Hanley, Mary Ann2024-09-112024-09-111974https://hdl.handle.net/2144/49228According to Erik Erikson, emphasis on identity formation for young women centers on femininity concerns. Robert White also emphasized competence, especially in work. These two goals may be conflicting for young women as they finish college and plan for career or marriage or both. This study is an attempt to relate some achievement and femininity factors to career commitment and to one another. Ninety-eight college senior women from a highly selective women's college were measured on seven predictor variables and the criterion variable, career commitment. The following major hypotheses were supported: there is a significant, positive relationship between career commitment and sense of competence in work situations, achievement need, and perceived approval of significant males for career plans; there is a significant, negative relationship between career commitment and identification with a feminine stereotype and fear of success. An hypothesized positive relationship between career commitment and non-traditional career choice was not supported. Also not supported was a prediction that the relationship between career commitment and perceived success informing romantic male/female relationships would vary as a function of life style choice. Secondary hypotheses that were supported were predictions that identification with a feminine stereotype is significantly and negatively related to non-traditional career choice, achievement need and approval of significant males; achievement need is significantly and positively related to non-traditional career choice and sense of competence. In addition to the simple correlational analyses, a multiple regression equation was computed in order to rank the variables in predicting career commitment. The first three variables to enter were sense of competence, fear of success and feminine stereotype. Achievement need also had a relatively strong relationship with career commitment, but did not enter early because it shared variance with more strongly related variables. A posteriori analyses were done after major hypotheses had been tested. Some questionnaire data, in combination with the original variables, were included in a supplementary multiple regression equation. Sense of competence was still the best predictor of career commitment. However, whether or not mother worked while subject was growing up entered as the second step. Other variables which, in combination with earlier entries, significantly predicted career commitment were summer work experience, mother's attitude toward women with young children having careers, socio-economic status and approval by others (both sexes). Fear of success and feminine stereotype were still important, but less so than in the original multiple regression. In another supplementary analysis, Chi squares showed that there was a significant relationship between career commitment and mother's work patterns, time when subjects plan to marry, part-time work experience and father's approval of women--even those with small children--having careers. A supplementary discriminant analysis, using original variables but changing the criterion, indicated that achievement need, approval of significant males and feminine stereotyle were the best combination of predictors of traditional or non-traditional career choice. This study supports the findings that achievement need and approval of significant males were positively related to career commitmen.t; it supports the theories that feminine stereotype and fear of success should be negatively, and sense of competence, positively, related to career commitment. Contrary to other's findings, non-traditional career choice was not found to be related to career commitment. However, it was related to achievement need. A limitation of this study is that, although many of the correlations were significant, all of them were relatively low. Also, the study was not cross-validated, and the population to which one might generalize is relatively restricted. Further study is suggested for sense of competence, perceived success in forming romantic male/female relationships, mother's work patterns and mother's and father's attitudes about women working.en-USThis work is being made available in OpenBU by permission of its author, and is available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the author.EducationThesis/Dissertation