Tantalizing Fantasies: Positive Imagery Induces Negative Mood in Individuals High in Fear of Failure

Abstract

It is argued that fear of failure moderates the emotional reactions to positive goal imagery (i.e., imagining the attainment of a desired goal). This hypothesis was tested in an experiment in which participants wrote down a goal they desired to attain and then either imagined attaining this goal, or imagined failing in their pursuit of this goal or did not imagine goal pursuit. The results showed that the experimental conditions had an effect on an implicit measure of negative mood (amount of sadness attributed to faces) which was moderated by fear of failure. As predicted, participants high (relative to low) in fear of failure evidenced high negative mood after imagining successful goal attainment as well as after imagining failure of goal pursuit. No effects were found for an explicit (self-report) measure of mood.