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Sex Roles, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1978

Motive to Avoid Success: A Profile 1

Rosemarie Anderson 2'3

Wake Forest University

In a series o f studies, comparisons were made between the self-descriptions o f college women whose stories contained motive-to-avoid-success imagery with women whose stories did not contain motive-to-avoid-suceess imagery. Women exhibiting the motive to avoid success were generally career oriented but aspired to traditional female occupations and were less concerned with making a major contribution to their field. Women n o t exhibiting motive to avoid success were more likely to choose atraditional female occupations, and their mothers were more likely to be employed in atraditional female occupations. With regard to personality variables, women exhibiting the motive to avoid success reported lower expression o f affection, lower self-concept with close associates, higher self-criticism, and higher external locus o f controL In general, ambivalence char- acterized their view o f themselves, their relationships with others, and their professional goals. In addition, two sets o f verbal cues that evoked equivalent de- grees o f motive-to-avoid-succe~ss imagery were developed.

The thesis t h a t w o m e n view success w i t h ambiva lence has been a r o u n d for some

t ime (Kagan & Moss, 1962 ; Mead, 1949) . However , i t was no t un t i l 1968 t h a t

the c o n c e p t was reif ied i n to a m o t i v a t i o n a l c o n s t r u c t - the m o t i v e to avoid suc-

cess. H o m e r ( 1 9 6 8 , 1970) theo r i zed t h a t some w o m e n are in conf l i c t over pro-

fess ional careers, for t hey view profess iona l i sm as i n c o m p a t i b l e w i th f emin in i ty .

1The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions made by Harry P. Shelley to the implementation and write-up of this research. Gratitude is also extended to Victoria Winans for her help in scoring the stories, to Lorraine Yasinski and John E. Williams for reading drafts of this manuscript, and to the Department of Psychology at the University of Nebraska for providing the facilities. An abbreviated report of this research was presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Hollywood, Florida, 1974.

2 Formerly known as Rosemarie Anderson Patty. 3 All correspondence should be addressed to Rosemarie Anderson, University of Maryland,

Far East Division, APO San Francisco, California 96328.

239

0360-0025/78/0400-0239505.00/0 © 1978 P lenum Publ ish ing Corporation

240 Anderson

Characteristically, they perceive success as resulting in negative consequences such as unpopularity, abuse, guilt, or doubts about their femininity. Since its inception, Homer's theorizing has achieved much popularity (see Tresemer, 1974), some independent experimental verification, and severe criticism (Condry & Dyer, in press; Zuckerman & Wheeler, 1975).

Like the motive to avoid failure in men, the presence of the motive to avoid success in women inhibits performance in difficult or competitive situations (e.g., Homer, 1968; Karabenick & Marshall, 1974; Patty, 1976; Patty & Safford, 1976; Makosky, Note 1 ; Patty, Notes 2 & 3 ; Peplau, Note 4). Generally, women evidencing the motive to avoid success (MAS present) perform better when not competing or when competing on easy or unimportant tasks, while women not evidencing the motive to avoid success (MAS absent) perform better in competitive or difficult tasks, like achievement-oriented individuals. Moreover, MAS- absent women excel on tasks described as masculine, internally controlled, or intellectual, while MAS-present women excel on tasks described as feminine, externally controlled, or neutral.

This research was begun in the spring of 1972. On the basis of Homer's original findings (1968) and theorizings, it was hypothesized that MAS-present women would be characteristically ambivalent, rather than merely ambivalent, toward success. That is, simple questions about attitudes and goals should re- veal an underlining of ambivalence toward professionalism and the associated competencies. The MAS-present woman should attest to wanting both traditional masculine and feminine competencies but see them as mutually exclusive. Vaci- llating between the two, she will lack confidence in both, and her uneasiness will lead to even greater ambivalence. Moreover, this generalized ambivalence will result in lower self-confidence for the MAS-present woman.

METHOD

Subfects

A total of 181 women were recruited from introductory psychology courses, in which research participation was required, at the University of Neb- raska - Lincoln. They participated in four groups containing 85, 41, 23, and 32 women, respectively. Minor inconsistencies in sample sizes in the results sections are attributable to incomplete data or situations where the questions were not applicable.

