Expressed attitudes of adolescents toward marriage and family life

In the U.S., modifications in family structure and in attitudes concerning marriage and family life have been numerous. Areas such as sexual behavior and alternative living arrangements have become highly varied and nontraditional compared to past generations. This study examined the attitudes of adolescents toward aspects of marriage and family life. The majority of adolescents expressed negative attitudes toward divorce and viewed marriage as a lifelong commitment. While only about a third of the adolescents expressed positive attitudes toward premarital sex, a majority indicated they would engage in sexual intercourse before marriage, or already have. Interestingly, about half of the adolescents held positive attitudes toward cohabitation. Lastly, the adolescents demonstrated a growing acceptance of premarital counseling and psychoeducational interventions regarding marriage and family life.     

Background characteristics and women's dual-role attitudes

This study examines the relationship between the attitudes toward the employment of married women held by 583 currently married Los Angeles County women between the ages of 18 and 49 and their personal backgrounds in terms of certain basic demographic characteristics. The findings illustrate that the respondents' attitudes significantly varied as a result of their personal backgrounds (e.g., level of education, ethnicity, marriage duration, income, work status, religion, age, and number of children raised). However, the data do not support the belief of Mason and Bumpass that women's dual-role attitudes are a group phenomenon determined by group norms or collectively held perceptions arising from the women's particular social niches; the demographic characteristics included in the study were able to explain only 27% of the observed variation in dual-role attitudes.     

Actual and subjective age-related differences in women's attitudes toward their bodies across the life span

The present study examined actual and subjective age-related variations in women's perceptions of their weight, sexual attractiveness, physical condition, and overall body satisfaction. To this end, 265 women between the ages of 17 and 85 years completed the Body Esteem Scale (Franzio & Shields, 1984), the subjective age scales of the Subjective Age and Gender Scale (Montepare, 1996), and the Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Analyses revealed that, whereas women of all ages held unfavorable attitudes toward their weight, the positivity of their perceptions of their sexual attractiveness and physical condition was curvilinearly related to their age group with middle-aged women having the most favorable images. Analyses also revealed that women's subjective age, as opposed to their actual age, was a stronger predictor of their body attitudes. Moreover, the observed relationships were independent of the effects of self-esteem, which was nevertheless strongly linked to women's body image.     

Factors related to marriage and career plans in unmarried women

Career and marriage plans of female unmarried undergraduates were examined and systematically related to other variables. All respondents indicated their plans for a career, marriage, and children. In addition, they completed the Personality Research Form, a standardized personality measure that assesses traits relevant to functioning in a variety of situations. Results showed that while the majority of respondents planned on having a career and family, their priority was the family. Career commitment, as measured by perceived importance of career, was a significant predictor of the woman's educational, career, and family plans. The more respondents aspired to the full-time career model, the less traditionally feminine were their personalities.Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Canada Council for its financial support through grant #410-77-0241.Formerly a psychology student and is presently studying law.     

Interfaith marriage attitudes in Muslim majority countries: A multilevel approach

ABSTRACT

This research uses multilevel structural equation modeling to examine Muslims’ attitudes toward interfaith marriage with Christians in 22 countries with a Muslim majority population (N = 21,373). Attitudes toward interfaith marriage, for sons and daughters separately, were measured with single items, and three binary items were used to measure participants’ religious beliefs. Overall attitudes were negative and more negative toward marriage of one’s daughter compared to one’s son. Stronger religious belief was associated with more negative attitudes, but less so for Muslims who perceived more similarities than differences between Islam and Christianity. Perceived religious similarity was associated with more positive attitudes. The proportion of Christians in a country was not associated with interfaith marriage attitudes. However, the association between belief and attitude was found to differ considerably across countries.     

Men's and women's attitudes and beliefs about the menstrual cycle

Recent analyses of menstrual distress have emphasized sociocultural influences. Yet beliefs and attitudes of men—an important socialization force in the lives of women—have received little attention. In the present study, 239 students (156 females and 83 males) from three colleges filled out a survey on expectations for menstrual and premenstrual symptoms, attitudes about mensturation, sources of menstrual-related information, and effects of menstruation upon daily activities. The major findings are as follows: First, although both males and females believed women experience certain cycle-related symptoms, females reported that women experience more severe menstrual and premenstrual symptoms (when compared to intermenstrual ones) than males reported, while males believed women experience more severe menstrual than premenstrual symptoms than females believed. Second, males learned less about menstruation from the majority of possible informational sources and rated most sources as more negative than did the females. Third, males believed that menstruation had more of an effect on women's moods and had a more debilitating effect on women's lives than did females. Fourth, females rated menstruation as more bothersome than did males. Fifth, more males believed their mothers experienced menstrual irritability and moodiness, while more females believed their mothers experienced swelling. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of socialization and the type of information imparted to males and females in America today.     

