Driven by fear: the effect of success and failure information on passionate individuals' performance.
Four studies investigated the impact of success and failure information on passionate individuals' performance. Obsessive passion, characterized by a rigid and defensive mode of functioning, predicted greater performance in domains both related and unrelated to the passionate activity in response to exposure to failure information. Conversely, harmonious passion, characterized by a flexible, nondefensive mode of functioning, was found to be unaffected by success or failure information. These performance effects were deeply ingrained, did not require conscious thought, and were automatically activated after unconscious exposure to failure-related words. In addition, the present research evinced that following failure information, obsessive passion predicted increases of performance through its effect on fear of failure. However, performance augmented only when the performance task was framed in such a way that failure would entail important negative consequences for the self and not when framed as inconsequential.
Department of Psychology.
Jocelyn J
JJ
Bélanger
Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Comportement Social, Departement de Psychologie, Universite du Quebec a Montreal.
Marc-André K
MK
Lafrenière
Laboratoire de Recherche sur le Comportement Social, Departement de Psychologie, Universite du Quebec a Montreal.
Robert J
0000-0001-5852-8877
RJ
Vallerand
Department of Psychology.
Arie W
AW
Kruglanski
D000328:Adult; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009770:Obsessive Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D016037:Single-Blind Method; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult