Fear of Success in Males and Females Effects of Developmental Level and Sex-Linked Course of Study ~

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1 Sex Roles, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1976 Fear of Success in Males and Females Effects of Developmental Level and Sex-Linked Course of Study ~ Betsy Kimball and Robert L. Leahy 2 The Catholic University of America Horner's "fear of success" test was administered to 303 children between the 4th and 12th grades. There was an increase of fear of success imagery between the 4th and loth grades and a decrease between loth and 12th grades. Fear of success was related to sex only during high school, where it was associated with the course of study pursued by student~ Thus, in a high school secretarial course, females showed the lowest fear of success while 12th-grade college-prep females showed fear of success higher than secretarial course females and college-prep males. The findings were interpreted as indicating developmental changes m fear of success due to increasing peer affiliation (4th- loth grades) and sex-linked competitive achievement (high school). In a series of studies of female and male adolescent and college students Horner (1968, 1972) found that young females and males show considerable differences in their response to success. Working within Atkinson's expectancy-value theory of motivation Homer suggested that the expectancy of success may conflict with afffdiative tendencies and with the individual's perception of the appropriateness of success to the stereotype of one's role. Hornet has indicated that although this dispositional fear (or avoidance of success) is not necessarily associated with gender (i.e., boys may also fear success), her empirical findings indicate a substantiany higher fear of success in college females than in college males. Preparation of this manuscript was facilitated by support to Robert Leahy from The Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development. The advice of Larry Levine during early stages of the study is gratefully acknowledged. arequests for reprints should be sent to Robert L. Leahy, The Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C Plenum Publishing Corporation, 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored In a retrieval system, or transmitted, In any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publlstter.

2 274 Kimball and Leahy A number of studies in recent years have failed to replicate llorner's (1968) sex difference data on fear of success. Heilbrun, Kleemeier, and Piccola (1974) and Levine and Crumrine (1975) found no sex differences in fear of success among college males and females and Horner (1972) cites a number of unpublished studies indicating that the differences between males and females in fear of success has been declining in recent years. A related question concerned with sex differences in fear of success is when these differences appear in development - if they exist. Monahan, Kuhn, and Shaver (1974), in an attempt to offer evidence supporting a person perception (i.e., cultural stereotype) interpretation of intrapsychic fear of success, provide data indicating developmental shifts in fear of success. Without taking up their "cultural stereotype" interpretation in the present report one can fred interesting developmental data in the Monahan et al. (1974) study related to fear of success. Specifically, they found that for males responding to male cues there was an increase of fear of success between 12 and 15 years of age, while for females responding to female cues there was a decrease of fear of success within the same age range. For subjects responding to same-sex cues, at 12 years of age females were higher in fear of success than males but at 15 there was no substantial difference. One question which arises from the Monahan et al. study is whether a wider age range would reflect other developmental trends in fear of success. In particular, it is proposed that during the age range of 9 through 12 there is an increasing ambivalence about competitive achievement because of the growing importance of peer group affiliation for both sexes. This age period has traditionally been viewed in the psychodynamic literature as a time of socialization within the peer society. Consequently, it would be expected that there would be an increase in fear of success for both sexes during this age period. The second hypothesis of this study is concerned with Horner's (1968, 1972) suggestion that fear of success should be affected by the expectancy that success will have negative interpersonal consequences for the person. These negative consequences, according to Homer, should be greatest for females who compete within a domain of achievement in which males pursue success. The Monahan et al. study does not describe the vocational aspirations of their subjects. In the present study high school subjects were categorized into those females pursuing a stereotypically gender-appropriate course of study (female secretarial) and those males and females pursuing a college-prep course of study in which success for females might conflict with male success and in which success for males would be gender-appropriate. Thus, the second hypothesis is that males and females in gender-appropriate courses of study would have lower fear of success than females pursuing success in a domain of achievement (college-preparatory program) in which males compete.

