The relation of identification and parent-child climate to occupational choice

Abstract

In this study an attempt has been made to test hypotheses based on personality theory regarding the relationship between identification with a parent in the nuclear family and its effect on subsequent occupational choice. In addition, the relationship of recalled parent-child climate to identification and occupational choice was also investigated. Typically, in our culture, we find children identifying to a greater degree with the same-sex parent. In addition, we find certain occupations in our culture which are typed as being characteristically more masculine or feminine. Yet each contains members of both sexes, albeit in different proportions. It was, therefore, considered valuable to measure parental identification of both these sexes in the same occupational categories to determine the role parental identification, either same-sex or cross-sex, plays in the occupational choice process. Using the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values, we compared the value systems of 96 carefully screened college students, both male and female, with those of both of their parents. The students were further divided equally into four sex-occupation categories according to college major: males in engineering (MM), females in engineering (FM), males in elementary education (MF), and females in elementary education (FF). The differences in value scores between subjects and each parent, the measure of derived identification, were statistically analyzed to test predictions derived from the first hypothesis. Hypothesis 1: Occupations are chosen which represent the sex-type of the parent with whom there is greater identification in the nuclear family. [TRUNCATED]