EFFECTS OF AN ACADEMIC-FAILURE EXPERIENCE ON SUBSEQUENT PERFORMANCE ON ANAGRAM AND PAIRED-ASSOCIATE TASKS - DIFFERENCES AMONG 2ND-GRADE, 5TH-GRADE, AND 8TH-GRADE CHILDREN

Failure on an academic task was experimentally induced in second-, fif th-, and eighth-grade school children. The failure experience signific antly retarded subsequent performance on an anagram task and a paired- associates task by second graders but not by fifth and eighth graders. Among the eighth-grade boys, performance on the paired-associates tas k was actually facilitated by the failure experience. It is suggested that the older students' greater experience with negative feedback in school accounts for their resistance to its negative effects.