Perceived Sex Role and Fear of Success: A Study on Urban Working Women

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine whether relationships exist between sex roles and fear of success. Bem Sex Role Inventory Short Form (BSRISF) (Bem, 1981) and Fear of Success Scale (FOSS) (Good and Good, 1973) were administered to 110 working urban women. The age range of sample was 21 to 60 years (Mean = 41.07 and SD = 10.74). The scores for the masculinity and femininity scales were derived by summing appropriate item scores of BSRISF. Correlation, a statistical method, was applied to see whether there is significant relationship between masculine and feminine characteristics. The correlation among above mentioned variables was observed positively significant (0.23, p < 0.05). It shows androgynous trends in urban working women. However, Fear of Success has been negatively correlated with both masculine scores (-0.25, p < .01) and feminine scores (-0.24 p < 0.05.). Total sample (110 Subjects) was divided as masculine (19), feminine (29), androgynous (32) and undifferentiated (30) sex role groups by taking median values on femininity and masculinity scale. The undifferentiated sex role group (M = 12.10 and SD 4.16) had highest fear of success scores among these groups and mean differences statistically calculated were significant (p < 0.05), when compared with androgynous sex role group. Whereas, androgynous had lowest fear of success scores (M = 9.37 and SD = 4.94) among these groups and mean differences statistically calculated were significant (p < 0.05), when compared with feminine category. Other comparisons of means were observed non- significant. The present study suggests that it is psychological femininity or undifferentiated sex roles rather than actual femininity that predisposes people to fear of success.