Gender Role Attitudes of American Mothers and Daughters Over Time

Abstract

Symbolic interaction theorists believe that parents are primary socializing agents for their children. J. Rollins and R. N. White (1982) found that mothers and early adolescent daughters in traditional, dual-work, and dual-career family environments held similar attitudes about marriage, children, and careers. In a follow-up study, 40 mother–daughter dyads of the original 75 were surveyed. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated that there were no significant differences between the attitudes of these 40 mothers and 40 daughters regarding the 3 variables. However, both the mothers' and daughters' attitudes differed from Time 1 to Time 2. The findings lend further support for the concept of mothers as primary socializing agents for daughters and for the self-in-relation model regarding mothers and daughters.