University Females are More Fearful and Males are More Egotistic: Possible Implications for Vocational Pursuits and Response to Crisis

Abstract

Clusters of items that indicate fearfulness and egotism were derived from a data base accumulated over 10 years. There were 235 men and 331 women whose ages ranged between 18 and 29 yr. Women displayed higher scores on the fearfulness cluster and lower scores on the egotism cluster than men; the interaction was statistically significant. Discriminant analyses indicated that the two clusters explained 13% of the variance for the sex differences. The relatively enhanced fearfulness and decreased egotism among university women compared to their male cohorts may be a useful predictor for entry into novel vocations and responsiveness to catastrophes involving other young women.