fear of failure in males: a more salient factor than fear of success in females?

Sex Roles, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1976

Fear of Failure in Males: A More

Salient Factor Than Fear of Success

in Females? 1

Robert Levine California State University, Fresno

Harry T. Reis 2 University of Rochester

Eleanor Sue and Gary Turner Cali]ornia State University, Fresno

Sex differences in self-attributions following winning or losing in a highly competitive achievement-type situation were investigated. Subjects competed in same- or mixed-sex pairs on an anagram task which was prearranged in difficulty so that one subject would clearly defeat his/her partner. A significant sex o f subject × outcome interaction emerged. Males" were more likely to attribute their successes to skill and failures to luck. Females attributed both their successes and failures to a relatively equal amount o f skill. This self-defensive bias in males was interpreted as indicating a greater fear o f failure in males. The relatively rational and objective attributions o f females dM not support a female fear o f success hypothesis. No significant interactions with sex o f partner on this vari- able were found. Finally, subjects were asked to rate their opponents on a series o f personality, attractiveness, and "happiness" din~ensions. Neither males nor females were differentially evaluated as a function of" winning or losing.

In her now well-known papers, Horner (1968, 1970, 1972a, 1972b) argued that women are hampered by a fear of success in competitive achievement situations.

1 The research reported here was partially supported by a grant to the first author from the California State University, Fresno Foundat ion . Requests for reprints should be sent to Professor llarry T. Reis, Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester . New York 14627.

389

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390 Levine, Reis, Sue, and Turner

When striving for success, women are caught in a double bind. On the one hand, success may be rewarding. On the other hand, success, especially when in competition with males, may lead to fears of social rejection and concern about their own womanhood. Insofar as for men such success is consistent with masculinity and self-esteem, fear of success is less common in males than in females. Con- sistent with this conclusion, she found that 65.5% of females in her undergraduate sample versus 9.1% of the males expressed fear of success imagery on a projective measure.

Several recent researchers, however, have challenged both Horner's empiri- cal findings and her conclusions. In a literature review of 61 studies, Tresemer (1974) found little evidence that fear of success is more common in females. Also, recent studies (Feather & Raphelson, 1974; Monahan, Kuhn, & Shaver, 1974) have questioned the existence of a fear of success construct as an intra- psychic achievement anxiety.

One reason for these inconsistencies in fear of success research may be the almost universal reliance on projective techniques which are often ambiguous, have low reliability, and lack predictive validity (Zuckerman & Wheeler, 1975), implying that the inconclusiveness of the fear of success research may rest in methodological and not theoretical shortcomings. Since Deaux and EmswiUer (1974) have pointed to the heuristic and conceptual value of an attributional model in investigating certain sex differences, it was felt that such a model would prove useful in investigating the fear of success concept.

Nicholls (1975) has distinguished between three patterns of attribution. First is a logical appraisal of the situation as described by Heider's (1958) naive analysis of action. This orientation leads to a rational and objective attribution based on available information. Deviations from this rational pattern occur fre- quently (McArthur, 1972) and may be taken as evidence of bias. A defensive, or self-enhancing bias, the second pattern, would be manifested by attributing one's failures to external factors (i.e., outside the person) and successes to internal factors. Such cognitive bias will allow individuals to incorporate favorable information and exclude unfavorable information from their self-concept. Finally, a self-derogatory bias would lead to exactly the opposite pattern: greater attribution of success to external and failure to internal causes. In this manner, positive cognitions are excluded from the self-concept while negative information is incorporated.

Based on Horner's original theory, it was postulated that fear of success would be manifested by a self-derogatory attributional bias. If an individual feels anxiety about succeeding and now finds him/herselfa success, that person should be placed in an aroused state of conflict. It is derived that this tension is most readily dealt with in the present situation by self-derogatory attributions. This follows from Aronson's (1969) statement that consonance between one's behavior and one's self-concept is most salient. Success, inconsistent with a fear

Fear of Failure in Males 391

of success self-concept, may be readily denied by causal attribution to external factors, thus minimizing the inconsistency and potential threat. Failure, on the other hand, consistent with the self-presentation such a self-concept demands, is attributed to internal factors. Thus, if females are more hampered by fear of success than are males, they should be more likely than males to attribute their successes externally and their failures internally. It might be noted that early research on achievement motivation did not conceive of Nicholls's self-derogatory pattern, placing emphasis instead on self-defensive biases. Perhaps, as in the case of early neglect of the construct of fear of success, this was because males made up the greatest percentage of subjects in the early studies.

