Childhood development of fear of failure motivation: a replication.

Abstract

Teevan and McGhee ( 1972) sent copies of a revised Winterbttom (1953) questionnaire to the mothers of 41 high school &dents. That questionnaire dealt with the nature of the mothers' reactions to their children in achievement situations when their children's behavior fulfilled their expectations (success) and when it did not (failure). They found that, when the subjects were classified into two groups, one having been rewarded for success while being given neutral responses for failure, and another group having been given neutral responses for success while receiving punishment for failure, the group with the reward-neutral profile had significantly lower fear of failure scores as measured by che Hostile Press system (Birney, Burdick, & Teevan, 1969) than the group with the profile. Teevan and McGhee found (1972) as predicted, that fear of failure motivation was at least in part determined by the nature of the mother's response to the child's success and failure in achievement situation. Two problems with the above finding are evident. The Nppon which the finding was bed was small, and the question of the child's perception of his mother's reactions was not taken into consideration. This present study was designed to confront these problems. A questionnaire, essentially the same as that used by Teevan and McGhee ( 1972). was filled out by 128 male students in introductory psychology. Of these 128 students, 15 were classified as reward-neutral and 39 as neutral-punishment'' in terms of their own perceptions of their mothers' reactions to their behavior in achievement siruations. A chi squared test on these two groups' hostile press scores showed that a significantly greater proportion of neutral-punishment subjects had high hostile press (X2 = 4.07, < .05). This finding is interpreted as a validation of Teevan and McGhee's (1972) conclusions in terms of the children's own perceptions of their environment.