Sex Roles, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1975
Female Motive to Avoid Success A P s y c h o l o g i c a l Barrier or a R e s p o n s e to D e v i a n c y ? 1 Madaine E. Lockheed 2 Educational Testing Service
This study interprets female "motive to avoid success'" as a normative response to social deviancy. It examines the responses o f males and females to a TA T-type verbal cue regarding a female actor's success at an activity depicted as either typical for both sexes or deviant for women. When the activity is described as typical for both sexes, no sex differences in the incidence o f reported "motive to avoid success" appear; reports o f the "motive" are few. When the activity is described as typical for males but deviant for females, a higher percentage o f men than women report negative consequences for female success. The "motive to avoid success," a psychological explanation introduced by Homer (1968) to account for the observed failure of bright women to achieve in American society, has produced a plethora of subsequent research (Feather & Simon, 1973; Fontana, 1971; Levine & Cmmrine, 1973; Monahan, Kuhn, & Shaver, 1974; Moore, 1972; Robbins & Robbins, 1972; Wellens, 1973; Zaro, 1972). In a review of these studies, Tresemer (1974) points out the ephemeral nature of the phenomenon, confirmed by some researchers and dismissed by others. In a review of research about the other side of this motivational coin, Alper (1974) also reports similar variability in studies of achievement motivation in women. Both reviewers attribute such differences to variability in research methodology and subject populations. Although the motive to avoid success was proposed as a "psychological barrier" (Homer, 1968; Homer, 1970; Homer, 1972a), recently Homer has emphasized that the motive is aroused as a function of an individual actor's expectations regarding the nature of the consequences of behavior and the relative value of these consequences to the actor (Homer, 1972b). In line with this 1An earlier version of this paper was cited by Hochschild (1973), O'Leary (1974) and Tresemer (1974) under the present author's former name of Katz. zRequests for reprints should be sent to Marlaine E. Lockheed, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey 08540. 41 © 1 9 7 5 P l e n u m Publishing C o r p o r a t i o n , 2 2 7 West 1 7 t h Street, New Y o r k , N . Y . 1 0 0 l l . No part o f t h i s p u b l i c a t i o n may be r e p r o d u c e d , stored in a retrieval system, or t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m o r by a n y means, e l e c t r o n i c , mechanical, p h o t o c o p y i n g , m i c r o f i l m i n g , recording, or o t h e r w i s e , w i t h o u t w r i t t e n permission o f t h e publisher.
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reasoning, and taking into account that the reaction of men to women's achievement may be valued by women, a number of studies have asked men to respond to female achievement. The results of these studies confirm that males tend to be less favorably disposed to female achievement than to male achievement (Monahan et al., 1974; Levine & Crumrine, 1973; Robbins & Robbins, 1973; Rosen & Jerdee, 1973). Central to the majority of these studies is the specific research procedure which has been used. In Homer's original studies and in some subsequent work, achieving undergraduates have written stories based upon the following cue, with the women writing about "Anne" and the men writing about "John": "After first-term finals, Anne/John finds herself/himself at the top of her/his medicalschool class." Homer's findings are well known and frequently cited; the highachieving men wrote stories containing achievement imagery, but the highachieving women wrote stories containing "success-avoidant" imagery. Although psychological literature tends to view achievement orientation as a socialized personality characteristic (Alper, 1973; O'Leary, 1974; Stein & Bailey, 1973), cultural explanations in terms of sex-role stereotypes have also been offered (Monahan et al., 1974). It is the purpose of the present study to offer yet a third explanation for why both males and females report negative consequences for women who achieve. This explanation focuses attention not on achievement per se, but rather on the arena in which the achievement is exhibited. Although Homer did not examine it, the motive to avoid success is associated with only certain types of success. That is, being female is not intrinsically at odds with being successful; indeed, certain arenas of success are reserved almost exclusively for women: nursing, elementary-school teaching, keypunching. The determination of what arena is appropriate for female success and accomplishment is largely a matter of historical and social definition. What is particularly relevant to the line of research reviewed here is that medical-school attendance has not been consisdered an appropriate arena for female success; the fact that even today fewer than 25% of medical-school students are female documents this assertion. An alternative hypothesis to explain the difference between male response to male success and female response to female success may be derived from Berger and Luckmann's (1967) theory of role development. Berger and Luckmann argue that roles develop from habituated human activity. Habituated actions are those that are repeated frequently and cast into a pattern. The specification of what types of acts are to be performed by what types of actors is called typification. For institutionalization to occur, both actors and actions must be typified. Habituated actions that are reciprocally typified by types of actors are roles. The formation of roles is implied by institutionalization and "as soon as actors are typified as role performers, their conduct is ipso facto suscep-
