Graduate women: Career aspirations and desired family size.

Reports results of a questionnaire answered by 263 female graduate students at a large university. The majority were single and in their 1st or 2nd yr. Respondents indicated the relative importance of having a career. Those who checked "very important" were classified as "career women" (approximately 50%). It was hypothesized that career women would more likely anticipate conflict between the career goal and marriage and would differ from noncareer women in terms of various expectations. Results indicate that a higher percentage of career than noncareer women expected (a) to have 2 or less children, (b) that the husband would have equal responsibility for housework and child care when she was working, (c) not to give priority automatically to husband's career, and (d) to work full-time even with preschool children. Neither group, however, anticipated much conflict between career and marriage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women's involvement in multiple roles and psychological distress.

Examined women's involvement in multiple roles in relation to 3 stress indices: role overload, role conflict, and anxiety. With hierarchical multiple regression analyses, the effects of number of roles occupied; occupancy of the particular roles of paid worker, wife, and mother; and the quality of a woman's experience in her roles were analyzed. Data were from a disproportionate stratified random sample of 238 White women between 35 and 55 yrs of age. For the total sample and for employed Ss, occupancy of the role of mother was related to 2 stress indices; occupancy of the role of paid worker was related to none. Role conflict and role overload were strongly related to anxiety only among nonemployed Ss. The quality of experience in the work and in parental roles was a significant predictor of role overload; quality of parental role experience was a significant predictor of role conflict and of anxiety. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-concepts and role concepts in the career orientation of college women.

Examined the relationship of 97 college women's self-concepts and role concepts to 9 career orientation variables. Ss were senior class women representing a variety of majors. Data were collected by mailed questionnaires which included a self- and role concept instrument, Eyde's Desire to Work Scale, and other locally devised career orientation measures. It was expected that (a) women with similar self- and career concepts would be career oriented and (b) women with similar self- and homemaker concepts would not be career oriented. Results support the 2nd expectation but not the 1st. The relationship between self- and career concepts and the 2 most valid career orientation variables was somewhat stronger for women with high levels of self-esteem and women with a high level of role differentiation. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does vocational overshadowing even exist? A test of the robustness of the vocational overshadowing bias.

Vocational overshadowing (P. M. Spengler, D. L. Blustein, & D. C. Strohmer, 1990 ) is a hypothesized underemphasis of clients' career concerns when more interesting, prestigious, or economically rewarding "personal" problems coexist. This study tested the robustness of the vocational overshadowing bias by using an expanded array of case material, by including practicing counseling psychologists (n?=?125) and clinical psychologists (n?=?121), and by assessing the moderating effects of clinician information processing and attitudinal characteristics. Clinical psychologists were more likely than counseling psychologists to underemphasize vocational concerns combined with severe noncareer problems. More complex thinking about career counseling and higher preference for working with career problems were associated with greater attention to clients' career concerns. However, no clear evidence was found for the vocational overshadowing bias by either equal or less severe noncareer problems. Implications of these findings for career counseling and clinical judgment research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of career indecision to career exploration with reentry women: A treatment and follow-up study.

61 career-decided and 60 career-undecided 30–68 yr old women reentering the job market were randomly assigned to a vocational card sort (VCS) treatment group, a VCS-plus-videotape treatment group, or a no-treatment control group to examine the relationship between career indecision and career exploration for reentry women. Career decidedness was measured by the My Vocational Situation scale. One-year follow-up questionnaires were collected from 102 Ss, and a variety of outcome measures were used, including a vocational needs questionnaire, a satisfaction opinionnaire, a satisfaction with career scale, and an occupational alternatives question. The percentage of Ss who were employed in their chosen occupations was examined. Results indicate that there were minimal treatment effects, supporting the salience of career indecision and its stability over time. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for career counseling. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A causal model of the career orientation and career choice of adolescent women.

