The present experiment was designed to study differences between androgynous, 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 through a factorial design of 3 x 2 x 2. The main findings are (i) Androgynous subjects solved all the three problems in significantly lesser time than their masculine and feminine counterparts, and the masculine group was better than the feminine group, as revealed through the Duncan's multiple comparison of means. (ii) The verbally induced stress hindered 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 orientation x sex, and on prisoners problem, between sex role orientation x sex, were significant. The interactions depict that the effect of verbal stress was more pronounced in feminine Ss as compared to masculine and androgynous groups and femininity hinder the performance of females much more than of males.