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43
tible to enforcement [Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 74] ." Furthermore "social control is inherent in institutionalization as such, prior to or apart from any mechanism of sanctions specifically set up to support an institution [Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 55] ." The finding that females report a motive to avoid success need not be explained by reference to the personality characteristics of the respondents, but rather by reference to the medical school, a social institution which takes it for granted that medical-school attendance (a certain type of action) will be undertaken principally by men (a certain type of actor). Women attending medical school are therefore not actors of the appropriate type, are perceived as deviant, and are hence subject to social control. An alternative explanation for the Homer finding is that the women writing about Anne merely reported the internal and external social controls that would be experienced by such a deviant woman as Anne for attending medical school, let alone for succeeding at it. The men writing about John, on the other hand, wrote about an actor engaged in socially appropriate behavior. Furthermore, men writing about Anne shared the women's expectations for Anne's failure, while women writing about John shared the men's expectations for John's success (Levine & Crumrine, 1973; Monahan et al., 1974; Robbins & Robbins, 1973). This is what would be predicted from Berger and Luckmann's theory, as the knowledge of social institutions is shared by all members of society, both men and women. Since this is the case, both males and females should report that actors engaged in institutionalized behavior will receive fewer sanctions than will actors engaged in noninstitutionalized or deviant behavior.
METHOD
To investigate the effect of specifying the institutionalization of female medical-school attendance on the probability of men's and women's using female-success-avoidant imagery in story production, a modified replication of Homer's original study was conducted. The modification was to include in the story cue a statement which specified the institutionalization or noninstitutionalization of female medical-school attendance by giving figures allowing the respondent to calculate whether the behavior was typified for females; men as well as women were asked to complete a story about a woman. Data were collected from two small western colleges: one was a private residential school and the other a public commuter school. The subjects for this study were 77 sophomore men and women enrolled in an undergraduate sociology course at the private college and 192 men and women enrolled in required undergraduate English and social-problems courses at the public college. They were recruited on the basis of their instructors'
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willingness to have the instrument completed during class time. All students present on the day o f administration were requested to write a short story based on the cue provided to them and were given ten minutes to complete the task; there were no refusals. Self-report data on students' sex, year in college, and grade-point average were collected at the same time. Subjects completed stories based upon one of the following two cues, which were randomly assigned by individual at the private college and randomly assigned by class at the public college: 3 (a) All Anne's classmates in medical school are men. After first-term finals, Anne finds herself at the top of her class. (b) Half of Anne's classmates in medical school are women. After first-term finals, Anne finds herself at the top of her class. The first cue is consistent with present role typifications that define female medical-school attendance as deviant and noninstitutionalized. The second cue sets the condition for the institutionalization of female medical-school attendance. Female success-avoidant imagery was coded according to Homer's system (Homer, 1970), which noted either the presence or absence of serious concern about success, defined as (a) negative consequences because o f the success, (b) anticipation o f negative consequences because o f the success, (c) negative affect because o f the success, (d) instrumental activity away from present or future success, including leaving the field for more traditional female work such as nursing, school teaching, or social work, (e) any direct expression o f conflict about success, ( 0 denial o f effort in attaining the success (also cheating or any other attempt to deny responsibility or reject credit for the success), (g) denial o f the situation described by the cue, or (h) bizarre, inappropriate, unrealistic, or nonadaptive responses to the situation described by the cue. Two coders scored the stories, with each story being coded by both coders. Eighty-five percent of the stories received like codings by the two coders scoring independently. Cases o f disagreement were resolved by joint discussions between the coders.
