Previous studies indicated that when encountering academic difficulties, students with fixed intelligence mindset, experience higher levels of negative emotions and they also report significant drops in their self-esteem. Thus, the present study proposed to test whether priming students with unconditional self-acceptance (USA), reduces difficulty-related self-esteem loss and alleviates the affective consequences of difficulties. It also aimed to explore whether the USA prime offers comparable benefits to both growth and fixed mindset students. Participants (N = 202, N[subscript female] = 156, M[subscript age] = 23.09, SD[subscript age] = 3.31) were randomized into an USA prime (N = 111) and control condition (N = 91) and were presented with unsolvable cognitive tasks (i.e., difficulty experience). Students' self-esteem, positive and negative emotions were measured before and after the difficult experience. Results of the mixed analysis of variance indicated that participants in the prime condition reported smaller decreases in self-esteem and smaller increases in negative emotions, however, the prime had no effect on positive emotions. Furthermore, mindset did not affect students' post-difficulty self-esteem and emotions, however, differences emerged in their overall levels. Finally, both mindset groups benefited equally from the USA prime.