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Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions Among Japanese Wives
Author(s): Michiko Naoi and Carmi Schooler
Source: Social Psychology Quarterly , Vol. 53, No. 2, Special Issue: Social Structure and the
Individual (Jun., 1990), pp. 100-116
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2786673
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Social Psychology Quarterly
1990, Vol. 53, No. 2, 100-116
Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions
among Japanese Wives*
MICHIKO NAOI
Tokyo Gakugei University
CARMI SCHOOLER
National Institute of Mental Health
This paper examines how Japanese women's occupational conditions affect their
psychological processes. We find that self-directed work increases their intellectual
flexibility and the self-directedness of their orientations; this finding replicates earlier
findings about these important psychological outcomes of self-directed work, even in a
culture where self-directedness for women is particularly disvalued culturally. Self-directed
work also leads to less traditional attitudes towards the elderly, whereas working in a
traditional industry makes such attitudes more traditional. This finding shows that Japanese
women's work experiences can affect even their acceptance of traditional norms. Our
evidence also shows that Japanese women are substantially less likely than their husbands to
do self-directed work on the job. The resultant occupationally induced lessening of
self-directed orientation may contribute to women s accepting cultural norms that> keep them
in subservient positions. Thus the culturally and social structurally determined occupational
experiences of Japanese women clearly affect how they confront major social and personal
problems.
This paper examines how Japanese wives'
occupational conditions affect their psycho-
logical functioning. In doing so, it asks a
series of questions about the interrelationship
of culture, socioeconomic structure, gender,
and psychological functioning: What are the
social and psychological factors related to
Japanese wives' working for pay? Do occupa-
tional conditions, particularly occupational
self-direction, have the same effects on
Japanese women as on other people? Do
occupational conditions affect traditional val-
ues about the Japanese wife's role, as
exemplified by their accepting responsibility
for caring for elderly parents in the home? If
occupational conditions have effects on Japa-
nese wives similar to those found for their
husbands, do these differences in the nature
* Please direct all correspondence to Carmi Schooler,
Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies, NIMH,
Room BIA-14 Federal Building, 7550 Wisconsin Ave.,
Bethesda MD 20892. This work could not have been
carried out without Carrie Schoenbach, who was
indispensable to the project at every stage, from the
editing of the data through data analysis to the writing of
the final manuscript. We are also very grateful to Zita
Givens, who provided valuable assistance at many times;
Hiroko Hayasi and Kiyoko Okamura of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, who played
important roles in collecting and coding the data; Junsuke
Hara of Yokohama University and Hideo Kojima of
Ibaragi, who were very helpful in the data collection; and
Melvin Kohn, who gave us a very helpful critique.
of husbands' and wives' occupational condi-
tions contribute to the acceptance of societal
norms about how women should behave?
With the exception of wives of small urban
(shitamachi) shopkeepers, Japanese women
traditionally have not been employed after
marriage. In recent years, however, the
proportion of Japanese wives in the work
force has increased dramatically (National
Institute of Employment and Vocational
Research 1989). We shall examine whether
there are social and psychological characteris-
tics that distinguish wives who work for pay
from those who do not.
The consequences of the trend toward paid
employment among Japanese women are
interesting in themselves for what they tell us
about the interaction of culture, gender, and
social structure in Japan. They also provide a
stringent test of the generalizability of earlier
findings by affording the opportunity to see
whether social structurally determined occu-
pational conditions have the same psycholog-
ical effects on Japanese women-persons for
whom paid employment is not traditional-as
on those for whom such employment is an
accepted tradition. The particular psychologi-
cal effects of occupational conditions whose
generalizability we investigate are those
which were found among men in the United
States and were replicated for Polish and
Japanese men: Substantively complex self-
100
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 101
directed work characteristic of the more
advantaged social strata leads to intellectual
flexibility and to a self-directed orientation to
self and society (Kohn, A. Naoi, Schoen-
bach, Schooler and Slomczynski 1990), Kohn
and Schooler 1983; J. Miller, Slomczynski,
and Kohn 1985; A. Naoi and Schooler 1985;
Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a; Slomczynski, J.
Miller, and Kohn 1981).
It is noteworthy that even among Japanese
men, whose cultural setting does not particu-
larly emphasize individual autonomy or
psychological self-directedness (A. Naoi and
Schooler 1985, Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a),
self-directed occupational conditions lead to a
self-directed orientation to self and society, as
well as to increased intellectual flexibility. It
would, however, strengthen substantially the
case that social structurally determined differ-
ences in conditions of daily life affect
psychological functioning, if it were found
that occupational conditions affect Japanese
women's psychological functioning similarly,
despite self-directed values running counter to
that society's traditional norms for women's
roles and demeanor.
Until now, all of the empirical findings
about the psychological effects of occupa-
tional conditions and culture in Japan have
been based on men. In the United States,
occupational conditions have been shown to
have the same effects on employed women as
on employed men. J. Miller, Schooler, Kohn,
and K. A. Miller (1979) found that occupa-
tional self-direction increases intellectual flex-
ibility and self-directed orientations of em-
ployed women as well as of employed men.'
1 Moreover, an analysis of the effects of dimensions of
household work on American women shows that
substantively complex housework increases the intellec-
tual flexibility and the self-directedness of orientation
among American women in the same ways as does
substantively complex work done for pay (Schooler et al.
1983; Schooler et al. 1984). In analyzing the data for
Japanese wives, just as in the case of American women,
we cannot consider the conditions of housework as
alternatives to those of paid employment, to be
substituted into our analyses as conditions of work for
women who are not employed. Not only are the codes for
the two types of work conditions different; in addition,
some of the conditions of paid employment (e.g.,
bureaucratization) have no analogs in the household
situation. In addition, employed women also do house-
work; thus they would have two sets of scores, whereas
the housewives would have only one. Following the
general scheme of analysis used with the U.S. data, we
plan a further paper on the psychological effects of
housework itself that will include both the employed and
The question remains whether the similarity
found in the United States between the effects
of occupational conditions on men and on
women also exists in Japan.
Women's and men's roles overlap less in
Japanese culture than in American culture.
Furthermore, the difference between Japa-
nese and American women's culturally pre-
scribed roles is even greater than that between
the roles of Japanese and American men.
Self-directedness, for example, is valued even
less for Japanese women than for Japanese
men (Ackroyd 1959; Lebra 1984; Schooler
and Smith 1978).
There is evidence that some social back-
ground conditions which increase individual-
istic, self-directed orientations of women in
the United States (Schooler 1972, 1984) have
similar effects on Japanese women. Such
evidence comes from a study of the effects of
social structure and culture on Japanese
women's attitudes towards their roles as
mothers and wives and on their performance
of those roles (Schooler and Smith 1978;
Smith and Schooler 1978). Just as in the
United States, where such conditions lead to
individualistic values (Schooler 1972, 1984),
social structural conditions that are linked to
being raised in a complex environment, such
as coming from urban settings, having fathers
with high-status occupations, and being well
educated, lead Japanese women to emphasize
the importance of the individual in their views
of the roles of wife and mother. In terms of
values for their children, women from such
backgrounds tend to value behavior reflecting
self-direction rather than conformity to exter-
nal standards.
Despite the cross-national similarities in the
effects of some socioenvironmental condi-
tions on women, striking cultural differences
exist in the way women carry out their roles.
Husband-wife (Schooler and Smith 1978) and
mother-child (Smith and Schooler 1978)
relationships are a case in point. In compari-
son with women in the United States,
Japanese women regard the couple relation-
ship as much less important than the mother-
child relationship.
In the present study we test whether social
structurally determined occupational condi-
tions have the same psychological effects on
Japanese women as on other relevant popula-
the unemployed wives in our sample and will take into
account the fact of employment.
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102 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
tions (i.e., Japanese men and American
women). More precisely, we test whether
occupational self-direction increases Japanese
women's intellectual flexibility and self-
directedness of orientation, just as it increases
the levels of these psychological characteris-
tics for Japanese, Polish, and American men
and for American women. We also test
whether oppressive working conditions lead
to distress. There is suggestive evidence that
such a relationship exists among American
women (J. Miller et al., 1979). The evidence
for men is more substantial; linear structural
equation analyses of reciprocal effects show
that oppressive working conditions lead to
distress and anxiety among American men
(Kohn and Schooler 1982) and Japanese men
(A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). In a further test
of how traditional Japanese culture may affect
Japanese working women, we examine
whether the finding of higher levels of
traditional values among workers in tradi-
tional (as compared to modem) industries
holds true for Japanese women, as it does for
men (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a).
Our analyses go well beyond replication to
investigate how the whole range of occupa-
tional conditions affects an area of traditional
values whose occupational determinants have
not been examined previously: attitudes
towards living with and taking care of one's
elderly parents and towards living with and
being cared for by one's children when one is
older. The care and living arrangements of
elderly parents are particularly important
issues to Japanese wives, because the burden
of both caring for the elderly and of resolving
intergenerational disputes about household
matters probably would fall more on them
than on their husbands. Such burdens may
weigh particularly heavily on the already
complicated lives of working wives, for
whom the value of the household help that
elderly parents might provide may be less
than the added work and the potential for
interpersonal conflict that the presence of
elders in the household would bring.
Our hypothesis is that women who work in
traditional Japanese industries will tend to
have traditional values, just as they tend to
develop traditional orientations in other realms
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a). Thus women
working in traditional industries should ex-
pect to accept the responsibility of caring for
their parents in their own homes and also
should expect to be cared for similarly by
their own children. We also hypothesize that
occupational conditions which foster a self-
directed orientation should decrease the like-
lihood that traditional values will be main-
tained, and should increase the importance
that workers attach to autonomy and indepen-
dence in family relationships. As a result, the
experience of occupational self-direction
should reduce the belief that it is appropriate
to take one's elderly parents into one's own
home; this experience also should reduce the
feeling that one will want to live with one's
own children during one's own old age.
Finally we will examine the nature of the
differences between the work done by em-
ployed Japanese women and by their hus-
bands. The purpose of this analysis will be
not so much to document the well-known sex
discrimination in matters of promotion and
tenure as to explore the implications of
perhaps a more subtle form of discrimination:
namely, the differential effects of Japanese
men's and women's respective occupational
conditions on their psychological develop-
ment.
SAMPLE
Data for the analyses reported here were
gathered from the 246 working (20 hours or
more per week) wives of the employed men
interviewed in the A. Naoi and Schooler
study (1985). The men's sample of 629
subjects, drawn in 1979-1980 through ran-
dom probability sampling of employed males
26 to 65 years old in the Kanto plain of Japan,
represented a 74.6 percent completion rate of
the original sample. When the women's
survey was begun in 1983, 521 of these men
were married and still lived in the Kanto area
with their wives. Of the 418 wives who were
interviewed (80.2%), 246 (59%) were work-
ing. Although this procedure does not provide
an absolutely representative sample of all
Japanese working wives, it corresponds to the
method used by J. Miller et al. (1979) to
select a sample of working women in the
Kohn and Schooler (1983) studies in the
United States.
As in this earlier American study, one may
question the appropriateness of such a sam-
ple; our findings may not be generalizable to
unmarried employed Japanese women. Nev-
ertheless, because the great majority of
Japanese women marry and stay married, and
because the age of marriage is remarkably
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 103
uniform, our findings probably are applicable
to nearly all Japanese working women above
28 years of age.2 In any case, married women
are an appropriate population on which to test
the hypothesis that sex-role differences do not
alter the effects of occupational conditions on
psychological functioning, because employed
wives are especially likely to be subject to
actual and potential conflicts among occupa-
tional, conjugal, and maternal roles (Miller et
al. 1979).
The interview consists primarily of ques-
tions from the original American survey,
translated and used for Japanese men by A.
Naoi and Schooler. (For more detail about the
procedures see A. Naoi and Schooler 1985.)
Additional questions were of two types. One
set centered on housework and child rearing.
These questions also were based on questions
from Kohn and Schooler (1983), which were
translated and pretested for appropriateness in
Japan. The other set of questions pertained to
care of the elderly, and were developed by the
staff of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of
Gerontology.
Interviewing was carried out by trained
undergraduate and graduate students of Tokyo,
Yokohama, Ibaragi, and Chiba National
Universities and Tsuda Women's College.
MEASURES
Occupational Conditions
The occupational conditions in the model
include substantive complexity, closeness of
supervision, and routinization of work, which
are constituents of a single concept: occupa-
tional self-direction, and bureaucratization.
Information about the occupational conditions
of earlier jobs was acquired through retrospec-
tive questioning.
Substantive complexity of work is defined
as the degree to which performance of the
work requires thought and independent judg-
ment. This index is based on seven measures
(see Table 1) derived from a detailed inquiry
2 For Japanese women who married in 1985 the
average age of marriage was 25.4 years. The average age
of marriage for our sample is 24; 91 percent of the sample
was married by age 28. The divorce rate in Japan
(number of divorces per 1000 people) was 1.39 in 1985.
Of the 544 men in our original sample who were married
in 1979-1980, 12 (2%) were divorced by 1983.
about precisely what people do when working
with data, with things, and with people.
Closeness of supervision is a condition that
limits a worker's occupational self-direction.
This variable is measured by the worker's
assessment of how closely she is supervised,
her freedom to disagree with her supervisor,
and the extent to which her supervisor gives
her direct orders. (For earlier jobs, we
obtained only the last of these measures.)
Routinization, which limits occupational self-
direction by restricting possibilities for initia-
tive, thought, and judgment, is measured by
the respondent's rating of her job along a
single dimension that ranges from being
invariably repetitive to being unpredictable
and requiring different things to be done in
different ways.
We developed the measures of occupa-
tional self-direction through latent variable
linear structural equation modeling (Joreskog
and Sorbom 1976a, 1976b), using the MILS
program developed by Ronald Schoenberg.
Because the three principal determinants of
occupational self-direction-substantive com-
plexity, closeness of supervision, and routini-
zation-are theoretically interrelated, they are
modeled as indicators of a single second-
order factor, namely occupational self-
direction.
The measurement model is presented in
Table 1. It contains one problematic aspect:
although closeness of supervision is a power-
ful indicator of the occupational self-direction
of the earlier job, it is not a meaningful
indicator of current occupational self-
direction. Nevertheless, the model as it stands
seems a reasonable measure of occupational
self-direction; the overall fit to the data, based
on a chi-square per degree of freedom ratio, is
good (3.38). The values obtained through this
measurement model were fixed in the subse-
quent causal analyses.
The only measure of women's organiza-
tional position included in our final models is
the bureaucratization of the firm or organiza-
tion in which they were employed. This
position is indexed on the basis of the number
of formal levels of supervision and the size of
the organization (see Kohn 1971; Kohn and
Schooler 1983, Chapter 2).
Traditionalism of Industry
An industry's traditionalism is measured on
a three-point scale developed in conjunction
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104 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
Table 1. Measurement Model of Occupoational Self-Direction
Standardized path from
oncept/ndcators concept to ndcators*
First-Order Concepts:
1. Substantive complexity of current job
ours wth things . .............................................................. -.38
Hurs wthdta . 46
Hours wth people ............................................................... .36
Complexity of work with things .................................................... .39
Complexity of work wth data ............ ......................................... .79
Complexity of work wth people ........... ........................................ .72
verall complexity . ............................................................. .98
2. Closeness of supervision (current job)
Coseness of supervision .......................................................... .59
reedomto disagree . ............................................................ -.63
Boss tells R what to do ........................................................... .69
3. Routinization (current job)
Does same thng in same wy ............ ......................................... 100
4. Substantive complexity of earlier job
Hours wth things . .............................................................. -.55
Hours wth data ................................................................. .51
Hours wth people ............................................................... .32
Complexity of work with things .................................................... .67
Complexity of work wth data ............ ......................................... .94
Complexity of work wth people .......... ......................................... .48
5. Closeness of supervision (earlier job)
oss tells R what to do ........................................................... 100
6. Routinization (earlier job)
Does same thing in same wy ........... .......................................... 100
Second-Order Concepts:
1. Occupational self-direction (current job)
ubstantive complexity ........................................................... .39
oseness of supervision .......................................................... .05
Routinization . .................................................................. -.45
2. Occupational self-direction (earlier job)
ubstantive complexity ........................................................... .51
Coseness of supervision .......................................................... -.59
Routinization . .................................................................. -.35
* Chi-square = 459.60, df = 136, ratio = 3.30.
Note: Correlations of residuals are not shown. Those modeled include matching pairs of indicators for current and
for earlier jobs as well as some pairs of intratime indicators, chosen on the basis of first-order partial derivatives.
with Ken'Ichi Tominaga of the University of
Tokyo (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a).
Industries included in the Japanese Industrial
Code are rated as most traditional if they
manufacture products or provide services that
existed in Japan during the Tokugawa era,
before the Meiji restoration in 1868. Indus-
tries are rated as least traditional if they
manufacture products or provide services that
did not exist in the pre-Meiji era. Industries
are rated as intermediate if they provide
products and services of both the pre- and
post-Meiji eras. (The complete index is
presented in Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b.)
Psychological Functioning
Our measures of psychological functioning
are based on confirmatory factor analytic
measurement models that parallel the models
developed by A. Naoi and Schooler (1985)
for Japanese men (fully described in that
paper and the appendix available from its
authors). These psychological variables are
intellectual flexibility (Appendix IA) and
seven facets of orientation to self and to
others: 1) authoritarian conservatism, 2)
personally responsible standards of morality,
3) self-confidence, 4) self-deprecation, 5)
idea-conformity, 6) anxiety, and 7) trust (see
Appendix IB). (Unlike the measures of job
conditions, for which we have ratings for both
current and earlier jobs, we have measures
only for current psychological functioning.)
The measure of intellectual flexibility is
based on four indicators: 1) the respondents'
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 105
solutions to a seemingly simple but revealing
cognitive problem involving a well-known
issue, 2) their performance on a portion of the
Embedded Figures Test (Witkin, Dyk, Fater-
man, Goodenough, and Karp 1962), 3) their
propensity to agree when asked agree-
disagree questions, and 4) the impressions
they made on the interviewers during a long
session that required a great deal of thought
and reflection. The Japanese women's model
fits the data quite well and is presented in
Appendix IA.
The seven measures of social orientations
and self-conceptions are based on a battery of
57 questions, mainly of the agree-disagree
and how often type. Principal-components
factor analysis was initially used to examine
the factor structure and to establish its general
similarity to that found for the Japanese men.
Confirmatory factor analysis was then used to
develop measures of self-conceptions and
orientation purged of measurement error. The
resultant measures fit the data quite well and
are presented in Appendix IB.
Attempting to deal with all seven facets of
self-conception and social orientation is
unwieldy. Therefore we proceeded to perform
a second-order confirmatory factor analysis
based on the hypothesis already confirmed for
Japanese, Polish, and American men (Kohn
et al. 1990, Kohn and Schooler 1983) and for
American women (Schooler, J. Miller, K. A.
Miller and Richtand 1984). According to this
hypothesis there are two principal underlying
dimensions: self-directedness versus confor-
mity to external authority, and a sense of
distress versus a sense of well-being. The
results of this analysis (presented in Appendix
IC) show that the same two dimensions
underlie the self-conceptions and social orien-
tations of Japanese wives. Therefore we used
these second-order dimensions in the present
investigation.
Attitudes towards the Elderly
These measures are based on a set of 13
items that literally ask what the respondents
think about having elderly parents live with
them, as well as about living with their own
children when they themselves are older. An
extensive series of exploratory and confirma-
tory factor analyses showed that this complex
of attitudes could best be described in terms
of four factors (the individual items and the
final models are presented in Appendix II).
These four factors are 1) general belief that
living with elderly parents is good (parents-
general), 2) belief that one should not live
with one's parents if this leads to problems
(parents-problem), 3) willingness to take in
parents if they are ill (parents-ill), and 4)
desire to live with one's own children when
one is older (respondent with children). The
first three of these factors can be made into a
second-order factor measuring willingness to
live with and care for elderly parents; this
factor fits the data well (see Appendix II).
WHICH JAPANESE WIVES WORK?
Before examining how the conditions of
paid employment affect Japanese women, we
look to see which Japanese wives go to work.
