The role of students' passion and affect in resilience following failure

Abstract

A passion-affect-outcomes resilience model was proposed and tested in two studies (Study 1: n = 320, Study 2: n = 236) where students were randomly assigned to experimentally manipulated failure/success conditions. It was hypothesized that beyond the effects of failure on affect, harmonious passion would be positively associated with positive affect and negatively relate to negative affect, and obsessive passion would positively relate to negative affect and, to a lesser degree, to positive affect. In turn, positive affect was assumed to promote high global resilience within and outside the domain students were passionate about (academia), while negative affect was assumed to hinder resilience. Results supported this model showing that harmonious passion was associated with high global resilience in both studies, whereas obsessive passion was associated with low global resilience in Study 1 and no resilience in Study 2, via their respective relationships with positive and negative affect. Implications for the field of resilience and for future research are drawn.