Overview

This article reviews the findings of four studies which had two purposes: (1) to develop equivalent, alternative procedures for assessing the motive to

Motive to Avoid Success 241

avoid success and (2) to identify self-descriptions that distinguish MAS-absent and MAS-present women. In order to develop alternative procedures for assessing the motive to avoid success for eventual pre- and posttest use, 15 verbal cues, in addition to the original "Anne" cue described by Homer (1968), were generated. All of the cues depicted women in situations where women are not typically successful. From study to study, cues were eliminated if they did not correlate with the original "Anne" cue. To achieve the second purpose, a large number of questions about the women's attitudes and goals were initially asked. Each consecutive study attempted to replicate prior results and to extend their implications, by assessing personality variables.

Assessment o f Motive to Avoid Success

Motive to avoid success was assessed using a Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) procedure which asked the women to write stories in response to verbal cues, such as "After first term final exams, Anne finds herself at the top of her medical school class." Stories were scored for presence or absence of motive-to- avoid-success imagery, which Homer defined as negative consequences or negative affect as a result of success or withdrawal from success (see Homer, 1968, for further detail). Two females independently coding the stories achieved an inter-judge reliability of .85. In cases where the judges disagreed, stories were jointly discussed and where possible, a joint decision was reached.

STUDY 1

Procedure

The session was begun with the assessment of the Motive to Avoid Suc- cess, including the "Anne" cue and three randomly generated combinations of the 15 additional cues. It was followed by a series of questions regarding the women's attitudes and goals, as follows: (1) future first-choice occupation; (2) highest expected academic degree; (3) the importance of using special abilities, combining career and family, freedom from close supervision, high income, secure income, prestige, working with people rather than with things (e.g., machines), helping others, and accommodating to parental expectations of their future work environment; (4) future career salience, given that their future husband has an adequate income to support them and a family; (5) the degree of importance of becoming an authority in their special field, obtaining recog- nition, influencing political structures, influencing social values, raising a family, making a major contribution to their chosen field, getting married, making a man happy, and falling in love; (6) the degree to which they agreed that their beliefs and attitudes were similar to those of other students, that they were

242 Anderson

happier when in agreement with their friends, and that the activities of married women were best confined to the home and family; (7) father's and mother's educational attainment; (8) whether their mother was presently working; and (9) their mother's present occupation, if she was working outside the home.

The question about future career salience was used by Almquist and Ang- rist (1970). A career-oriented woman was defined as one who chose to work either part time or full time after she had married andhad children, when her husband's salary was adequate to support the family. Women who chose to con- centrate on clubs, volunteer work, sports, hobbies, or home and family were defined ashavingnoncareer-oriented expectations. Their first choice in future occupation and their mother's present occupation were coded as either traditional or atraditional female occupations. An atraditional female occupation was defined as an occupation containing fewer than 33% female workers (Almquist & Angrist, 1970) such as medical doctor, horse trainer, or plumber.

Results

Making a major contribution to their chosen field was significantly more important to MAS-absent than MAS-present women, X 2 (l) = 5.22, p < .05, $2 = .12. Furthermore, most of the future occupations that were classified as atraditional for women were among the MAS-absent women. A binomial test comparing the number of atraditional occupations chosen by the proportion of MAS-absent and MAS-present women was significant, p <.05. Moreover, atraditional female occupations were significantly more likely to be chosen by MAS-absent women who were also career oriented, X 2 (1) = 6.27, p < .05, ~2 = .10. The occupations of mothers, who were presently employed, were also classified as traditional or atraditional for women. Significantly more atraditional female occupations were found among mothers of MAS-absent women than among mothers of MAS-present women, binomial test, p = .04. No other results were significant.

STUDIES 2, 3, AND 4

Procedure

In order to replicate the findings of Study 1, the relevant questions were repeated in Studies 2, 3, and 4. During the sessions, motive to avoid success was assessed and followed by a shortened version of the history and goal question- naire and self-report measures of personality. Women in Studies 2 and 3 were administered Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966)


and Schutz's FIRO-B (Schutz, 1958) and women in Study 2 were administered the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (Fitts, 1965).

