Abstract: Fear of failure (FF) has drawn more and more attention as an avoidance motivation or as a negative emotion in recent years. The paper introduced the evolution of FF concept and structures, the FF measure tools which changed from unidimensional to multidimensional, the development and prevention of FF based on psychodynamic theory and the intervention using new multidimensional measure tool. Proposed issues for further studies include determining whether fear of failure has cross-cultural or cross-contextual differences and finding the realistic significance of FF researches in China

Key words: fear of failure, structure, measurement