Violence in criminal careers: A review of the literature from a developmental life-course perspective

The criminal career paradigm focuses on the prevalence and frequency of crime along with an emphasis on offense specialization, age of onset and desistance, offense seriousness, and career length. Coinciding with the criminal career framework, developmental/life-course criminology offers more complex theoretical explanations for crime which highlight the importance of age-graded developmental risk factors that affect offending over the course of a criminal career. This review provides a systematic examination of the role of violence in criminal career and developmental/life-course research with a specific focus on its prevalence and frequency and its share of the offense repertoire. The results show that the incidence of violence is rare in one's criminal career except for a small group of chronic offenders who are responsible for a majority of the violent offenses. Regarding specialization, evidence suggests that offenders are spectacularly non-specialized and violent offenders can primarily be characterized as frequent offenders who offend more often and thereby have a higher probability of committing a violent offense in their criminal career. Conclusions and directions for future research are discussed.     

Adolescent premarital sexual activity, cohabitation, and attitudes toward marriage

Societal trends indicate ambivalent attitudes about marriage. Specifically, there is greater acceptance of divorce and nontraditional living arrangements such as cohabitation, as well as acceptance and prevalence of premarital sex, than in the past. The authors examine adolescent attitudes toward marriage and their association with premarital sexual activity and cohabitation. Recommendations for helping adolescents understand the realities of marriage and family life are shared.     

Meaning in life and work: A developmental perspective

This study examined linear and nonlinear relations between age and the presence and search for meaning in life and examined if these relations were moderated by the presence of meaning in work. Age did not significantly relate to the presence of meaning in life, but age had a significant, negative linear relation with the search for meaning in life. Moreover, work meaning moderated the quadratic relation between age and life meaning. Specifically, people high in work meaning demonstrated negative quadratic curves, with high life meaning during middle adulthood, and people low in work meaning had positive quadratic curves, with low life meaning during middle adulthood. Work meaning also moderated the linear relation between age and the search for meaning in life with people highest in work meaning showing the strongest negative relation between age and the search for meaning in life. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.     

Women's studies,self-esteem,and college women's plans for the future

Questionnaires distributed at the beginning and end of the semester assessed the self-esteem and life goals of college women enrolled in five women's studies courses and five other courses in related disciplines. The two groups were compared in terms of the changes in self-esteem and goals from the beginning to the end of the semester. The underclasswomen in the women's studies courses tended to express more traditional expected career goals and lowered self-esteem in the posttest. In contrast, the upperclass-women in the women's studies courses reported increased self-esteem in the posttest. Implications for teaching women's studies courses and previous women's studies research are discussed.     

Need for achievement and women's careers over 14 years: evidence for occupational structure effects

Previous research has demonstrated that achievement-motivated people perform better under working conditions of challenge, autonomy, and rapid feedback. These achievement-congenial conditions characterize entrepreneurial business and, among those occupations traditionally filled by women, teaching. Achievement motivation was measured in 117 women as college seniors and again 14 years later. Senior-year achievement motivation predicted later employment in teaching (including college). Career-involved women who had been highly achievement-motivated in college valued status mobility and working with people and reported job satisfaction from competition with a standard of excellence; however, women in different career situations differed in the relations between their achievement motivation in college and their later work values, job perceptions, and sources of satisfaction. Women highly achievement-motivated in adulthood valued achievement-congenial working conditions and status mobility and described job satisfaction from competition with a standard of excellence, especially if they were supervisors. Professors and businesswomen showed larger increases in achievement motivation over 14 years than did women otherwise employed. Thus, achievement motivation predicts women's career outcomes when their values and work situations, along with sex-differentiated occupational structures, are considered. Occupational structure effects on motives over time are discussed.     

Midlife women's generativity and authoritarianism: marriage, motherhood, and 10 years of aging

Generativity and authoritarianism assessed at age 52 were correlated with criterion variables assessed at age 62 in a sample of well-educated women (N = 81). Results indicated that generativity predicted positive personality characteristics, satisfaction with marriage and motherhood, and successful aging. By contrast, although authoritarianism is linked in the literature to endorsing traditional gender roles, authoritarianism was uncorrelated in the current study with happiness about marriage and was negatively related to perceptions of motherhood. Furthermore, authoritarianism was correlated with neuroticism later in life. These data suggest that midlife authoritarianism may be problematic as women transition from their 50s to their 60s. Midlife generativity, in contrast, seems to offer one path to life satisfaction.     

