The Road Taken: Women's Life Paths and Personality Development in Late Midlife.

Abstract

Scholars have focused on the influence that different patterns of women’s work and family commitments have on the development of their personality and well-being. The current research sharpens this focus, assessing the association between life paths that are normative or non-normative and personality and well-being outcomes for a particular cohort of women in late midlife. When people follow non-normative life paths, social sanctions may ensue, thus also potentially shaping women’s personalities and well-being. This dissertation examines women’s non-normative and normative life paths of Radcliffe and Smith Classes of 1964, and the Women’s Life Paths Study (WLPS). The normative/non-normative distinction is based on three parameters: marital status, having children, and profession. Long-term divorced women with children (N = 54) are compared with long-term married women with children (N = 191); women without children (N = 72) are compared with women with children (N = 501); and women in predominantly male professions (N = 139) are compared with women in predominantly female professions (N = 167). A novel approach to Q-sort analysis - Significance Analysis of Microarrays (SAM; Chu, Narasimhan, Tibshirani, & Tusher, 2007) – identified significant differences in observer-rated personality traits in four categories: general norm-challenging, female gender-normative, male gender-normative, and unclassifiable. Each group of women who had followed a non-normative life path was rated as having personality traits inconsistent with gender norms; the exact pattern was different for each group. Long-term divorced women with children and women without children were rated lower than their comparison groups on feminine norm-related items; women in predominantly male professions were rated higher than women in predominantly female professions on masculine norm-related items. Discriminant function analysis identified different personality and well-being profiles for each life path group (three non-normative and one normative). This research highlights the heterogeneity of life paths in samples of women generally thought of as relatively homogeneous, and shows that these life paths are associated with personality, personality development, and well-being variables in complicated ways. By examining Q-sort, Big Five personality factors, generativity, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being data, unique relationships between specific life paths and personality and well-being outcomes were identified.