Believing that failure is essential: failure-is-enhancing mindset mediates the relationship of perfectionism and academic engagement

ABSTRACT Objective The present study aimed to (1) to determine how the two dimensions of perfectionism – perfectionistic strivings (PS) and evaluative concerns (EC) are associated with academic engagement and (2) to determine if failure mindset mediates the relationship between perfectionism and academic engagement. Method Four hundred and forty-eight Filipino undergraduate students with an average age of 20.91 SD = 2.37participated in the survey. Results The results indicate that PS is positively linked to academic engagement through failure-is-enhancing beliefs. In contrast, EC is associated with lower academic engagement through a reduced failure-is-enhancing mindset. Conclusion This study provides evidence that believing that failure is essential rather than unhelpful is an important factor in predicting academic engagement among perfectionists. Specifically, it was found that having high PS promotes the belief that failures are important in learning, while the opposite pattern was observed among those high in EC. This supports the view that perfectionism has an adaptive and a maladaptive side. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Perfectionistic strivings domain is linked to higher engagement in the educational context, while the evaluation concerns is associated with task aversion, avoidance, and procrastination, which are indicative of disengagement. Individuals high in perfectionistic strivings usually display higher aspirations and hopes of success, while people high in evaluative concerns exhibit fear of failure and negative evaluation (Stoeber & Rambow, 2007; Stoeber et al., 2008). Fear of failure is associated with self-handicapping, helpless attribution and disengagement (Caraway et al., 2003; De Castella et al., 2013). What this topic adds: Individuals who are high in perfectionistic strivings are more likely to adopt the failure-is-enhancing mindset, while those high in evaluative concerns are less likely to endorse this belief. Perfectionistic strivings perfectionism is linked to higher academic engagement via failure-is-enhancing beliefs. In contrast, evaluation concern perfectionism is correlated with disengagement through a reduced failure-is-enhancing mindset. The present study offers initial evidence that perfectionists differ in the assumptions they hold about the meaning of failure.