HOPE FOR SUCCESS or FEAR OF FAILURE?

Is Beth Harmon a success-oriented or failure-avoidant person? Or maybe both?

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Cognitive hope is a “positive motivational state that is based on an interactivity derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy), and (b) pathways (planning to meet goals)” (Snyder et al., 1991, as cited in Turner et al., 2021)). Ability to construe multiple pathways to obtain goals provides adaptability.

Beth Harmon went through a lot of difficulties and loses in her life. At the age of 9, she lost her mother in a car crash (it was a suicide). She was sent to an orphanage and spent 6 years there. In the orphanage, she met her first mentor and her teacher - Mr. Shaibel. She lost him too, as she was not allowed to visit him in the basement and play chess with him. Later, she lost her adoptive mother, Alma, who died of hepatitis. All of these loses had a deep effect on Beth and led to periods of sadness, stagnation, and depression. But at the end, she always came back. All the difficulties in her life hardened her character and pushed her to search for different pathways to succeed. No matter what happened to her, she never lost hope.

What about chess? Does Beth approach challenges in chess like she approaches challenges in her life? Is Beth a success-oriented player or a failure-avoidant player? I think both. Beth goes into each new interaction with hope and she believes in her success. But she also hates to fail. She remembers all her failures in detail and goes back to them over and over again. It always helps her to learn, but sometimes it keeps her from winning. Also, Beth rarely has fear (at least she pretends she doesn't!). In fact, she is looking forward to each challenge. Here are some examples of some of how she faces some of the challenges and the ways (pathways) she takes to succeed.

Goal/Challenge #1. Harry Beltik.

During her very first Championship in Kentucky she plays Harry Beltik, the state champion. She is very sure of herself before the game. "I want to play the best," - she says to Mike and Matt, her soon-to-be friends. - "I want to play Beltik." She bits all the opponents and plays Beltik. At some point during their game, she realizes that she might lose. We can see that she is really upset and will start crying at any second. Without saying a word, she gets up and rushes to the bathroom. She takes her pills, looks in the mirror and says to herself in a very strong and angry tone: "Come on, you ugly piece of trash! You can beat that. I can get out of that." And she does. When she returns, she bits Beltik and becomes Kentucky State Champion.

Later, when she has a talk with Benny Watts, he points out the mistake she made when playing with Beltik. "Set it up [the chess game], think it out. Your problem is your queen knight," - says Benny. "I don't want to set it up and think it out," - responds Beth sharply. But as soon as Benny leaves the room, she sets the game up and plays it again. Beth is always ready to change her pathway to achieve mastery. Even if sometimes she doesn't want to admit it.

Goal/Challenge #2. Benny Watts.

Beth's next goal is to play Benny Watts, the US Champion. "Benny is champion, the most talented player," - she tells her adoptive mother before the game. - "Anyway, I'm not afraid of him." "I don't suppose there is anyone you're afraid of," - responds Alma.

Even though Beth says that she is not afraid of Benny and that she has everything under control, she is very close to lose it at some point in the game. "I thought he could see what I was planning. I thought he could hear my heart beating and knew how panicked I was... I wanted to win. I wanted to hammer his weakness... He forced an exchange of queens. I couldn't believe it. He caught me completely off guard. It was brutal." Beth doesn't win this game. Benny and Beth become co-champions and share the first place. Alma has an unexpected explanation for her. "You were thinking about winning." Alma is right. Beth became too competitive, too fearless, and that prevented her from thinking clearly and win the game.

Her emotions, her anger is something Beth is struggling with all the time. It is Mr. Shaibel who points out her weakness. "People like you have a hard time. Two sides of the same coin. You've got your gift and you've got what it costs. You've got so much anger in you. You'll have to be careful." "Let's play," - this is Beth's response. She refuses to face this weakness for a long time and struggles with it constantly. She overcomes it only at the very end of the show when she plays the game of her life against Borgov. "There is one player that scares me," - she confesses to Alma once. - "The Russian. Borgov." To play Borgov, Beth will need to change her strategy completely and choose an unknown new path. But I will talk about it in one of my next posts.

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Martin & Marsh (2003, as cited in Turner et al., 2021) developed a quadripolar model which represents 4 student-typologies that vary with respect to being success-oriented (i.e., hope for success) and/or failure-avoidant (i.e., fear of failure).  According to this model, there are 4 personality types:

Optimists (high hope, low fear), 

Failure-Avoiders (low hope, high fear), 

Failure-Accepting (low hope, low fear), 

Overstrivers (high hope, high fear).

Although this model was developed to qualify students, it can be applied to anyone. If I were to apply this model to Beth Harmon, I would say that she is mostly an optimist. No matter what happens to her, she always has hope. Sometimes fear is very strong, but eventually she finds ways to overcome it and face each challenge with courage. Her desire for success and her hate of failure help her to move forward and achieve her goals.

References

Turner, J., Li, B., & Wei, M. (2021). Exploring effects of culture on students' achievement motives and goals, self-efficacy, and willingness for public performance. The case of Chinese students' speaking English in class. Learning and Individual Differences, 85 (1). 10.1016/j.lindif.2020.101943