Results

Life History and Goals. A trend for MAS-present women to express greater career orientation, evident in Study 1, was significant in the combined results of Studies 2, 3, and 4, X 2 (1) = 8.63,p < .01, ~2 = .10. Furthermore, MAS-absent women were more likely to choose atraditional female occupations than MAS- present women, binomial test, p = .02. Similarly, all the mothers' occupations which were classified as atraditional were among mothers of MAS-absent women, binomial test, p = .80. As expected, MAS-absent women who chose atraditional female occupations were more likely to be career oriented than noncareer oriented, X 2 (1) = 6.13,p < .05, ~2 = .10.

Alternative Forms for Assessing Motive to Avoid Success. From the 15 original cues to assess motive to avoid success, three were chosen because their resultant motive-to-avoid success imagery was highly correlated with that generated by the "Anne" cue. Subsequent testing resulted in the most stable means and standard deviations by combining these four cues into alternative forms, each containing two cues and separated in sequence by nonachievement-oriented filler cues. Each story in each form was scored for the presence or absence of motive-to-avoid-success imagery by two female judges. The scores for the two stories were added and then averaged by the number of judges (Form A, X = .63, SD = .57; Form B, )~ = .56, SD = .57). The forms had a split-half reliability of .84.

The four cues employed, with their identification as Form A or Form B, are as follows:

1. After first term finals, Anne finds herself at the top of her medical school class. (Form A; Homer's original 1968 cue)

2. Joan while still in high school wins national awards for her science pro- jects. (Form A)

3. Nancy and Steve have both applied to the same highly selective university. (Form B;a modification of a cue used by Homer, 1968)

4. Alice has beaten all competitors and will represent her school in the national chess championships. (Form B)

Personality Correlates. By using either of the alternative forms to analyze the personality data, quantitative differences in the degree of motive to avoid success were compared with scores on the FIRO-B, Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale. Motive to avoid success was significantly correlated with the expression of affection on the FIRO-B in both Studies 1 and 2, r (39) = - .31, p < .05 and r (21) --- - .50, p < .05, suggest-

244 Anderson

ing that women high in motive-to-avoid-success imagery are less likely to express affection to intimates. Motive to avoid success was not correlated with any of the other FIRO-B scales. Women high in motive-to-avoid-success imagery were also significantly more likely to describe themselves as externally controlled, r (21) = .56, p < .01 and r (35) = 33, p < .05. On the Tennessee Self Concept Scale, motive to avoid success was positively correlated with self-criticism, r (21) = .40, p < .05; r (21) = - .41 , p < .05, and negatively correlated with Personal and Family Self Concepts, r (21) = - .47 , p < .05. No significant relationships were found between motive to avoid success and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale measure for physical, moral-ethical, or social self-concepts.

DISCUSSION

Homer (1968) has contended that women develop the motive to avoid success as an adjustment to a conflict engendered by strong and realistic aspirations toward success and strong negative responses to possible success. Thus, the motive to avoid success develops in women who value success and are capable of it. Without such an orientation, ambivalency towards success would be meaningless. The results of this investigation support such a claim, for MAS-present women were generally career oriented, possibly even more homogeneously so than MAS- absent women. Further support is found in Gross and Detterbeck's (Note 5) and Sorrentino and Short's (1974) arguments that MAS-present women have greater intellectual abilities than MAS-absent women. While a strong desire and potential for success were correlated with the presence of the motive to avoid success, they are perhaps necessary but not sufficient cause for developing motive to avoid success, for most bright and aspiring women will experience the negative effects of success. Theoretically, motive to avoid success may develop only as she begins to view her aspfiations as incongruent with femininity, the causes of which are yet unidentified.

While the MAS-present woman was more likely to be career oriented, her ambivalence was reflected in her lack of a career dedication such as in the desire to make a major contribution to her field and in the sex traditionality of her occupational choice. Theoretically, her career orientation combined with rather low-key career aspirations or ambitions may be viewed as a realistic compromise o f her ambivalencies toward success. Specifically, modest professional dedication to a sex-appropriate career may allow her to be successful within the protecting confines of a woman's sphere.

