Militancy and Black Women's Competitive Behavior in Competitive versus Noncompetitive Conditions

Abstract

Fifty high militant and 50 low militant black women were assigned to one of five experimental conditions: noncompetitive, competition with black male confederates, competition with black female confederates, competition with white male confederates or competition with white female confederates. Subjects in competitive conditions worked for longer periods of time, produced more words from an anagram, and felt more self-confident than subjects in the noncompetitive condition. Subjects worked for longer periods of time with male confederates than with female confederates. High militants, in comparison to low militants, produced significantly more words on the anagram task, indicated a great number of pride, anger, and/or revenge responses and endorsed more masculinity items relative to femininity items on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory as being self-descriptive. Contrary to prediction, high militant black women competing with black men showed little evidence of fear of success.