Increasing nontraditional career choices in women: Relation of attitudes toward women and responses to a career intervention

Abstract

This study examined whether 80 college women, grouped according to their scores on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS; J. T. Spence, R. Helmreich, & J. Stapp 1973 Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 2, 219–220), were differentially affected by a videotape career intervention. The videotape was entitled “Women: Choices and Changes,” and it focused on career development, broadly defined. It was developed as part of Project Born Free. A variety of outcome measures were used, including a brief measure of career decidedness, a measure of the traditionality of the women's own career choices and of the career choices they selected for their hypothetical daughters. In addition, two measures of self-efficacy were used, the Vocational Self-Efficacy Scale (Hackett & Betz 1981) and the Career Decision Making Self-Efficacy Scale (K. M. Taylor & N. E. Betz 1983 Journal of Vocational Behavior, 22, 63–81). The results indicated that AWS scores were related to the traditionality of the careers chosen for the subjects' hypothetical daughters and to self-efficacy. Increases were found for the Career Decision Making Self-Efficacy Scale and on career decidedness. Careers chosen by the women for themselves and for their daughters were more non-traditional after the videotape intervention. These results are discussed and their implications for career counseling and future research are examined.