DEVELOPMENTAL SHIFTS IN CONSTRUCTIONS OF SUCCESS: THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG EGO STAGES, SOCIAL MOTIVES, AND WOMEN'S LIFE PATTERNS

The concept of developmental constructions of success was used to study (1) the relationships among ego stages; (2) the social motives of affiliation, achievement, and power; (3) fear of success; and (4) the life patterns of women. The subjects were 109 Radcliffe alumnae randomly chosen from Radcliffe alumnae who graduated from 1955 to 1978 and who were living in the greater Boston area. For each alumna who agreed to participate in the study, a neighbor of approximately the same age was also invited to participate. Due to the large number of participants in the study, only the data of alumnae who came to Harvard and completed the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) under standard neutral conditions were analyzed.;The women completed the TAT, the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT), and a Background Questionnaire. The TATs were scored for the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power, and for fear of success (FOS). The SCT was used to measure ego stage. The Background questionnaire was designed to study a woman's conception of success and variables that other researchers had found that were related to women's life patterns. As a subsample, some women were chosen to participate in a more detailed interview about their life patterns. The research was designed to integrate Loevinger's and Kegan's structural-development ego theories with the concept of phases in adulthood (cf. Levinson et al, 1978).;Horner's concept of Fear of Success (FOS) (1968), when defined as ambivalence about satisfying both affiliation or intimacy needs and achievement needs, provides important insights into the conflicts that women experience at various ego stages. Women at different ego stages prefer different resolutions of the conflicts between intimacy and achievement needs. Fear of intimacy, presented as a corollary to FOS, is a problem that is associated with the Conscientious-Conformist (I-3/4) and Conscientious (I-4) ego stages. With the transition to the Individualistic (I-4/5) ego stage, the woman is no longer able to accept a definition of success that is centered on either intimacy or achievement. Rather, she values both intimacy and achievement but has difficulty defining realistic standards for these areas. At the Autonomous (I-5) and Integrated (I-6) ego stages, the woman recognizes and accepts the ambivalence and loss that result from not being able to attain the previous high standards she set for aspects of her life related to intimacy or achievement. Women at these stages seek a dynamic balance between intimacy and achievement in their lives. The data support the importance of examining both fear of intimacy and fear of success in order to understand a women's life structure. The specific hypotheses that were tested are: (1) The strength of the achievement, affiliation, and power motives will differ at the various ego stages. (not confirmed) (2) The type of achievement goal will differ by ego stage for women. (confirmed) (3) The form of Fear of Success will differ by stage. (confirmed) (4) The definition of success will differ by stage. (confirmed) (5) The type of mid-life crisis will differ by stage. (not able to test given available data).;The data provided strong support for studying qualitative differences in the forms of the social motives. There were distinct types of achievement themes and types of FOS by ego stage. Further, Raynor's (1974) conception of Future Orientation is related to developmental capacities that are associated with the ego stages.;The study provides evidence for the evolution of particular constructions of success that are clearly related to ego stages. Eight case studies are presented to highlight the relative effects of age and ego stage on women's life patterns. Implications for therapists who wish to provide developmental counseling for women are discussed as are possibilities for sophisticated studies of women's development.