Mehran Ahadi - Faculty member, Department of Physical Education, Tehran East branch Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Behzad Divkan - Faculty member, Department of Physical Education, Tehran East branch Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Reza Behdari - Faculty member, Department of Physical Education, Tehran East branch Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Background: The aim of this research is to recognize the relation between self-efficacy and fear of failure with performance among professional table tennis athletes. Materials and Methods: In order to clarify this, we picked 128 samples of professional athletes, 64 men and 64 women (SD = 8.65, x = 19.55) who has at least five years of experience in championship sports. They voluntarily filled in athlete s self-efficacy assessment questionnaires (Bandura, 2000) Cronbach’s Alpha 0.83, and for athletes’ fear of failure the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PFAI; Conroy, 2001b; Conroy et al., 2002). Cronbach’s Alpha 0.87were used to determine the reliability coefficient also for assessment performance with one question done. Results and Discussions: The results showed that there is a direct significant relation between social persuasion subscale, physiological emotional situation, fulfilling the functions successfully, vicarious experiences and fear of failure, (p<0.05). Conclusion: The developmental origins of FF in young athletes have not been investigated previously. Our findings revealed three parental practices that can contribute to young athletes FF: punitive behavior, controlling behavior, and high expectations for achievement. These practices appear to be grounded in the parents fear of their child losing competitions and the consequences for their sporting careers.

fear of failure, self-efficacy, table tennis athletes