The developmental origins of fear of failure in adolescent athletes: Examining parental practices

Objectives: We investigated the developmental origins of fear of failure (FF) in adolescent athletes by examining how parental sport socialization practices in daily parentechild interaction contribute to the development of FF in the child-athlete. Method: Three intact families of adolescent athletes (ages 13e14 years) participated in the study; three athletes and six parents. Each mother, father and athlete was interviewed separately three times over a 3e4 week period. Interviews with parents ranged between 90 and 200 min and with the athletes between 60 and 106 min. Social constructionist epistemology underpinned the study. Results: Data analyses revealed three categories of parental sport socialization practices that can contribute to young athletes' FF: punitive behavior, controlling behavior, and high expectations for achievement. These practices appear to be grounded in the parents' belief that losing competitions will lead to aversive consequences for their child's sporting progression and career. Therefore, they employed these practices in an attempt to ensure their child's success in competitions. Conclusions: Such parental socialization practices and negative responses to their child's failure can contribute to the child's FF development; as the child appraises these practices and responses to be aversive consequences of failure and, subsequently, fears failure. The present study represents the first endeavor to examine the developmental origins of FF in young athletes and its findings enhance conceptual understanding of FF in the youth sport context, contributing to theory and practice. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The motive to avoid failure, or fear of failure (FF) as it is more commonly known, is associated with anticipatory shame in evaluative situations and with the tendency to appraise threat in such situations (Birney, Burdick, & Teevan, 1969; Conroy, Willow, & Metzler, 2002). This avoidance motivational tendency involves cognitive, behavioral, and emotional experiences and typically prompts the adoption of avoidance-based goals and strategies (e.g., performance-avoidance goals, self-handicapping, low achievement) that, in turn, exert adverse effects (Conroy & Elliot, 2004). High FF has been associatedwith a prevalence of negative outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression, eating disorders; see Conroy, 2001; Sagar, Lavallee, & Spray, 2007). In sport, FF has been associated with high levels of worry, stress, and anxiety (somatic and cognitive; Conroy et al., 2002), and has been shown to affect adolescent athletes' interpersonal behavior, schoolwork, sporting performance, and well-being (Sagar, Lavallee, & Spray, 2009). Fear of failure has been reported to be prominent in both sexes and across levels of actual and perceived ability (Covington, 1992). Accordingly, FF can have important implications for young athletes. Early and contemporary achievement motivation theorists (e.g., McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953; McGregor & Elliot, 2005) positioned shame at the core of FF. They suggested that this avoidance-based motive disposition orients individuals to seek to avoid failure in achievement settings because they feel shame upon failure; shame is a self-condemning reaction that is grounded in general self-devaluation and concern about relational disruption (McGregor & Elliot, 2005). Some, however, conceptualized FF as a multidimensional construct. For example, Birney et al. (1969) proposed that individuals fear and seek to avoid the aversive consequences of failure. It is the anticipation of failure and of its threatening and aversive consequences that elicits fear in individuals. Their model proposed three general consequences of failure that can be perceived aversive and feared: reduction in one's self-estimate (having to lower one's views of the self; the lower the self-estimate is, the greater the sense of failure will be); reduction in one's social-value (others view the performer as less valuable); and, receipt of a non-ego punishment (e.g., withdrawal of tangible * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ44 113 812 0000; fax: þ44 113 812 3440. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.S. Sagar).