3 FOS in Males and Females 275 METHOD Subjects Three-hundred and three males and females at four grade levels (4th, 6th, 10th, and 12th grades) were employed in this study. There was an unequal number of subjects at each grade level for each sex group. All males in the two high school groups (10th and 12th grades) were enrolled in a college-prep program. All students within a classroom were tested in the various age groups. The high school female groups were divided into those pursuing college-prep studies and those pursuing secretarial training (called "business course" in this school system). All students came from the same public school system, which was located in a lower-middle-class white suburb of a small city. Tests and Procedure Horner and her colleagues have empirically derived a scoring system for the motive to avoid success in which cues related to an achievement-concerned situation are not necessary for the arousal and measurement of fear of success (Horner, Tresemer, Berens, & Watson, 1973). Thus, Horner's most recent scoring system relies on the same assumptions of general dispositions or traits underlying other work on achievement motivation (Atkinson, 1958; Atkinson & Feather, 1966; McClelland, 1961). Consequently, the two "cues" or sentences read to subjects consisted of one situation in which a person succeeds and one in which a person is simply sitting in the library. Cues used by Homer et al. (1973) consist of situations in which a person is sitting alone, waiting for someone, or where the person receives a high grade on a paper. The cues used in the present study are especially related to academic success. Students were tested by a female experimenter in groups in their regular classrooms. The experimenter indicated to the subjects that the experiment had nothing to do with the school and that their results would remain anonymous. The instructions read to the subjects were the following: "I am going to read two sentences to you, one at a time. After hearing a sentence, make up a short story concerning that sentence. Tell what happens before, during, and after what happens in the sentence. Your answer only has to be a paragraph or so, and you will have five minutes for each sentence." Subjects were told to respond to the sentence where the character was the same sex as they were. The two sentences (or cues) were: (1) "After report cards Anne (John) finds that she (he) is at the top of her (his) class," and (2) "Mary (Joe) is sitting in the library."

4 276 Kimball and Leahy Scoring Procedure The scoring procedure used was that developed by Homer et al., (1973). This scoring system utilizes several categories of imagery indicative of avoidance of success: contingent negative consequences, noncontingent negative consequences, interpersonal engagement, relief, absence of instrumental activity, and absence of others. Each category of imagery is given a weighted score. A continuous scoring system was employed in this study such that the weighted scores for each category were summed across the two stories. Using this procedure scores could range from -4 to +l 6 for each subject. A test of reliability of this scoring system revealed a correlation of.88 for interrater agreement. An advantage of this scoring system over the present-absent system is that the present scoring procedure allows a greater variability in the degree of fear of success for the same subject. RESULTS The dependent variable in all analyses was the fear of success score derived from continuous scoring across stories for each subject. A Grade X Sex analysis of variance for unequal cell frequencies indicated a main effect for Grade, F (3,295) = 3.90,p <.01, but not for Sex (/7< 1). Mean fear of success scores and N for males at the four grade levels were: -.38 (21), 1.13 (30), 2.27 (37), and 1.26 (19). Mean fear of success scores and N for females at these grade levels were:.59 (29), 1.77 (35), 1.66 (65), and 1.23 (67). The mean square error for this sample was Cohen's (1969) d was used to compare the means since there were considerable differences in cell frequencies for groups. This index of comparison is functionally related to t. The degrees of freedom for MS within cell for the F ratio served as the index of degrees of freedom for these comparisons 0Viner, 1962). There were significant differences in fear of success between 4th and 6th grades, d =.45 (295), p <.01; 6th and 10th grades, d =.17 (295),p <.05; and 10th and 12th grades, d =.24 (295), p <.01. Separate analysis for males and females indicated significant differences for males in fear of success between 4th and 6th grades, d =.16 (295), p <.05; 6th and 10th grades, d =.38 (295), p <.01; and 10th and 12th grades~d =.33 (295), p <.01. There were signiticant differences for females in fear of success between 4th and 6th grades, d =.39 (295), p <.01, and marginally significant differences between 10th and 12th grade females, d =.14 (295),p <.10. The mean scores for fear of success for the four grade levels for male and female subjects are shown in Figure 1. Inspection of Figure 1 indicates that for both sex groups combined fear of success is higher at the 10th grade than at the 4th grade with a decrease in fear of success

