The Failure of Trait Theories to Predict Success

Abstract

behavior, fail to consider the variety of forms that achievement behavior might take, and assume or conclude that group differences in achievement are a function of group differences in traits (Maehr 1974). Social institutions and psychologists most often postulate group differences in the trait of ability to account for group differences in educational and vocational achievement (Jensen 1969). The sex role stereotype of the culture maintains that females are less competent than males (Stein and Bailey 1973), that is, that women as a group are lacking in ability. If a woman does not achieve it is presumably because she, like most women, lacks the trait of ability. This ideology does not preclude achievement by the woman of superior ability; rather, since equal ability supposedly leads to equal achievement, it is assumed that the woman of superior ability will achieve.' Recently, one psychologist (Rubin-Rabson 1974) firmly advised women psychologists