Relationships between critical thinking and attitudes toward women's roles in society

This exploratory study is the first examination of the relationships between critical thinking--as measured by subscales on the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Form S (WGCTA Form S; G. B. Watson & E. M. Glaser, 1994)-and attitudes toward women's roles in society--as measured by subscales on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS: J. T. Spence & R. L. Helmreich, 1972). The authors hypothesized that greater critical thinking skills would be associated with more liberal attitudes toward women's roles in society. Results from a sample of 90 nursing and management undergraduates supported the hypothesis. There were moderate correlations between scores from the WGCTA Form S Inference (.24 to .37) and Deduction (.19 to .26) subtests and scores from the AWS Freedom and Independence; Marital Relationships and Obligation; and Vocational, Educational, and Intellectual Roles subscales. These findings suggest that further research with larger samples and cross-cultural samples is warranted.     

Stability and change in role innovation and life plans

Trends in women's labor force participation between 1967 and 1981 are noted as background to this 14-year longitudinal study of 117 women who graduated from college in 1967 and were studied in 1967, 1970, and 1981. The women represent a stratified random sample of the graduating class of 1967 from one large midwestern university. The three strata are role-innovators (women in male-dominated occupations, traditionals (women in female-dominated occupations), and moderates (women in occupations having 30 to 50% women). Samplewide changes are consistent with national trends: increased employment, increased role-innovation, greater educational achievement, and later and smaller families than expected in 1967. There was also a dramatic increase in perceived conflict between marriage and career. Within these trends, however, large parts of the sample showed strong consistency: 81% of the original role innovators and 69% of the original traditionals were still role-innovators and traditionals, respectively, in 1981. This longer term consistency overrode a great deal of temporary change in the traditional direction between 1967 and 1970, particularly for the role innovators and moderates. Much of this temporary shift was associated with early child rearing. Factors associated with increased role innovation and increased traditionality were the importance women gave to having a career, the relative priorities they placed on career vs family, their expectations of marriage-career conflict, and their expections of husband's acceptance of their career. Increased role innovation was also associated with attaining more education, not marrying, and having fewer children.     

Examining changes in relationship adjustment and life satisfaction in marriage

The current study examined the association between relationship adjustment and life satisfaction before marriage to 6 years into marriage in a sample of 126 couples. Results showed that both premarital relationship adjustment and premarital life satisfaction uniquely predicted marital adjustment 6 years into marriage. Premarital life satisfaction, but not premarital relationship adjustment, predicted life satisfaction 6 years into marriage. While premarital relationship adjustment scores were not uniquely associated with future life satisfaction scores, changes in relationship adjustment were positively associated with future life satisfaction. These findings are supportive of the idea that helping people to improve their relationships may increase overall life satisfaction. The findings also suggest that, while an individual's base level of life satisfaction may set some parameters for the course of relationship adjustment, changes in life satisfaction over time impact marital adjustment. Starting marriage with higher life satisfaction may increase chances for a happier marriage. Overall, the findings suggest that life satisfaction plays a role in marital adjustment over time, and that it is important to consider life satisfaction as not only an outcome associated with relationship adjustment but also as a predictor of relationship adjustment.     

Psychological impact of women's name change at marriage: Literature review and implications for further study

Abstract

Because the custom of wives assuming husbands' surnames at marriage is now in question, we reviewed the published research on the psychological significance of names and name changes. Although names and name changes are relevant psychological variables, little data pertain to the implications of a woman's changing or retaining her surname at marriage. Research on such implications would have relevance for individual personality development, marital and family relationships, and social and cultural systems.     

Relationships among attitudes toward children,women's liberation,and personality characteristics

Replication and extension of a 1973 article, Who Wants the Children?, were undertaken. Attitudes toward child rearing, one's own remembered childhood experiences, views of women's liberation, and personality characteristics were assessed for 76 college students and 63 community residents. Some of the earlier findings were replicated: individuals with highly positive attitudes toward child rearing considered it a more creative and socially valuable activity and anti-liberation women expressed greater personal interest in child rearing than pro-liberation women. The failure to replicate other results suggests that attitudes have changed, with attitudes of the sexes converging. The inclusion of a sample of community subjects here clearly points to the need to employ a representative sample when studying attitudes of far-reaching social significance. Analysis of personality differences between pro- and anti-liberation women revealed some differences but also pointed to contradictions in literature.     

Maternal distress and women's reentry into family and community life

This paper advances conceptualization of maternal distress following incarceration. We utilized a multiple case study methodology based on interviews with 10 mothers who demonstrated various permutations of "the triple threat" (depression, domestic violence, and substance abuse; Arditti & Few, 2006). Findings suggest that depressive symptomology persisted and worsened for mothers in our study and that maternal distress was indicative not only of women's psychological state, but also a relational and situational construct that embodied women's core experience. Maternal distress was largely characterized by health challenges, dysfunctional intimate relationships, loss related trauma, guilt and worry over children, and economic inadequacy. Further, maternal distress seemed to be intensified by the punitive traumatic context of prison and lessened by rehabilitation opportunities as well as support by kin and probation officers after reentry. Recommendations for clinicians and professionals who work with reentry mothers center around the need to alleviate maternal distress and better address women's emotional and physical health needs during incarceration and reentry.