According to a large amount of experimental results and data of actual earthquake damages, the reinforced concrete frame joints under lateral loads have several different failure modes. Most joint failure modes are brittle. To determine differences in seismic performances of joints between different failure modes, based on an experiment of Tsonos and a local earthquake damage example, four exterior joints are calculated by using the civilFEM module of ANSYS. The strength, deformation and energy dissipation capacity of different failure mode joints are compared. The results show that the energy dissipation capacity of every failure modes is different, and is uncorrelated with the strength of the joint. The failure modes of joints can be achieved by controlling the failure mode parameter.