College females' perceptions of adult roles and occupational fields for women

College women rated the perceived marital, emotional, and role consequences; personality characteristics; and the overall evaluation of adult female stimulus persons who varied according to maternal role, career role, and sex dominance of occupational/educational field. The data indicated that marital and emotional reward and costs were associated with both the maternal and career roles, but only the mother role was perceived to involve role problems. Moreover, the overall evaluations of the mother and career roles were more favorable than those of the nonmother and noncareer roles. In relation to occupational field, sex dominance had no effect on the perception of rewards, costs, or role problems or on the overall impression. However, the data did indicate some tendency to stereotype occupational categories as well as roles, primarily in terms of expressiveness.