5 FOS in Males and Females 277,,-4, : : Male O---O Female n- O J c/) ~ ) 2. u. O rr, Z 0. uj I I I I GRADE Fig. 1. Fear of success at different grade levels. 12 between 10th and 12th grades. There were no significant sex differences at any grade level in this analysis. Mean fear of success scores and N for college-prep males at the 10th and 12th grades were 2.27 (37) and 1.26 (19) and for college-prep females these scores were 2.23 (35) and 2.14 (37). Mean fear of success scores andn at 10th and 12th grades for secretarial course females were 1.03 (30) and.13 (30). Mean square error for this sample was In order to determine if the course of study in high school was related to fear of success, a separate analysis of variance was performed on the six high school groups (college-prep male and female, 10th and 12th grades; secretarial female, 10th and 12th grades). This analysis indicated a significant difference between these groups, F (5,182) = 2.27, p <.05. Individual comparisons of fear of success scores indicated significant differences between 10th grade collegeprep males and 10th grade secretarial course females, d =.43 (182), p <.01, and between 10th grade college-prep females and l Oth grade secretarial course females, d =.40 (182), p <.01. In the 12th grade college-prep females had higher fear of success than college-prep males, d =.27 (182),p <.01, who were higher in tear of success than secretarial course females, d =.67 (182),p <.01. Figure 2 shows the mean fear of success scores for these high school subjects

6 278 Kimball and Leahy +4, _= _=College male w n- 8 O9 C/) UJ (J L) College female ~---..~ Secretarial female,=. Z < uj O, -2 I I GRADE Fig. 2. Fear of success for high school males and females in different courses of study. indicating that in high school fear of success is related to course of study for females. DISCUSSION The finding of an increase in fear of success in boys and girls between the 4th and 10th grades suggests that achievement during this age period comes to have increasingly negative implications for the child. Although this study does not provide a data-base to interpret the cause of this increase in fear of success, speculations can be offered. One factor contributing to fear of success might be that success in an academic setting may involve competition with peers and consequently a conflict with aff'diative motives (Horner, 1968, 1972). This age period is one of increasing affinity with peers and thus success may conflict with peer-group membership. A second interpretation might be that developmental increases in fear of success imagery are due to increasing verbal fluency. This interpretation does not appear to be an adequate one since there was a decrease in fear of success between the l Oth and 12th grades and also since increased verbal fluency could lead to imagery with weighted scores decreasing fear of SUCCESS.

7 FOS in Males and Females 279 One interpretation of higher fear of success at the 10th grade for females might be that ambivalence about success might be a sociohistorical phenomenon rather than a developmental increase. The cross-sectional design of this study cannot provide a conclusive basis for answering this criticism. It may very well be that the older females in this study as compared with the younger females were socialized with more traditionally gender-stereotyped views of the female role - and that the developmental effects of the present study reflect achievements of the woman's movement. These speculations would best be answered by longitudinal studies in which the effects of parental practices on achievement orientation are assessed. The significant sex differences in fear of success did not appear until adolescence and they were associated with the appropriateness of academic training to one's stereotyped sex role. Horner's (1972) contention that fear of success should be highest among girls with the highest capability and probability of success receives support from this study. The high-ability girls pursuing the college-preparatory program showed the highest fear of success, while the girls pursuing basically secretarial training showed the lowest fear of success. Moreover, success for the college-prep girls presumably is in conflict with stereotyped sex roles and with masculine roles for success - that is, girls pursuing college would be considerably more likely than secretarial course girls to find that their success involves competition with males. The college-preparatory program is not necessarily gender-inappropriate for females in this school system, but it does involve possible competition with males for academic distinction. The secretarial course females pursue success in an almost exclusively female program in which success as a secretarial student is not likely to conflict with male success. Moreover, the secretarial course females are pursuing training in a traditionally female-stereotyped career which should produce little ambivalence for those females who adhere to the stereotyped view of the female role. Feather and Simon's (1975) findings of stereotypic views of occupations indicate that college-age students expect that persons will derive greater satisfaction from success in occupations (such as secretary) which are gender-stereotyped. The data of the present study indicate that females pursuing a gender-stereotyped training express less ambivalence about their success than females pursuing college-prep training which is not gender-stereotyped and which may involve competition with males. The relationship between fear of success and the course of study of high school students suggests that an important sex-appropriate factor might have been obscured in the Monahan et al. (1974) study. Both the college-preparatory boys and the secretarial course girls in the present study showed a decrease in fear of success during high school, suggesting that when a boy or girl is pursuing a sex-appropriate course of study there is less apparent ambivalence about the achievement of excellence. The perception of the appropriateness of achievement to gender has differential consequences in the attribution of the cause of

