Avoidance achievement motivation: a personal goals analysis. 
The present research investigated one antecedent and various consequences of pursuing avoidance personal achievement goals over the course of a semester.  The authors assessed participants' achievement-relevant goals using the newly devised Achievement Goals Questionnaire.  The motive to avoid failure, assessed with self-report and projective measures, was established as an antecedent of avoidance goal pursuit.  Avoidance regulation was shown to have deleterious consequences for a host of achievement-relevant and general well-being outcomes at the end of the semester, including longitudinal change in subjective well-being.  Perceived competence was validated as a mediator of the direct relationships observed.  The results highlight the need to attend to avoidance, as well as approach, forms of self-regulation and the need to consider both motive disposition and goal constructs in accounting for competence-relevant behavior.