Two consistent areas of sex differences in mathematics are pointed out, along with the variety of reasons used to explain their causes. Two studies that examined students of both sexes who had revealed high mathematical abilities are discussed, with fear of success of girls highlighted as an important factor. (MP)

This study identified success-avoidance imagery in the projective test stories of freshmen and senior girls in a Catholic, working-class community. Success-avoidance appeared in 49 percent of the stories but was not significantly higher in seniors or in those planning on college and a career. (Author/SJL)

A group of high-potential girls in grades three-six met with researchers to discuss internal barriers to female achievement. Dilemmas identified as blocking girls' success in school included: smart versus social, silence versus bragging, failure versus perfection, media beauty versus marginality, passive versus aggressive, conforming versus being…

Four myths of female confidence with regard to physical activity are explored, as are research indications and six strategies to enhance self-confidence. (IAH)

The study, with 36 sixth grade girls in a gifted program and 34 in the regular program and their mothers, found statistically significant differences between nongifted and gifted daughters on the Attitudes toward Women Scale, between daughters and mothers on the Fear of Success Scale, and among all 4 groups on the Occupational Check List.…

Two studies evaluated the contribution of goal orientation--over and above the constructs of planned behavior theory--in explaining the relationship between attitudes, motivation, and academic achievement for students with and without learning disabilities. Results indicated that a performance-approach orientation exerted significant positive…

One of the largest problems facing rural school counselors is confronting the low career expectations that many rural students have by the time they reach high school. To clarify this problem, the relationships among career choice, self-concept, and fear of success in rural students is explored here. The study critiques earlier studies of…

When faced with personal success, some persons appear to become anxious and will do something to avoid or sabotage their efforts. This fear of success among university students was investigated in this study. The sampling included 210 students, 83 males and 127 females. The independent variables under consideration were locus of control, gender,…

Many studies have attempted to relate sex role to other personality dimensions such as fear of success with conflicting results. The Bem Sex-Role Inventory and the Fear of Success Scale were administered to 101 college women. A significant relationship was found between their scores on the two instruments. Results showed that sex-reversed females…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between Home-Career (H-C) conflict, Fear of success (FOS), achievement (n Ach) and Career motivation (CM) for women of differing sex role orientations. In addition, measures of self-esteem, risk-taking, perceived community support and early socialization were obtained. A positive…

Research has suggested that race and sex are strongly associated with the "imposter phenomenon" (I-P), a secret, intense, subjective self-perception of phoniness experienced by many high achievers. Sex, race, and perceived atypicality were examined in relation to the imposter phenomenon for 30 persons with adequate achievement in career…

Using Seligman's "learned helplessness" paradigm, androgynous and feminine women (as defined by the Bem Sex Role Inventory) either succeeded (contingent feedback) or failed (non-contingent feedback) at a concept formation task and were provided with internal (ability, effort), external (task difficulty, luck), or no causal attributions for their…

Since the reemergence of the women's movement in the early 1970's, it has been necessary to reexamine women's definitions of success and attitudes toward work across a spectrum of traditional and non-traditional jobs. Three basic hypotheses were tested: women in female-dominated jobs (1) have higher fear of success imagery and (2) attach more…

Reactions of men and women to failure in sex-appropriate and sex-inappropriate tasks were examined through performance records, self-ratings of learning progress, and attributions of performance to effort and ability. Fear of success studies show that individuals may avoid success where success is sex-inappropriate. It was thought that failure…

Subjects were four groups of 12 college women, high or low in motive to avoid success (MAS) and locus of control (LC), were reinforced for response A on a fixed partial reinforcement schedule on three concept learning tasks, one task consisting of combined reward and punishment, another of reward only, and one of punishment only. Response B was…