The parenting attitudes of women and men classified by Holland's occupational/personality typologies : a test of Holland's theory

The current expansion of career planning into life planning modules requires that career counselors assist clients with self-assessment in various roles, parental as well as occupational. Holland's (1973) theory of careers implies that individuals, classified by his typologies will have characteristic responses in non-occupational as well as occupational situations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parenting attitudes and Holland's six typologies. This investigation attempted to determine if: (1) Social types have the most co-operative, accepting and indulgent parenting attitudes; (2) Enterprising types have the most possessive, overprotective and protective/indulgent parenting attitudes; (3) Conventional types have the most demanding and authoritarian parenting attitudes; (4) Realistic types have the most rejecting and neglecting parenting attitudes; and (6) Artistic types have the most democratic and permissive parenting attitudes.

Sixty-nine women and thirty-six men, enrolled in an undergraduate psychology course at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville during the Spring of 1981, completed a Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory to determine their Holland profile; and the appropriate Mother's or Father's form of Schludermanns' Q4 Revision of the Parent Attitude Research Instrument to determine their attitude toward parenting. Data were analyzed separately for women and men using Pearson Product-Moment Correlations and chartings on Schaefer's (1959) Circumplex Model.

The results failed to yield support for Holland's theory; the relationships between parenting attitudes and Holland's six typologies were not significant. Most of the women in the study expressed Indifferent or Detached attitudes toward parenting, regardless of their Holland orientation. The men showed a wide variety of parenting attitudes within each Holland classification.

The age and unmarried status of the subjects, the instruments used, and the socialization process were discussed as possible factors influencing the results of this study. Further studies involving both parents and non-parents in each Holland typology and using a combined form of the Parent Attitude Research Instrument are recommended.