RESULTS In this sample o f women, the incidence of reports of fear of success (contained in Table I) is substantially less than that reported by H o m e r (1968), but is within the range reported by Feather and Simon (1973), Robbins and 3The change from individual randomization to classroom randomization was necessary to keep hidden the nature of the manipulation from subjects at the public college, where data collection took place over several days in numerous classes. Internal analysis of the data revealed no difference in either the direction or the significance of the relationships tested between the two sample groups.
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Table L Incidence of Fear-of-Su ccess Imagery by Sex of Respondent Under TwoConditions Percent incidencea Cue condition Medical-school attendance typified for women Medical-school attendance deviant for women
Male
46 (76)
72 (78)
Female
35 (66)
40 (49)
aNumbers in parentheses indicate the number of subjects on which the percentage is based. Robbins (1973), and Winchel, Fenner, and Shaver for girls in coeducational high schools (1974). No differences were found between the women in the private and public colleges. For the sample o f men, however, there is a substantial difference in their response dependent upon the cue content. When medical-school attendance was typified for women, the male subjects were less likely to report subsequent failure for Anne than when medical-school attendance was deviant for women (X2 = 15.12, p < .01). No differences were found between the men in the private and public colleges, The stories produced b y these women suggest a possible explanation for the difference between Homer's Midwestem and Eastern data and the present study's Western data. The San Francisco Bay area, where the two colleges are located, has been a center of feminist activity for the past several years. This activity m a y have created a climate in which female success has become consistent with new role typifications. This interpretation is consistent with figures recently released by the American Council on Education (Bayer & Royer, 1973) which document a rise in women's aspiration for graduate degrees between 1967 and 1971. In 1967, 38.6% o f female freshmen aspired to graduate degrees; the comparable figure for women in 1971 was 50.2%. Nearly 65% o f the stories written by the women reflected this orientation implicitly, and 6% contained explicit references to the Women's Movement:
Implicit: She redoubles her efforts and continues her education, specializing perhaps in a field of particular interest like gynecology, and becomes a successful doctor. She continues her career despite eventually getting married and having a family. Explicit: She is very proud of this achievement -- She becomes much more aware of the Women's Liberation Movement and the goals they are working toward. She felt she was contributing something to the movement by her very presence in medical school, as were the other women in her class.
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The stories a d m i t t e d that a successful w o m a n must o v e r c o m e t r e m e n d o u s odds; t h e y did not, however, report that a successful w o m a n must avoid success. Typical success stories r e p o r t e d that Anne ~11 o v e r c o m e the obstacles she encounters, c o n f i d e n t that this is appropriate behavior for w o m e n . These stories m o r e closely a p p r o x i m a t e d those written by the male subjects a b o u t J o h n in the original H o m e r study. It is interesting to contrast these stories to those the male respondents wrote about the exceptionally bright but deviant w o m a n . Explanations for Anne's success in the all-male e n v i r o n m e n t t e n d e d to cluster around her sexuality: she is sexually distracting to her male classmates or professors, she " b u y s " h e r success w i t h her b o d y , she is tricky, and she receives help f r o m her classmates for sexual reasons: Anne is a woman of exceptional design. In mathematical terms, Anne can be described as 38-24-36, all nice and even figures. With evil eyes focused on Anne, who could watch the teacher? Since Anne was not really smart, but was a beautiful specimen of the female sex, all the men tried to win her affection by helping her cheat on the exams. She probably was not exceptionally bright, but quite pretty. She began to use her virtues in trying to make many friends with the male students. With the help of her friends, she succeeded in reaching the top of her class. Men t e n d e d to see that a successful person could n o t be a w o m a n ; success and f e m i n i n i t y were m u t u a l l y i n c o m p a t i b l e : At first she felt pretty good about it, but one morning shortly thereafter she noticed her body was becoming muscular and unfeminine and that she was developing a five-o'clock shadow. Anne realized what was happening to her -- by overachieving she was denying her true feminine self. When medical-school attendance was specified by the story cue as being appropriate for w o m e n , the m e n wrote different types o f stories. F o r example: Anne is a very good student. If she continues at her present rate, she will become a fine doctor, an asset to her society, and very successful financially. These stories were m u c h more similar to those written by w o m e n . In fact there were no significant differences b e t w e e n the a m o u n t o f fear-of-success imagery r e p o r t e d by m e n and w o m e n w h e n medical-school a t t e n d a n c e was typified for w o m e n . On the other hand, nearly twice as m a n y m e n as w o m e n r e p o r t e d negative consequences for Anne's success w h e n medical-school attendance was specified as deviant for w o m e n (X 2 = 9.86; p < .01).
