapping overall than Japanese students who had low success orientation scores. Japanese students were less vulnerable to adopting the maladaptive coping mechanisms, but the different cultures had no impact when it came to success orientation. Among the self-protection strategies, self-handicapping was most common among self-protecting students with helplessness, truancy, disengagement significantly correlating with fear of failure. Furthermore, researchers discovered trends of low self-esteem and poor academic performance in self-handicapping students. Isabelle is currently looking further into self-handicapping with a focus on long-term effects on academic achievement in the student population. Awesome work, Isabelle! We are looking forward to seeing where this line of research takes you!