ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between implicit approach (hope of success or HS) and avoidant (fear of failure or FF) achievement motives and success and failure performance feedback in Singaporean university students’ motivation. The role of feedback as motivational incentives becomes complicated when viewed with the lens of culture, as culture might change the expectancy or the value of certain goals, thus changing the valence function of performance feedback. Additionally, mean motive levels for HS and FF might differ across cultures and even across age-cohorts within a culture, which might lead to variation in the reaction to the feedback. Furthermore, cultural contexts contain important social norms about achievement and achieving, while relevant peer-groups are particularly important sources of information for certain age-cohorts. These peers are conveyors of information about success or failure performance feedback. I report on findings gathered from several studies that were conducted with Singaporean university students over the past decade; these studies examine behavioral, hormonal, and emotional responses of the students after being exposed to success and failure feedback or success and failure outcomes. Together, the data demonstrate that (a) there is potential for success and failure feedback as motivational incentives for arousing implicit achievement motivation in university students, (b) the motivational potential of achievement feedback depends on the level of dispositional approach and avoidance motivation, and (c) there are different emotional responses to success and failure feedback, and the nature of these responses is also dependent on levels of dispositional HS and FF motives.