8 280 Kimball and Leahy that achievement (luck vs. ability) and for the consequences for the person who achieves (Deaux & Emswiller, 1974; Feather & Simon, 1975). Receiving the highest grade in your class if you are a female secretary should not only imply fewer negative consequences (i.e., lower fear of success) but also might imply more positive factors since this success can be categorized as sex-appropriate. Stein and Bailey (1973) have suggested that females are not less concerned with achievement, but rather they are concerned with different domains of achievement. Needless to say, this is not to imply that females should be socialized into different domains of achievement. The finding of a decrease of fear of success in boys between 10th and 12th grades and a maintenance of high fear of success for college-prep girls between 10th and 12th grades is related to Coleman's (1961) study of "adolescent society." In that study Coleman reported that over the 4-year period of high school the most capable female students became less likely to want to be remembered as the best student while the most capable male students became more likely to want to be remembered for their academic distinction. Coleman (1961) also reports data indicating greater variation in grades for boys than for girls during high school, suggesting that girls do not excel (or do very poorly) in grades-- they are less likely than the boys to stand out in class. It appears that for capable males and females there is an important sex difference in a developmental transition during adolescence in their desire to have their success recognized by their peers. In the present investigation the college-prep boys showed a significant decrease in fear of success during the high school years, indicating that success is probably becoming a more highly valued goal, while the college-prep girls maintained a high level of fear of success. Since many of these boys anticipate attending college, their decrease in fear of success during high school may be the result of the increasing salience of college and career as primary goals. The maintenance of high fear of success in college-prep girls and the decrease in the desire for social visibility of academic excellence in girls in Coleman's study suggest that during the high school period girls manifest increasing ambivalence toward the values which might lead them to excel in academic pursuits which may have implications for later career development. An important factor that contributes to this ambivalence about achievement is the sex-role stereotype of achievement. The socialization of ambivalent achievement-related motivations in females should not obscure the important effects of socialization leading to fear of success in males, especially since there is such disagreement in the literature as to whether and when these sex differences appear. The use of chronological age and gender as independent variables in the study of sex differences is an important first step in the investigation of general processes of socialization. These general processes (e.g., modeling, reinforcement, cognitive delimiting of sex role) may provide an important heuristic direction to research which seeks not only to fred sex differences on

9 FOS in Males and Females 281 dependent variables but "also to explain them by reference to isolated antecedent conditions. The strategy in the present study was to determine the age-related changes in fear of success and the importance of the sex link of the subject's course of study. The strategy in such future research should be not only to determine both the differences in distribution of antecedent variables in the life histories of males and females, but also to determine the particular and varied effects such conditions may have for boys and girls. Thus, one would anticipate that the identification of general processes in the development of fear of success (and the divergent effect of these processes for different sex groups) could provide a more general theoretical statement of the socialization of children in general and the emergence of sex differences in particular. REFERENCES Atkinson, J. W. (ed.). Motives in fantasy, action, and society. Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, Atkinson, J. W., & Feather, N. T. A theory of achievement motivation. New York: Wiley, Cohen, J. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press, Coleman, J. S. The adolescent society, New York: Free Press, Deaux, K., & Emswfller, T. Explanations of successful performance on sex-linked tasks: What is skill for the male is luck for the female. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 29, Feather, N. T., & Simon, J. C. Reactions to male and female success and failure in sex-linked occupations: Impressions of personauty, causal attributions, and perceived likelihood of different consequences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975, 31, Heilbrun, A. B., Kleemeier, C., & Piccola, G. Developmental and situational correlates of achievement behavior in college females. Journal of Personality, 1974, 42, Homer, M. S. Sex differences in achievement motivation and performance in competitive and non-competitive situations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Horner, M. S. Toward an understanding of achievement-related conflicts in women. Journal of Social Issues, 1972, 28, Horner, M. S., Tresemer, D. W., Berens, A. E., & Watch, R. I. Scoring manual for an empirically derived scoring system for motive to avoid success. Unpublished manual, Harvard University, Levine, A., & Crumrine, J. Women and the fear of success: A problem in replication. American Journal of Sociology, 1975, 80, McClelland, D. C. The achieving society. New York: Van Nostrand, Monahan, L., Kuhn, D., & Shaver, P. Intrapsychic versus cultural explanations of the "fear of success" motive. Journal of Personality and SociaI Psychology, 1974, 29, Stein, A. H., & Bailey, M. M. The socialization of achievement orientation in females. Psychological Bulletin, 1973, 80, Winer, B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.