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Fear of success, achievement‐related motives and behavior in black college women 1
Author(s) -
Fleming Jacqueline
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1978.tb00192.x
Subject(s) - psychology , need for achievement , social psychology , academic achievement , test (biology) , fear of failure , salient , developmental psychology , identity (music) , class (philosophy) , middle class , paleontology , physics , artificial intelligence , computer science , acoustics , political science , law , biology
A bstract This study was designed to test the hypothesis, derived from past research, that Fear of Success should be an insignificant motivational determinant among black college women. Fifty‐five black undergraduates from Radcliffe College participated in two one‐hour sessions where motive and performance measures in a series of achievement‐related situations were obtained. Among middle‐class women, n Achievement was the major positive determinant of the achievement‐related behaviors under investigation while Fear of Success, measured by Horner's new experimentally derived scoring system, facilitated rather than inhibited performance. For women of working‐class origin, Fear of Success exerted the strongest influence on behavior and inhibited achievement‐striving in nontraditional directions. The findings among middle‐class women support the prevailing opinion that black women are more achievement‐oriented than their white counterparts, but the results for working‐class women challenge the findings of earlier studies based upon the original measure of Fear of Success imagery and suggest that an internalized conflict over achievement and feminine identity may be a salient motivation among some black women.