The Effects of the Fear of Success and Rejection Sensitivity on Learning English
The Effects of the Fear of Success and Rejection Sensitivity on Learning English

Summary/Abstract: There have been different studies that have been conducted over the psychological hindrances that can impede the students’ learning skills. These studies/researches helped to shed light on the possible psychological factors that might block the students’ learning process. As it is, most studies have developed their focal points on the anxiety as psychological barrier before the students’ lear¬ning potentiality in this context. However, fewer studies have been carried out on delving into deeper sides of the issue that lead to the students’ learning failures. Two factors have come into prominence here: fear of success and rejection sensitivity. Horner (1972), a pioneer researcher, highlights the fear of success as a tendency of a person to feel anxious about the possible disadvantages of achie¬vement. Moreover, Downey, Feldman, and Ayduk (2000) argue rejection sensitivity as an impending factor that makes a person “anxiously expect, readily perceive and intensely react to rejection”. Taking both factors into account, this study will be twofold. Firstly, it aims to show how both factors manifest themselves in an EFL classroom environment. Moreover, it attempts to figure out what sort of variables can reduce/increase the impact rate of both aforementioned psychological factors on the learning failures of the students in an EFL classroom. This study has the humble hope to make a contribution on further analysis of these concepts which are unaddressed in ELT field to embark on a discussion over their possible effects on the students’ language learning process.

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