Fear of success in males and females: 1965 and 1971

Replicated part of M. S. Horner..s research (1965) on fear of success in college women and introduced 3 variations in the story cue used to measure fear of success. A sample of 245 male and female undergraduates at the same university was divided into 4 groups. All received the original instruments to measure achievement motives and fear of failure. Group 1 received the original fear of success cue. Each of the other groups had one aspect different: in Group 2 the setting was changed to a less masculine academic area; in Group 3 the achievement was communicated privately rather than publicly; in Group 4 the competitive aspect was minimized. None of the variations diminished fear of success. The frequency for females was the same as earlier, but for males it increased from 8% to 77%. For females, the most common theme was affiliative loss because of success; for males, it was questioning the value of the achievement. Achievement motive scores were lower in 1971 than in 1965. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).