THE INFLUENCE OF MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS ON WOMEN'S SENSE OF SELF AND CURRENT ROLE CHOICES

This study investigates the relationship of women's current role choices, role satisfaction, and self-esteem to their perceptions of the earlier relationship with their mothers and to their perceptions of their mothers' role choices and role satisfaction. Sixty-seven married women with preschool children were interviewed and completed self-report inventories. Results indicated that the women's primary role decisions of career, non-career work, or homemaking did not parallel those of their mothers but was related to their mothers' messages to them. In addition, career women and women at home reported having more choice in their decisions than did non-career working women. Women's self-esteem and role satisfaction were significantly enhanced ( p <.05) when the relationship with the mother was perceived as loving and accepting, with low hostility and low psychological control. In contrast, women's self-esteem and role satisfaction were generally unrelated to the retrospective reports of the mothers' roles and role satisfaction.     

The animate–inanimate distinction in preschool children

This study examined the development of the animate–inanimate (A–I) distinction in relation to other taxonomic categories in early childhood. Four‐ and 5‐year‐old children were administered two tasks measuring knowledge of taxonomic categories at various levels of inclusiveness. Across both matching‐to‐sample and object sorting tasks, the same pattern of categorization development was observed. Mastery of basic‐ and superordinate‐level categories was demonstrated by 4 years of age. Although 5‐year‐old children performed above chance on A–I level categories, their abilities were not as mature as those of adults. Results of this study support and extend previous studies investigating the development of children's understanding of naïve biology during the preschool years.