Motive to Avoid Failure

What it is

Its strength depends on how strongly the person is disposed to dread failing, how likely failure looks and how costly it would be. In the author's later summary, people in whom it is stronger lean towards very easy or very hard tasks, while strong achievers prefer middling difficulty.

In effect

The article uses it as the first formal account of fear of failure.

What it does not say

It belongs to a 1957 model, and the later summary describes tendencies in groups, not the behaviour of any one person. It does not say that people with a stronger motive achieve less.

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