According to Homer, this self-derogatory bias should be greatest when females and males are in direct competition with each other, due to heightened concerns of self-presentation. Males, not being hampered by fear of success anxiety, should make more rational and objective attributions. In the present experimental design, to be described shortly, this should lead to relatively equal attributions to internal versus external factors following success and failure. On the other hand, Feather (1975) has suggested that failure is especially distressing to males. Consistent with the above formulations, this should lead males to attribute their failure to external causes and their success to internal factors. Males were included in the present design, then, to clarify and distin- guish among these positions.

Feather and Simon (1973), using a design similar to the present one, found that subjects (both males and females) scoring high on a fear of success projective measure actually tended to attribute their failures more externally and their successes less externally than subjects low in fear of success. Subjects in their study, however, worked in a relatively noncompetitive situation, taking a self- administered and self-scored anagram test in a large group. Further, success or failure was dependent on actual performance, where fear of success may have been related to ability. In order to more adequately test the present hypothesis, it would appear necessary to place subjects in a situation which requires direct competition with members of the same and opposite sex with success and failure clearly and randomly assigned. Thus, one subject knows that he or she has beat- en the other subject.

A second aim of the present study was to investigate Homer's contention that women fear success, especially when in competition with males, because this type of behavior may be seen as unfeminine and thus lead to social rejection.

Furthermore, Monahan et ai. (1974) have presented evidence of moral derogation of successful females by 10- to 16-year-old boys on projective responses. In the present study, subjects' perceptions of various personality-type traits of males and females whom they had recently defeated or been defeated by was also investigated.


METHOD

Overview

Subjects were assigned to same- or mixed-sex pairs. They competed against each other on an anagram task which was prearranged in level of difficulty so that one subject would clearly win. Afterwards, they were asked to attribute their own performances to some degree of skill or luck and to rate their opponents on a series of dimensions. Thus, the study employed a 2 × 2 X 2 factorial design, with sex of subject, sex of partner, and task outcome as the independent variables.

Subiects

Subjects were 128 undergraduate students (64 males and 64 females) at California State University, Fresno, who participated in the experiment to partially fulfull the research participation requirement for their introductory psychology course. Eight pairs (n = 16) were assigned to each of the eight conditions of the experimental design. Subjects were asked not to sign up in a pair with someone they already knew.

Procedure

One male experimenter was used for half the pairs of subjects in each experimental condition and one female experimenter for the other half. 3 Sub- ject pairs sat at a table separated by a divider and were instructed not to com- municate with each other during the experiment.

Subjects were told they would be competing against each other under "high-pressure" conditions on an anagram task which was related to overall intelligence. After a few practice items, each subject was handed his/her first test anagram. They were told to raise their hand as soon as they had written down tile correct solution. At this point the experimenter checked their answer, announced that the person had earned that point, and recorded one point on the answer sheet of the "winning" subject. If neither partner had reached the correct solution within 30 seconds, no point was awarded on that round. This procedure continued through the experimental set of 10 anagrams. At this point the final score was totaled and the "winner" announced.

Subjects were not aware that one person in each pair was assigned a con- siderably more difficult and sometimes unsolvable set of anagrams. The easier

3 This variation produced no significant effects whatsoever.


list contained items such as ELLS and NDHA; tile more difficult list contained items such as VALOB and RADACE. 4

At the conclusion of the anagram task, subjects completed the postex- perimental questionnaire. The first question asked them to rate how much-they thought their outcome ("won" or "lost") was due to ability versus luck. The low end (1) of this scale was labeled "mainly due to (lack of) ability," the high end (9) was labelled "mainly due to good (bad) luck," and the midpoint was marked "50% (lack of) ability and 50% good (bad) luck." It should be noted that this ability luck dimension was used as a measure of causal attribution rather than a fourfold abili ty--effort-task difficulty-luck breakdown. Given the nature of the present experimental questions, it was felt that the latter measures would unnecessarily complicate subjects' ratings.