The results suggest the distinctiveness of three groups of college women. First are the MAS-present women who tended to be career oriented but not career dedicated, and who chose traditional female career occupations. Then, there are two groups of MAS-absent women; MAS-absent women who were


career oriented and MAS-absent women who were not career oriented. MAS- absent women who are not career oriented have little impetus to avoid success. Why feel ambivalent toward an undesirable or irrelevant goal? When asked to choose a future occupation, they selected traditionally female occupations, which are generally less ambitious or more modest. On the other hand, MAS-absent women who were career oriented choose both atraditional and traditional female occupations. They appear to choose their future occupations on the basis of their interests and abilities rather than upon role prescriptions, for they did not exclude a priori occupations which were traditionally masculine, as the MAS-present women appear to have done.

The mothers of MAS-absent women were employed in nearly all the atraditional occupations reported. It is unlikely that a mother's occupational choice has a direct effect on her daughter's motives, but rather that a mother's occupational choice reflects in part her attitudes toward women and careers. Reason- ably enough, mothers employed in atraditional female occupations are unlikely to feel ambivalent toward success. And being relatively free of ambivalence, such a mother may be an effective model for her daughter. A finding by Berens (1972) supports this theorizing, in that children who exhibited motive to avoid success tended to have mothers who exhibited motive to avoid success.

The personality data may be interpreted in various ways. The most obvious, perhaps, is that lesser expression of affection, less adequate personal and family self-concepts, and greater self-criticism are direct expressions of the ambivalent state of the woman who is motivated to avoid success. Alternately, these quali- ties may be though of as consequences of the attempt to resolve the conflict between strong but realistic achievement motivation and strong aspirations to fulfill a well-internalized, culturally defined sex role through a motivated avoidance of success. The college woman who has accepted the cultural stereotype for her sex, who has strong realistic achievement aspirations, and who backs away from the sifuation may pay the price of lower self-evaluations, more self- criticism, and limited expression of affection. Evidence supplied by Makosky (Note 1) suggests that the MAS-present woman pays an additional price. While both the MAS-absent and MAS-present women view femininity as equally important, the MAS-present woman describes herself as less feminine than does the MAS-absent woman. Apparently, she is less certain of herself in interpersonal areas, the so-called feminine graces.

The finding that motive to avoid success is correlated with an external locus of control can be interpreted in a number of ways. Internal control may simply be correlated with achievement motivation. External control may be correlated with neuroticism, an extreme form of ambivalency or conflict. Further- more, MAS-present women may adopt a general strategy for making external attributions. This last explanation is reinforced by Feather and Simon's finding (1973) that MAS-present individuals tend to augment external factors to attri-

246 Anderson

bute failure and diminish external factors to attribute success, while ignoring internal factors.

It is important to note that while the chi-square values and correlation coefficients reported and discussed above are significant, the degree of association or the percentage of variance predicted by motive to avoid success is rather small, ~22 = ?(2/n (see Tresemer, 1975). The considerable common variance shared by MAS-absent and MAS-present on many of these variables demonstrates the

often overlooked fact that MAS-absent and MAS-present women are much alike. It is noteworthy that in this research MAS-absent and MAS-present women did not differ on a large number of variables. Thus, they share many achievement- related themes.

The general finding that MAS-present women express ambivalent attitudes towards success and that this ambivalency may be reflected in lower self-confidence, and so on is important to a conceptual understanding of motive to avoid success. It is likely that ambivalencies associated with the motive will be mani- fested differently in other populations. There are, no doubt, many ways to compromise achievement strivings, depending on environmental pressures. In fact, the conflicts expressed by the undergraduate women in this study may be more direct. After all, the undergraduate culture at the University of Nebraska is some- what less achievement oriented, especially for women. Such a culture may allow MAS-present women more latitude, by making the compromise less obvious to them and more obvious to researchers.

It is the author's opinion that the term "motive to avoid success" is pre- ferable to "fear of success." The latter suggests a simple fear of success, rather than an ambivalence or an approach--avoidance conflict toward success. In con- trast, motive to avoid success implies an underlying ambivalence, where success is positive and negative. However, the use of the term "motive to avoid success" does not necessarily endorse the expectancy-value theory of motivation as theo- retical base for motive to avoid success (Homer, 1968). There are, indeed, other motivational theories.

The term "motive to avoid success" is awkward and clumsy; it requires the use of double negatives and continuous explanation. Worse, however, the reifi- cation of an ambivalence into a motive has created a disease we call motive to avoid success. This sounds more like an affliction than a motive. Unfortunately, motive to avoid success sounds unchangeable rather than developmental. For in- stance, women who realize that they have written motive-to-avoid-success stories are often upset; this reaction raises ethical issues at least. Much has to be done to allay these concerns, including a careful use of the terminology and consideration of its implications.

