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A comparison of motivation to avoid success in males and females
Author(s) -
Kearney Maureen
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(198407)40:4<1005::aid-jclp2270400423>3.0.co;2-o
Subject(s) - psychology , feeling , need for achievement , interpersonal relationship , developmental psychology , interpersonal communication , social psychology , scale (ratio) , clinical psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
Recent research (Pappo, 1983) has shown that fear of success occurs in men as well as women. The motivation for avoiding success, however, may be different for each sex. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether sex differences exist in the reasons for fearing high achievement. One hundred eight females and 86 males were administered the Fear of Success Scale (Good & Good, 1973), and a factor analysis was performed on the scores. This process yielded five factors for the women and five for the men. The themes of the four factors were common to both sexes and include a concern that their success would provoke negative feelings in others, that stress factors would be too burdensome, that others would take advantage of them, and that interpersonal relationships would suffer.