Expanded on R. E. Fassinger's (see record 1990-21225-001) model of career choice in college women by testing 2 causal models of career choice and orientation with high school women. Ss were 409 adolescent women enrolled in their last year of high school in an all-female private liberal arts high school in a large Midwestern city. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that the career orientation and career choice of adolescent women were predicted by ability, agentic characteristics, gender role attitudes, and relationship with mother. Young women who possessed liberal gender role attitudes, were instrumental and efficacious with regard to math and careers, and exhibited moderate degrees of attachment and independence from their mothers tended to value their career pursuits. Adolescent women who selected nontraditional and prestigious careers showed high ability and strong agentic characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research on a workshop to reduce the effects of sexism and sex role socialization on women's career planning.

Assessed the effects of a 4-wk workshop designed to enhance the awareness of 60 college women about sex role and career factors and to expand their sex role attitudes and self-concepts. During the workshop, portions of a 28-min videotape were presented to Ss and discussed each wk in small groups. The videotape presentation is a direct application of a model depicting factors affecting both sex role socialization and career decision-making processes. Treatment effects were assessed by means of 5 career and sex-role instruments in a pretest/posttest control-group design. Results indicate that treatment Ss spent more time thinking about their career planning, described themselves as being more "masculine," and reported investigative, social, and enterprising careers as being more appropriate career choices than control Ss. The workshop appears to have expanded Ss' "masculine" sex role self-concepts and changed their attitudes about the appropriateness of 2 stereotypic masculine career areas (investigative and enterprising). (59 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of career indecision to changes in expressed vocational interests.

Examined the stability or changes in the expressed vocational interests of 98 undergraduate women over a 2-yr period. Interests were measured by the Vocational Preference Inventory and 2 career indecision scales, and changes were measured by questionnaire. Ss were divided into 3 groups: stable (69 Ss), changed (13 Ss), and undecided (16 Ss). Results show significant differences between groups on GPAs and on the vocational measures. Results further show that career indecision predicted changes in expressed vocational interests. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Congruence and vocational identity: Outcomes of career counseling with persuasive power.

A study with 84 female and 52 male community-college students with specific occupational choices tested whether congruence between occupational choice and inventoried interests and vocational identity are related to typical career counseling outcomes. Ss completed the Self-Directed Search congruence scale, a vocational identity scale, several scales from the Career Development Inventory, and the IPAT. Ss were categorized as congruent or not congruent and high or low in vocational identity. ANOVA tested whether the Ss differed on estimated career management skill, general and specific career information, decision making, and anxiety. Analyses were not significant for males but showed that females higher in identity estimated higher career maturity. Females high in congruence reported less anxiety, and females high in both congruence and identity had higher career decision-making skills and tended to have more general information. Findings suggest that congruence not accompanied by a sense of vocational identity is a transitional state, whereas high identity without congruence reflects an incomplete evaluation of self in relation to career. Implications for using congruence and vocational identity as outcome measures of counseling are discussed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control and college women's role expectations.

Hypothesized that college women's locus of control orientations would be related to their role expectations, with women with an external locus of control having lower aspirations, more conservative sex-role ideologies, and less involvement in career planning than women with an internal locus of control. 116 female college juniors and seniors completed a career expectation scale, the Adult Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale (ANSIE), and an index of sympathy for women's liberation ideology. Regression analyses using ANSIE scores as the predictor variable supported the hypotheses. Compared to Ss with internal orientations, Ss with external orientations expected to have less commitment to their careers, to work for a smaller portion of their lives, and to feel more discomfort due to violating sex-role stereotypes. In addition, Ss with a more external orientation reported less career planning activity, less positive feelings about their future careers, and more conservative views on women's liberation ideology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vocational indecision in college graduates.

Compared 127 vocationally undecided college graduates matched by sex, age, and college major with graduates who had selected an occupation on a questionnaire survey of graduating seniors. Undecided Ss had a significantly lower GPA than decided Ss, more often intended noncareer activities following graduation, less often were going to graduate school, and were far less satisfied with their university experience. Increases in indecisiveness in high school and college might be countered either through vocational counseling geared more to graduates' academic achievement or through facilitating a nonvocational orientation toward college. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological correlates of fertility plans in unmarried women.