Subsequent Content Analysis of the Stories In an a t t e m p t to a c c o u n t for the differences in the use o f success-avoidant imagery by the male and female subjects, the investigator subsequently per-
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47
formed a content analysis of the stories. Four major categories of story type were established: pure success, pure failure, role conflict, and success as a result of instrumental use of sex. Pure success was defined as the absence of any success-avoidant imagery, as specified by Homer (1970). Pure failure was defined as the presence of success-avoidant imagery in connection with all the roles Anne is described as filling. Role conflict was defined as the presence within the story of two separately identified roles for Anne (such as student and girl friend, student and daughter), and the presence of serious concern about Anne's performance in one but not both of the roles. Such stories frequently may be identified by the writer's use of "but," "however," "on the other hand." Success as a result o f instrumental sex was defined as the presextce within the story of statements which attribute Anne's success to her physical attributes. This would be coded by Homer as "fear of success" imagery, as it denies any effort on the part of Anne to succeed. The distribution of stories by type, sex of respondent, and type of story cue is given in Table II. A review of this table shows that when Anne's attendance at medical school was defined as deviant, twice as many men as women wrote stories containing "pure failure'! themes, but twice as many women as men wrote stories containing "pure success" themes. Under the same condition, more men than women attributed Anne's success to her use of instrumental sex, especially at the private college. This might be explained by the fact that this college had only recently admitted women, and some of the male students may have come directly from parochial high schools. Thus, they may have been both traditional in their attitudes toward women and somewhat threatened by female classmates. On the other hand, when Anne's attendance at medical school was defined as appropriate, the only difference between male and female respondents was that some men still attributed Anne's success to her instrumental use of sex, especially in the private college. Even for these respondents, fewer of the men made such attributions when writing about the nondeviant Anne. The effect of the story cue in determining what type of story was written was most noticeable in the category of role conflict. Whereas the rhetoric of women's liberation demands that women be given equal access to high-prestige occupations, research shows that women presently engaged in such occupations suffer from role conflict (Poloma, 1972; Garland, 1972; Rapoport and Rapoport, 1972; Holmstrom, 1972). Berger and Luckmann's theory would predict a reduction in role conflict once female participation in such occupations was typified. There was a higher probability for both men and women to write roleconflict stories when Anne was presented as the only woman in medical school
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49
than when she was presented as having female classmates. This is consistent with Berger and Luckmann's theory. Role conflict was not perceived as an inherent liability for women with professional identities. Rather, it was a function of whether the activities of professional women occurred in environments where such behaviors are typical of women.
DISCUSSION
This study suggests that the attitudes of women toward successful women are more favorable than those of men toward successful women. It further indicates that while men report punitive and unaccepting attitudes toward successful women, these attitudes are subject to influence by the environment in which the success takes place. If female success is depicted as occurring in an environment in which female participation is as frequent as male participation, males tend to react favorably to this success; when the success is associated with "deviant" female behavior, males react punitively. The success of the woman is not the issue as much as the deviant nature of her actions. That achieving women have in the past revealed a "motive to avoid success" may be explained by the hostile reactions of men to such achievement. That present day women do not reveal such a motive may be explained by new social definitions of appropriate behavior for women. That men reveal less antipathy for female success when the behavior is depicted as appropriate for women is a powerful argument for rapid modification of existing male institutions to permit the equal participation of actors of both sexes.
