What's Stopping You?: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can

Task Perseverance, Task Avoidance

Australian psychologist Norman Feather undertook similar experiments and came to similar conclusions – finding a bias in the willingness of subjects to persist in a task they had failed first- time based on their levels of achievement motivation. Those with high levels of achievement motivation (our High-AMs) would tend to persevere – perhaps reassessing the difficulty of the task and adding further concentration or determination. Meanwhile, those with a high fear of failure (our High-FFs) were disinclined to continue, wanting to avoid the shame of failing.

Feather also found that he could manipulate the response by presenting the task as easy or difficult. High-FFs were inclined to continue if they were told ...