Abstract:

One of the most significant issue preventing young people from starting any endeavour is fear of failure. Fear of failure is rooted in culture. Thus, cultural implications are discussed, i.e., in a morally supported culture, called a guilt culture, “you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture, you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honours or excludes you. In the shame culture, social exclusion makes people feel they are bad”.

Youth are particularly vulnerable group with respect to fear of failure, because of: a) the omnipresence of social media has created a new sort of shame culture, since it’s a world of constant display and observation, where success equals inclusion and acceptance; b) generation features with respect of millenials and fortcomming generation.

The aim of the article is to present research results in the frame of a project KA205 Shame culture and overcoming fear of failure in future life. The research objectives are: to get awareness of particular implication of fear of failure; the roots of it; concepts and practices for coping in order to create competence framework. Two groups of respondents are examined – young adults 18+ - 60 respondents and youth workers – 20 respondents. The survey compose of sets of respondents from Netherlands, Slovenia, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

Keywords:

Fear of failure, cultural differences, generation differences, competence framework.