The remaining questions asked subjects to describe their partners in order to give the experimenter a "better idea of what sort of person does better or worse on this type of test." After turning around so they could not see their opponent, subjects evaluated her/him on a series of counterbalanced 1 to 9 scales including happy-unhappy , attractive-unattractive, masculine-feminine, likeable-unlikeable, aggressive-unaggressive, friendly-unfriendly, socially in- tell igent-not socially intelligent, and sexually " loose" -no t sexually "loose."

Debriefing followed. During this period subjects were probed regarding their knowledge of the actual experimental design and purposes. Data from one pair of subjects who stated they were aware o f the actual experimental manipulation were discarded at this point. The nature of the experiment was described to the subjects in detail, as well as the random nature of the won- los t manipulation.

RESULTS

SelflA ttributions

The first major experimental question concerned sex differences in attributions to ability versus luck as a function of sex of opponent and outcome. It was argued earlier that if fear of success is more common to females, these subjects should show a self-derogatory bias in their attributions, especially when competing against males. An analysis of variance performed on the ratings shown in Table I (mean square for error term -- 4.037) produced a significant sex of subject × won- los t interaction (F(1, 120) = 4.84, p < .05). However, further analysis of these data revealed that something other than fear of success in females may have produced this effect. It may be seen in Table 1 that males, re-

4 Copies of the complete set of test ana~ams may be obtained from the first author.


Table 1. Self-Attributions a to Skill Versus Luck as a Function of Sex of Subject, Sex of Partner,

Sex of subject

and Outcome

Outcome

Sex of partner Won Lost

Male Male 3.88 5.81 Male Female 3.63 4.38 Female Male 3.94 3.94 Female Female 4.50 4.06

aHigher number indicate greater attribution to luck.

gardless of sex of opponent , were more likely to make skill a t t r ibut ions for their successes (.~ = 3..75) than for their failures ( ) ( -- 5 . 0 9 ; p < .05 using a Newman-

Keuls analysis). In contrast , females did n o t differ in their a t t r ibut ions to success ( ) ( = 4.22) versus failure ( , ( = 4.00), especially when their par tner was male. As

can be seen in Figure 1, the sex of subject × w o n - l o s t in teract ion may be indicating a self-defensive bias in males rather than a self-derogatory bias in females.

The data also indicated an interest ing sex of subject × sex of partner interact ion. Both sexes were somewhat more likely to a t t r ibute their perform-

[L} 9

m 5

3 ' 4

m

M: • • males

. . . . . • females

Is] 1 w o n lost

OUTCOME

Fig. 1. Skill-luck attributions as a function of sex of subject and outcome.


ances more to skill when competing against an opponent of the opposite sex. This interaction was not, however, statistically significant (F(I , 120) = 2.79, p < .10). No other significant attribution differences or trends emerged. In particular, sex of partner yielded no significant effects in the present study.

Ratings of Opponents

The second major experimental question involved subjects' perceptions of opponents whom they had just defeated or been defeated by. According to traditional sex-role stereotypes, females who compete successfully against men should be rated more masculine, aggressive, less attractive, and, thus, less happy than females conforming to cultural expectations by losing to males. Three-way analyses of variance, using the same design reported above for self-attributions, were applied to the opponent ratings listed earlier, s

The data in no cases supported this point of view. No significant main effects or interactions were found on ratings of "likeable-unlikeable," " h a p p y - unhappy," "attractive-unattractive," "fr iendly-unfriendly," or "socially intelligent-unintelligent." The only significant f'mdings were: Males, as opposed to females, were judged more masculine (F(1, 117) = 318.01, p < .001), more aggressive (F(I , 117) = 6.29, p < .05), more sexually loose (F(1, 117) = 7.96, p < .01), and less moral (F(I , 117) = 4.03, p < .05); opponents who had won were seen as more aggressive than those who had lost (F(1, 117) = 11.88, p < .01); and a significant (F(1, 117) = 6.49, p < .05) sex of subject X sex of partner interaction indicating that males perceived male opponents as more sexually loose than did female subjects while female raters were somewhat more likely to rate other females as more sexually loose than were male raters.

Although some of the above results are interesting, none are central to the experimental expectations. Specifically, no significant sex of partner X won- los t or three-way interactions emerged. Furthermore, the number of significant results is not greater than that which would be expected by chance using repeated significance tests. Thus, females who lost were not rated differently from females who won, regardless of the sex of their opponent.

