EFFECT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ANDROGYNY AND STRESS ON PROBLEM-SOLVING AMONGTRIBALS

The present experiment was designed to study differences between andro gynous, masculine and feminine groups of 60 tribal undergraduate males and females under verbally induced stress and reassuring instructions , on three problem solving tasks. The data were analyzed by ANOVA thro ugh a factorial design of 3 x 2 x 2. The main findings are (i) Androgy nous subjects solved all the three problems in significantly lesser ti me than their masculine and feminine counterparts, and the masculine g roup was better than the feminine group, as revealed through the Dunca n's multiple comparison of means. (ii) The verbally induced stress hin dered and reassuring instructions boosted the performance. (iii) Males performed significantly better than females. (iv) On problem squares, the interactions between sex-role orientation x stress and sex-role o rientation x sex, and on prisoners problem, between sex role orientati on x sex, were significant. The interactions depict that the effect of verbal stress was more pronounced in feminine Ss as compared to mascu line and androgynous groups and femininity hinder the performance of f emales much more than of males.