Recently, motive to avoid ~ success has been the subject of a number of telling reviews (Condry & Dyer, in press; Tresemer, 1974; Zuckerman & Wheeler, 1975). However, the concept remains potent, as demonstrated here, in distin- guishing the attitudes and goals of MAS-absent and MAS-present women. Other


researchers have d o c u m e n t e d its impact on predict ing compet i t ive performance .

While mot ive to avoid success is a powerfu l predic tor of behavior , i t is w i thou t

a solid theoret ical base. Motive to avoid success was embraced too lovingly too

quickly by too many psychologists . This diffuse exuberance may have contri-

bu ted to the many existing empir ical and theoret ica l contradic t ions , thereby

discredit ing the concept . Hopefu l ly , the present critical c l imate over mot ive to

avoid success will help ident i fy empir ica l consistencies whereupon a coheren t

theore t ica l mode l for mot ive to avoid success can be built .

REFERENCE NOTES

1. Makosky, V. P. Fear o f success, sex-role orientation o f the task, and competitive condi- tion as variables affecting women's performance in achievement-oriented situations. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Cleveland, May 1972.

2. Patty, R. A. The arousal o f the motive to avoid success in college women. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Hollywood, Florida, April 1974.

3. Patty, R. A. Motive to avoid success: Intellectual, interpersonal and neutral task-instruc- tions. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, September 1975.

4. Peplau, L. A. When do women fear successful achievement? Unpublished manuscript, UCLA, 1974.

5. Gross, H. J,, & Detterbeck, J. A. Adjustment and achievement as a function o f the motive to avoid success in college women. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Portland, Oregon, 1972.

REFERENCES

Almquist, E. M., & Angrist, S. S. Career salience and atypicality of occupational choice among college women. Journal o f Marriage and the Family, 1970, 32, 242-249,

Berens, A. E. The socialization o f achievement motives in boys and girls. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, York University, Toronto, Ontario, 1972.

Condry, J., & Dyer, S. Fear of success: Attribution of cause to the victim. Journal o f Social Issues, in press.

Feather, N. T., & Simon, J. C. Fear of success and causal attribution for outcome. Journal o f Personality, 1973, 41, 525-542.

Fitts, W. H. The manual: Tennessee Self Concept Scale. Nashville: Counselor Recordings and Tests, 1965.

Homer, M. S. Sex differences in achievement motivation and performance in competitive and non-competitive situations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1968.

Homer, M. S. Femininity and successful achievement: A basic inconsistency. In J. Baxdwick, (Eds.), Feminine personality and conflict. Belmont, Calif.: Brooks-Cole, 1970.

Kagan, J., & Moss, H. A. Birth to maturity. New York: Wiley, 1962. Karabenick, S. A., & Marshall, J. M. Performance of females as a function of fear of success,

fear of failure, type of opponent, and performance-contingent feedback. Journal o f Personality, 1974, 42, 220-237.

Mead, M. Male and female. New York: Morrow, 1949. Patty, R. A. The motive to avoid success and instructional set. Sex Roles, 1976, 2, 81-83.

248 Anderson

Patty, R. A., & Saftbrd, S. F. Motive to avoid success, motive to avoid failure, state-trait anxiety and performance. In C. D. Spielberger & I. G. Sarason (Eds,), Stress and anxiety. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere, 1976.

Rotter, J. B. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 1966, 80 (Whole No. 609).

Schutz, W. C. The interpersonal underworld. Palo Alto, Calif. Science and Behavior Books, Inc., 1958.

Sorrentino, R. M., & Short, J. A. Effects of fear of success on women's performance at masculine versus feminine tasks. Journal of Research in Personality, 1974, 8, 263-276.

Tresemer, D. Fear of success: Popular but unproven. Psychology Today, 1974, 7, 82-85. Tresemer, D. Measuring "sex differences." Sociological Inquiry, 1975, 45, 29-32. Zuckerman, M., & Wheeler, L. To dispel fantasies about the fantasy-based measure of fear

of success. Psychological Bulletin, 1975, 82, 932-946.

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