Browsing by Subject "Working mothers -- Psychology"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Career Identity and Mental Health in Emerging Adulthood: The Roles of Parenting and Socioeconomic Status
    (2020) Litvitskiy, Nicole; Lilgendahl, Jennifer
    Developing one's identity is a major psychological process that primarily occurs during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Many findings point to the importance of one's identity development for their mental well-being, and additional literature supports a link between career identity development and mental health in emerging adults. Parenting and socioeconomic status (SES) have been linked to these two psychological factors, but questions remain about the directionality of the relationships and the unique role of SES. In Study 1, we employ a longitudinal design to examine how parental autonomy support predicts career identity development and mental health, and vice versa. Additionally, we assess the role of SES as a potential moderator of these effects. In Study 2, we aim to replicate and extend these findings through the added use of a narrative approach. Results indicate that autonomy support predicts healthy career identity development and mental well-being, and this finding is especially true for low SES students. Additionally, the use of a contextualized narrative approach offers further insight into identity development and the role of parenting. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.
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    Career-Parent Identity Integration in College Women and Mothers: The Effects of The Big 5 Traits and SES
    (2020) Bettio, Elena; Lilgendahl, Jennifer
    This study examined the relationships between the Big 5 personality traits, career-parent identities, work-family conflict, well-being, and socioeconomic status in college women and current mothers. Through the use of an identity developmental and narrative approach, we examined how these variables were correlated with each other and how they varied according to SES. As hypothesized, we found correlations between identity exploration and commitment with the personality traits of neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness; these associations were more often found and stronger for adult mothers than college students. The negative relationships that were predicted among neuroticism, work-family conflict and well-being were generally supported. Little evidence was found for the effect of socioeconomic status on these variables; for college-aged women, high SES only affected the reported levels of work-parent ruminative exploration, and in the adult mothers sample, contradictory findings for SES were found. However, we did find evidence of greater difficulties among lower SES mothers, as the correlations of identity conflict with life satisfaction and neuroticism were stronger for this group of women. The results also suggested that work-parent identity development is not as relevant in association with the Big 5 for college-aged women, perhaps because it requires the imagination of future scenarios. In contrast, the associations that were observed in the current mothers sample were consistent with previous literature. Nevertheless, more research needs to be conducted with bigger samples in order to gain a better understanding of the effects of SES. Additional limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed.
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    Examining Individual Differences in Career and Parent Identity Integration in College Students and Current Mothers
    (2020) Aronowitz, Caroline; Lilgendahl, Jennifer
    Women face the complex and unique problem of having to negotiate their career and parent identities. From as young as adolescence and long through adulthood, these identities can and often exist in conflict. The present study aims to investigate the ways in which women integrate their career and parent identities into one coherent career-parent identity. Through a two sample, narrative identity approach, the study examines individual differences in personality traits and socioeconomic status (SES) in a sample of college-aged women (Study 1) and a sample of current mothers (Study 2). Findings generally suggest relations between the Big Five personality traits with several aspects of career, parent, and career-parent identity exploration and commitment variables for samples, replicating and extending previous literature. Study 2 reveals significant differences between socioeconomic status with work-parent identity conflict. The findings of these studies demonstrate significant findings that are relevant to the struggles that women face when attempting to integrate two complex and prevalent identities in their lives.
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    Individual Differences in Career and Parent Identity Development and Integration Among College Women and Adult Mothers
    (2020) Wytkind, Lindsay; Lilgendahl, Jennifer
    Research about identity development suggests that exploration and commitment to identity domains leads to identity achievement, which is important for optimal psychological functioning. Additionally, integrating multiple identity domains is a key part of identity development, as it leads to a cohesive sense of self for individuals. Women often struggle to integrate two key identity domains -- career and parent identities -- as there is still intense societal pressure for women to follow traditional domestically-focused gender norms. In two studies, one with college women and one with adult mothers, the present research addresses the development and negotiation of career and parent identities through analyzing the individual differences in personality traits and socio-economic status for women in these samples, and how this in turn impacts their well-being. Using a mixed-methods approach, we gathered quantitative data through scales and qualitative data through written answers to narrative prompts. In both studies, we found that personality traits strongly related to individual differences in how women develop and anticipate/experience their career-parent identity negotiation. In Study 1, we found that SES did not significantly relate to career-parent identity negotiation. However, in Study 2, we found that SES significantly and interestingly related to the ways that mothers experienced their career-parent identities and reported their well-being. In particular, we found that career-parent identity conflict for low SES mothers more negatively impacted their well-being.