REFERENCES
Alper, T. G. The relationship between role-orientation and achievement motivation in college women. Journal o f Personality, 1973, 41, 9-31. Alper, T. G. Achievement motivation in college women: A now-you-see-it-now-you-don't phenomenon. American Psychologist, 1974, 29, 194-203. Bayer, A. E., & Royer, J. T. Four years after college entry. ACE Research Reports, 8(1), 1973. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. The social construction of reality. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1967. Feather, N. T., & Simon, J. G. Fear of success and causal attribution for outcomes. Journal o f Personality, 1973, 41(4), 525-542. Fontana, G. L. An investigation into the dynamics of achievement motivation in women. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1971, 32(3-B), 1821-1822. Garland, T. N. The l~etter half?. The male in the dual professional family. In C. SafiliosRothschild (Ed.) Towards a Sociology of Women. Lexington, Massachusetts: Xerox College Publishing, 1972. Holmstrom, L. L. The two-career family. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1972.
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Homer, M. S. Sex difference in achievement motivation and performance in competitive and non-competitive situations. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1968. Horner, M. S. Femininity and successful achievement: A basic inconsistency. In J. M. Bardwick (Ed.), Feminine personality and conflict. Belmont, California: Brooks/ Cole, 1970. Homer, M. S. The motive to avoid success and changing aspirations of women. In J. M. Bardwick (Ed.), Readings on the psychology o f women. New York: Harper and Row, 1972(a). Homer, M. S. Toward an understanding of achievement-related contlicts in women. Journal of Sociallssues, 1972(b), 28(2), 157-176. Hochschild, A. R. A review of sex role research. American Journal o f Sociology, 1973, 78(4), 1011-1029. Levine, A., & Crumrine, J. Women and the "fear of success": A problem in replication. Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, 1973. Monahan, L., Kuhn, D., & Shaver, P. Intrapsychic versus cultural explanations of the fear of success motive. Journal o f Personality and Social Psychology, 1974, 29(1), 60-64. Moore, L. L. The relationship of academic group membership in the motive to avoid success in women. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972, 32(8-a), 4355. O'Leary, V. E. Some attitudinal barriers to occupational aspirations in women. Psychological Bulletin, 1974, 81(11), 809-826. Poloma, M. M. Role conflict and the married professional woman. In C. Safilios-Rothschild (Ed.), Towards a sociology o f women. Lexington, Massachusetts: Xerox College Publishing, 1972. Rapoport, R., & Rapoport, N. The dual-career family: A variant pattern and social change. In C. Safilios-Rothchild (Ed.), Towards a sociology o f women. Lexington, Massachusetts: Xerox College Publishing, 1972. Robbins, L., & Robbins, E. Comment on: Toward an understanding of achievement-related conflicts in women, 28(2), 1972. JournalofSociallssues, 1973, 29(1), 133-137. Rosen, B., & Jerdee, T. H. The influence of sex-role stereotypes on evaluations of male and female supervisory behavior. Journal o f Applied Psychology, 1973, 5 7(1), 44-48. Stein, A. H., & Bailey, M. M. The socialization of achievement orientation in females. Psychological Bulletin, 1973, 80(5), 345-366. Tresemer, D. Fear of success: Popular but unproven. Psychology Today, 1974, 7(10), 82-85. WeUens, G. J. The motive to avoid success in high school s e n i o r s - Need for achievement shifts ~md psycho social correlates. Dissertation Abstracts, 1973, 33(2-b), 5529. Winchel, R., Fenner, D., & Shaver, P. Impact of coeducation on "fear of success" imagery expressed by male and female high school students. Journal o f Educational Psychology, 1974, 66(5), 726-730. Zaro, J. S. An experimental study of role conflict in women. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1972, 33(6-b), 2828.