Examined the childbearing plans of 198 female unmarried undergraduates in relation to their scores on the Personality Research Form and to their educational or career goals. Ss planning to remain childless were more likely to plan to delay marriage than their counterparts planning to have children. Ss planning to remain childless as well as those planning to delay having children perceived a career as more important than Ss for whom educational and career considerations were less salient. Voluntarily childless Ss possessed more stereotypically masculine traits and fewer feminine ones than women planning to have children, showing lower scores on nurturance and abasement and higher scores on such factors as dominance and autonomy. There was no evidence that career considerations had substituted for children as a primary source of satisfaction in voluntarily childless Ss. (French abstract) (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration of home and nonhome roles: Women's conflict and coping behavior.

Investigated the conflict that women experience between their home and nonhome roles. 115 women (mean age 38.1 yrs) who (a) were married and living with their husbands, (b) had at least 1 child, and (c) were attending college completed questionnaires; their husbands completed similar questionnaires. It was found that the time demands of the student role were more strongly associated with conflict for women whose husbands held relatively traditional sex-role attitudes than for women whose husbands held relatively nontraditional attitudes. In addition, traditionally oriented women tended to use reactive coping strategies to deal with intense conflicts. Furthermore, reactive coping strategies were perceived to be less successful than more active strategies. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex role self-concept and career decision making.

The influence of sex-role-related aspects of students' self-concept on their progress in making a decision about choice of college, choice of a major, and choice of an occupation, as well as their use of both the rational and intuitive decision-making styles, was investigated. For 289 male and 283 female college students, their sex-role self-concept as measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory was related to their progress on all 3 decisions. Test scores were compared with those of 300 other Ss from 3 colleges, and no significant variance was found. The patterns of results were different for men and women. Sex-role self-concept was related to the use of both decision-making styles for women, whereas it was a factor only on the rational style scale for men. The implications of these findings for differential counseling based on sex-role self-concept rather than on gender are discussed. Counselors are cautioned against overlooking the potential influences of factors not related to sex roles on students' career decisions. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social self in bulimia nervosa: Public self-consciousness, social anxiety, and perceived fraudulence.

Bulimic women appear preoccupied not only with their physical presentation but also with their "social self," how others perceive them in general. This study examined the relationship of the social self to body esteem and to bulimia nervosa. In Phase 1, in which 222 nonclinical women (aged 16–50 yrs) participated, the social-self measures of Perceived Fraudulence, Social Anxiety, and Public Self-Consciousness were negatively associated with body esteem. In Phase 2, 34 bulimic women were compared with 33 Ss scoring high on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) and 67 matched controls. Bulimic Ss, high-EAT Ss, and control Ss all differed on Perceived Fraudulence, and bulimic Ss and high-EAT Ss scored higher than control Ss on Public Self-Consciousness and Social Anxiety. The findings strongly support the hypothesized link of social self concerns to body dissatisfaction and bulimia nervosa. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex-role conflict in alcoholic women: Myth or reality.

Compared various dimensions of masculinity–femininity in 120 female alcoholics, 118 females in treatment for emotional or psychiatric disorders, and 119 women in a nontreatment normal control group. Measures included the Femininity scale of the California Psychological Inventory, Bem Sex Role Inventory, Franck Drawing Completion Test, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Limited evidence was found for the greater existence of sex-role conflict between "unconscious masculinity" and "conscious femininity" among alcoholic Ss than among nonalcoholic Ss. Less than 25% of the total alcoholic sample evidenced this pattern of sex-role conflict. Alcoholic Ss showed feminine role-relevant preferences similar to those of the nonalcoholic controls. They reported fewer "masculine" behaviors on a measure of sex-role style than did nonalcoholic, nontreatment, normal Ss. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Female college students' scores on the men's and women's Strong Vocational Interest Blanks.

Administered the men's and women's forms of the SVIB and a career orientation questionnaire to a sample of 90 undergraduate women. Significant differences were found between mean scores on Occupational scales common to both forms and on mean number of B+ and A ratings on the men's and women's forms. Occupational scale scores and number of B+ and A interest ratings were examined in relationship to career vs. homemaker orientation. Ss differentiated on the basis of career orientation obtained significantly different mean numbers of B+ and A interest ratings on the women's SVIB. Implications for vocational counseling are discussed, and use of both forms of the SVIB is recommended in vocational counseling with college women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)