Personality correlates of career and child-rearing choices in young women.
Item
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Title
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Personality correlates of career and child-rearing choices in young women.
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Identifier
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AAI8820877
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identifier
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8820877
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Creator
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Low-Beer, Jeanine P.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Florence Denmark
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Personality
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Abstract
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The present study explored the link between personality variables and the nature of expectations toward career, marriage and childrearing in young women.;Method. Participants were 274 middle-class married and unmarried women, 23 to 35 years old; 38% had children under 18 and 62% had none. The subjects were categorized into four groups.;Jackson's (1974) Personality Research Form (PRF) was used as indicator of psychological needs, Reid and Ware's (1974) Three-Factor Internal-External Scale measured specific areas of control, and Berzins, Welling, and Wetter's (1981) PRF-Andro Scale tapped gender-role orientation. The author's Work and Marriage Plans Questionnaire examined other variables.;Results. As hypothesized, those who planned (1) career-only (12%) or (2) integrated-career-and-childrearing (18%) patterns scored higher than others on Achievement, Autonomy and Endurance, but not on Dominance. Those who planned (3) sequential-career-and-childrearing (43%) or (4) marriage-and-childrearing-only (27%) patterns were higher than others on Affiliation and Succorance, but not on Abasement and Nurturance. The mode was masculine for the first group, feminine for the other three groups. All groups were equally internal in locus of control.;Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed that there were areas of convergence and divergence among the groups. Almost all agreed that motherhood was important for their sense of self-definition, the safety and well-being of their children were uppermost in their minds, they shared a strongly democratic philosophy toward childrearing, and most believed that the average woman wanted a happy family life. They diverged on work commitment and career aspirations, they were about evenly split on the merits and demerits of childcare centers, they experienced varying degrees of guilt at the prospect of having to leave children in order to work, they held different views on the relative costs and rewards of parenting, they expressed varying degrees of concern for self versus concern for others, and they had different patterns of psychological needs as indicated in their PRF profiles.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