D I S C U S S I O N

The major results of the present study were clear and striking. Males were more likely to attribute their successes, versus their failures, to skill. Females, on the other hand, tended to attribute both their successes and their failures to re-

STwo male subjects who "won" against a male partner and one male subject who "lost" against a male partner did not complete this questionnaire. The following results are, thus, based on the responses of 125 subjects using a weighted analysis of variance.


latively equal proportions of skill. In short, males showed a self-defensive bias in their attributions. Females, however, did not show a predicted self-derogatory bias in their attributions. Given that subjects, overall, had no reason to believe they were more or less capable than their partners, that the assigned task was more "male" or "female" oriented, or that their lists were easier or more difficult than those of their opponents, it appears that females employed the "rational" attribution pattern described by Nicholls (1975). They manifested neither a self-defensive nor self-derogatory attribution bias. Given the information available to subjects about the task and their opponents, the attributions made by females indicate an objective, unbiased appraisal of the causes of their performances. The present experiment, therefore, does not provide evidence of greater fear of success in females, at least within an attributional framework. Rather, the data point to greater fear of failure-oriented behavior in males.

Such a defensive attributional bias in males is consistent with recent data (Feather & Simon, 1975; Feather, 1975) which indicate failure to be especially distressing to males. There are several possible explanations for the present finding. Studies have shown that males, as opposed to females, state greater expectancy of success in approaching many tasks (e.g., Feather, 1969; Nicholls, 1975), have higher levels of aspiration and higher achievement motivation (Garai & Scheinfeld, 1968). Further, males may have overestimated their level of skill in order to create a positive image to the experimenter. Although data from a study similar to the present (Feather & Simon, 1971) cast doubt on this latter explanation, it cannot be entirely discounted. A future study might con- trol for the above factors. Most important, however, the present study provides evidence for the manifestation of fear of failure-oriented behavior in males in a competitive achievement situation where behavior oriented to fear of success did not emerge in females.

The logical attribution strategy observed in females, the fact that sex of partner did not affect attributions, and the fact that successful females were not negatively evaluated by their defeated male partners was striking. It is possible that the feminist movement, involving a redefinition of sex roles, is responsible for these findings. This effect would likely be strongest in the college level group used in this study and is consistent with recent results by Feather (1975). The fact that students at the college level have encountered a sufficient number of successful females and unsuccessful males to realize that a person's sex has little relation to their abilities on academic tasks also undoubtedly affected sex of partner re- suits. It might be interesting, in future research, to see if sex of opponent pre- dictions based on cultural stereotypes would emerge when heterosexual interaction is more salient and when task ability is more clearly sex-linked.

If the behavior of females in the present study is, in fact, indicative of some degree of liberation from traditional sex roles, why did the attributions by males conform to traditional sex role stereotypes? Possibly self-enhancing


and self-defensive tactics are more difficult to modify than those of self-deroga-

tion. While self-derogation can often be undone by reality-testing and encourage- ment, it may be more difficult to approach and change a self-enhancing bias which serves a critical personal and social function for the individual. The pos- sibility that traditional sex-role behavior is, in fact, more difficult to modify in men certainly warrants further investigation by social scientists.

The logical at tr ibution strategy observed in females is inconsistent with the self-derogatory bias observed in previous studies (Feather, 1969; Nicholls, 1975). The social nature of the present task situation may account for this difference. Kahn, Hottes, and Davis (1971) found that, in a Prisoner's Dilemma paradigm, men were concerned with achievement and winning, while females were more concerned with amicable interpersonal relationships. Similarly, success and failure in the present anagram task may have been less salient for females than for males, resulting in rational and objective attr ibutions by females.

In conclusion, the present data bring to life the feminists' warnings that men's liberation from their traditional sex-role expectations is as crucial as the need for women's liberation from their own sex-role requirements. Gloria Steinem (1970) speaks of "Men's Lib": "Men now suffer from more diseases due to stress, heart attacks, ulcers, a higher suicide rate, greater difficulty in living alone, less adaptabil i ty to change and, in general, a shorter life span than women . . . . With women bearing half the financial responsibility, and with the idea of "masculine" jobs gone, men might well feel freer and live longer" (p. 23). Fear of failure in males may be as damaging in its own way as the more publicized fear of success in females.

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fear of failure in males: a more salient factor than fear of success in females?

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