We do so by using multiple regression
analysis to determine which background and
family conditions distinguish wives in our
sample who work for pay from those who do
not. The predictors of paid employment that
we include in our equation are age less than
35, age 55 or more (age 35-54 is the omitted
category), respondent's education, urbanness
of background, father's education, father's
occupational status, traditionalism of hus-
band's industry, peripherality of the sector of
the economy in which the husband works
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a), husband's
income from job, and husband's educational
and occupational status. Of these variables,
only age 55 or more (Beta= -.24), age less
than 35 (Beta= - 15), urban background
(Beta = - .16), husband's education (Beta =
- . 13), and peripherality of husband's sector
of the economy (Beta= .23) have significant
independent effects on whether women work
for pay. Women who work tend to be in their
middle years, to come from rural settings, and
to have husbands who are less well educated
and who work in the economic periphery.
Thus the wives of classic salary men would
not seem to be among those most likely to
work.
Further analyses revealed no significant
independent relationships between the wives'
working and the psychological variables we
examine in this paper. When these variables
are included together with the social variables
that we found to be significant predictors of
working, none of the psychological variables
had a significant Beta weight. Thus the
probability of a wife's working is affected
neither by her psychological functioning, nor
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106 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
her educational attainment or her husband's
income level. Instead, the primary determi-
nants of whether a Japanese wife works for
pay are her stage of life, whether she comes
from a rural background, and the peripheral-
ity of her husband's occupation in the
Japanese economic structure.
MODELING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
EFFECTS OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING
Any causal model that includes an exami-
nation of the psychological effects of occupa-
tional conditions must take into account the
possibility of reciprocal effects of various job
conditions and psychological functioning. We
cannot rule out on a priori grounds the
possibility that an individual's personality
affects her job through processes such as
occupational selection or job molding. Fur-
thermore, there is empirical evidence that in
both the United States and Japan, not only do
job conditions affect personality; personality
also affects job conditions (Kohn and Schooler
1982, 1983, Chapter 6; A. Naoi and Schooler
1985; Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b). There-
fore, we should test our hypotheses with
models that include the reciprocal effects of
occupational conditions and psychological
functioning.
We estimate these models involving recip-
rocal causation through latent variable linear
structural equation modeling (Joreskog and
Sorbom 1976a, 1976b), using the MILS
program developed by Ronald Schoenberg.
The general model for the analyses is
presented in Figure 1. To gain instrumenta-
tion for the path from psychological function-
ing to the occupational self-directedness of
the present job, we postulate that characteris-
tics of the individual's family of origin affect
directly the individual's present psychological
functioning and the occupational characteris-
tics of her earlier job, but not of her present
job. Such a restriction is consonant with
previous research findings, which show that
in Japan the direct effects of social back-
ground indeed are limited to the first job (A.
Naoi 1980). We obtain instrumentation for
the reciprocal path from occupational self-
directedness of the present job to psychologi-
cal functioning by postulating that early
occupational self-direction directly affects
CURRENT
BACKGROUND EARLER JOB PSYCHOLOGCAL
CHARACTERISTICS JOB CONDITIONS CONDITIONS FUNCTIONING
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smofsmofL
Industry Industry
A ge
Figure 1. Reciprocal Effects Model
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 107
later occupational self-direction but not later
psychological functioning.
The background characteristics in the
analyses include mother's education, father's
education, and father's occupational status;
because of their very high intercorrelations,
these three items are modeled as a single
construct, namely parental background. The
other characteristics are respondent's age,
education, urban background, and number of
children in family of origin. Age is postulated
to affect psychological functioning and condi-
tions of both current and earlier job. All other
conditions are postulated to affect directly
current psychological functioning and the
conditions of the earlier job, but to affect the
conditions of the present job only indirectly.
The occupational conditions in the model
are occupational self-direction, bureaucratiza-
tion, and traditionality of the occupational
setting of the present and the earlier job. The
occupational conditions of the current job, as
well as the traditionality of the industry of the
current job, are modeled as affecting psycho-
logical functioning contemporaneously, but
psychological functioning is modeled as
affecting only occupational self-direction.
