Internal-external control, interpersonal trust, and the motive to avoid success in college women.

The Internal-External Control scale, Interpersonal Trust scale, and an assessment of the Motive To Avoid Success were administered to 86 undergraduate women. As expected, external and low trust scores covaried with comparatively high levels of achievement-related anxiety. The results were interpreted in terms of possible repression tendencies of internal subjects and the defensive properties inherent in the external and low trust belief systems.