Achievement motivation and failure avoidance are perhaps one of the areas of greatest attention in psychosocial research and have generally been seen as two personality traits that are affected by people's experience as well as by aspects of culture. It was initiated with the objective of knowing the dimensions of achievement motivation and failure avoidance in two populations: Hermosillo, Sonora and Paraíba, Brazil.The results found indicate that in the achievement motivation dimension the order and factors are different for the two populations, not so for the failure avoidance dimension. In the total measures, by sample factor for Sonora it is observed that they come out higher in competitiveness, in comparison with the sample from Paraíba. In failure avoidance in Sonora, men were more insecure about achievement and dependent on social evaluation; in Paraíba, women were more insecure about achievement.