Effects of fear of success, fear of failure, type of opponent, and feedback on female achievement performance

Female undergraduates (N = 240) assessed for fear of success (FS) and fear of failure (FF) competed against a male, female, or no opponent (norms) on an alpha-numeric substitution task. After completing one set of trials, subjects arbitrarily received success or failure feedback, then performed again. While there were no significant effects when subject's FS classification was based on total scores from the entire set of four cues used, performance effects were found for Horner's original cue: FS-absent females performed better against a male than a female opponent, whereas the reverse was true for the FS-present subjects. Two of the other FS cues interacted with FF: at low levels of FF, FS-absent subjects performed better than FS-present subjects; for high levels of FF, there were no differences between FS groups. A number of postperformance affect ratings were consistent with theoretical expectations that FS-present females would experience more negative effect over success in achievement contexts than would FS-absent females.