Self-Conscious Emotions in Response to Perceived Failure: A Structural Equation Model

Abstract

This study explored the occurrence of self-concsious emotions in response to perceived academic failure among 4th-grade students from the United States and Bulgaria, and the author investigated potential contributors to such negative emotional experiences. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that regardless of country, negative affectivity—as an individual predisposition to experience highly negative emotions—predicted self-conscious emotions toward academic failure. However, culture appeared to condition the relative importance of some family process variables in children's experiences of self-consious emotions. Bulgarian children's emotional experiences were amplified by the negative valence of their parents’ evaluative feedback in the aftermath of academic failure. In contrast, U.S. children's perceptions of failure appeared to be less influenced by their parents’ judgments. The findings of the study are interpreted in the light of cultural differences.