The proposed research has two main aims: first, to continue the work of the Mills Longitudinal Study on the interrelationships of women's personality and roles over 30 years of adulthood; and second, to generalize, extend, and qualify its findings through comparisons with the Radcliffe Longitudinal Study. The Mills Study has followed its original sample of 141 members from the senior class of college through intensive follow-up at ages 27, 43, and 52, using a wide range of measures of personality, life, event data, questionnaires, and open-ended material. Data from partners are available at ages 27 and 52. The continuation studies will use several new tools to address practical and newly-emerging issues in the study of mental health and personality change. For example, we will examine whether the """"""""Big Five"""""""" personality dimensions are too abstract to assess change adequately, and whether contextualized measures and designs that take into account role-related differentiation of personality or features of particular periods in the life course help to reveal change patterns (such as the timing of improvement of women who were maladjusted in college). The Mills Classes of 1958 and 1960 entered the adult world shortly before the Women's Movement began; the Radcliffe Class of 1964 after it was underway. The two longitudinal samples have been studied at three similar ages and both studies have obtained common measures of role-patterns and personality, especially for the women in their early 40s. Each study has comparative data from older and younger alumnae. Using the data from the two studies in a longitudinal replication design, we will study the similarity of personality patterns (such as traditional, conflicted, and individuated """"""""types"""""""") and their correlates among role and mental and physical health measures. Other topics include the impact of the Women's Movement on women's ideals and choices as a function of life stage and commitments, and a modernized conceptualization of women's middle-age.
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