Performance and persistence of worriers and non-worriers following success and failure feedback

Worry is a cognitive phenomenon that involves rumination over future events accompanied by feelings of anxiety. This study utilised a 2 (worry status: worrier vs. non-worrier) × 2 (performance feedback: success vs. non-contingent failure) × 2 (strategy advice: advice vs. none) between subjects factorial design to investigate the effects of worry on performance and persistence by manipulating performance feedback and strategy advice. n=48 worriers and n=48 non-worriers completed measures of state anxiety, cognitive interference, and perceptions of performance. Following an induction to make participants believed they had failed on a task, worriers showed poor performance, elevated anxiety, and greater cognitive interference than non-worriers. No evidence of nonproductive persistence was evident for worries given strategy advice. The roles of anticipated difficulty levels, item solubility, problem solving confidence, and the perceived value of dogged persistence are discussed in assessing situational factors conducive to nonproductive persistence. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.