Aleksandr M. Bodnar, Сand. Sci. (Pedagogy), Ass. Prof., associate professor at General and Applied psychology chair, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Elvira L. Bodnar, Cand. Sci. (Psychology), Ass. Prof., associate professor at General and Applied psychology chair, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia.

The paper considers the concepts of rationality-irrationality, primarily, in the wake of A. Ellis’s theory showing the impact of rational and irrational beliefs on man’s actions. The authors also examined the balance between motivation for achievement and motivation towards failure avoidance as well as the linkage between these motivations and irrationality. The turn to the subject of irrational beliefs results from a growing role of irrationality in the life of modern society in parallel with a declining need for people who think rationally. Schools and universities also have contributed to this tendency: with the introduction of the Bologna reform the USE (Unified State Examination) a decrease in the students’ ability to reflex can be observed. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study embraced fundamental philosophical-and-psychological propositions for rationality-irrationality, reflection, achievement motivation, explorations of this field in the psychology of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The application of A. Ellis’s Irrational Belief Scale and the A.A. Rean’s questionnaire Motivation for Success and Fear of Failure helped to meet the objective of the empirical part of the research: characteristics of the interrelations between irrational beliefs, achievement motivation and failure avoidance among students were revealed. The most interesting finding was that out of 21 possible correlations between the indicators of irrationality and motivation, only two were statistically significant. This very low number is encouraging: irrationality is unlikely to be a driver of students’ motivation for an educational activity. The paper also substantiates the necessity to pursue special work to improve frustration tolerance among students. The paper aims to study interrelations between irrational beliefs and motivations to succeed or to avoid failure and the role of this motivation in the efficacy of learning. and irrational beliefs on man’s actions,. The authors also revealed the interrelations between irrational beliefs and achievement motivation, or failure avoidance among students.

Bodnar AM, Bodnar EL. On the Role of Irrational Beliefs in the Efficacy of Students’ Learning Activities. In: Perelygina EB, Zotova OYu, Drozdova AV, Tarasova LV. (eds.) Wellbeing and Security in the Face of Social Transformations: Collection of academic papers from the 10th International Symposium (Yekaterinburg, July 9–10, 2019). Yekaterinburg: Liberal Arts University – University for Humanities; 2019. p. 117–125. Available from: doi:10.35853/LAU.WS.2019.SP12.

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