This latter limitation occurs because by
definition a change in job setting would mean
a change in job (Kohn and Schooler 1982). In
the modeling of present and of past job
conditions, however, both bureaucratization
and traditionality of industry affect occupa-
tional self-direction.3
RESULTS
What do our models reveal about the
3With certain exceptions, these models are generally
similar to those used by Schooler and A. Naoi in their
examination of the psychological effects of occupational
conditions and job settings on Japanese men (1988a,
1988b). For women, data were available on two
jobs-the present and the previous jobs-whereas the
Schooler and A. Naoi model for men includes data on
three jobs-present job, job held 10 years ago, and first
job. Four other variables that were included in the
Schooler and A. Naoi model of Japanese men could not
be included in the model of Japanese women. Data on
sector of the economy were not available for the women's
jobs; ownership and hierarchical position could not be
included because too few Japanese women were owners
or held supervisory positions to provide a statistical
distribution that could be modeled appropriately. Finally,
we omitted time pressure from the women's models.
Although we tried various alternative models, we could
not include time pressure successfully in the women's
models of reciprocal effects, possibly because we lacked
the extra identification provided in the men's model by
information about a third job.
effects of social structurally determined envi-
ronmental conditions on Japanese working
women? We begin by describing how such
conditions affect three important aspects of
their psychological functioning: intellectual
flexibility, self-directedness of orientation,
and level of distress. Then we examine how
those conditions affect the traditionalism of
their attitudes towards caring for elderly
parents and towards living with their children
in their own old age.
Intellectual Flexibility
The first thing we note when we examine
our model of the reciprocal effects of
occupational self-direction and intellectual
flexibility (see Table 2A), is that, while the
path from occupational self-direction to intel-
lectual flexibility is positive (.45), as pre-
dicted, and significant (t = 3.66), the recipro-
cal path from intellectual flexibility to
occupational self-direction is negative (-.20)
and not significant (t = 0.94). Such a pattern
is strongly indicative of multicollinearity
(Farrar and Glauber 1967; Gordon 1968;
Kohn and Schooler 1978, 1983).
Since multicollinearity may inflate path
coefficients artifactually, a more conservative
assessment of the effect of occupational
self-direction on intellectual flexibility may
be obtained by fixing at zero the statistically
nonsignificant contemporaneous path from
intellectual flexibility to occupational self-
direction.4 In such a nonreciprocal model, the
path from occupational self-direction to intel-
lectual flexibility drops to .40 but remains
highly significant (t = 3.45). The other
significant path to intellectual flexibility in
this model shows that higher educational level
increases intellectual flexibility directly (.27).
Whereas education increases intellectual flex-
ibility directly, other background characteris-
tics, such as parental socioeconomic back-
ground, may influence intellectual flexibility
indirectly by affecting education and occupa-
tional self-direction. Nevertheless, among the
potentially relevant variables we have mod-
eled, occupational self-direction has by far
the greatest direct effect on Japanese wom-
en's intellectual flexibility.
4 On this and all subsequent occasions, when we omit
a reciprocal path, the path that is omitted in our revised
models will be nonsignificant and the estimate of the
other will be exaggerated.
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108 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
Table 2. One-way and Reciprocal Effects of Occupational Self-Direction and Psychological Functioning
Standardized Path Coefficients
Reciprocal Modeling Nonreciprocal Modeling
Occupational Psychological Occupational
Self-Direction Functioning Self-Direction Distress
t t t t
Psychological Occupational Psychological Occupational
Functioning Self-Direction Functioning Self-Direction
A. Psychological Functioning
1 Ideational fexibility.45* -.20.40*
2. Self-directedness of orientation .44* -.18 .32*
3 Dstress-2035 24
B. Attitudes toward Parents and
Children Living Together
1 Respondent andparents together-29*
2 Respondent wth children-.22 t= 184)
* =p
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 109
The one occupational condition that signif-
icantly affects Japanese working wives' sense
of distress is working in a bureaucratic
setting. The path from bureaucracy to distress
is .16 (t = 2.41). This finding-that Japanese
women who work in a bureaucratic setting
tend to become more distressed than other
women-is contrary to earlier findings for
Japanese men. Japanese men who work in
bureaucracies are more self-confident and less
anxious than those who do not (A. Naoi and
Schooler 1985; Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b);
both of these psychological characteristics
indicate an absence of distress. This differ-
ence between the sexes may well reflect the
different positions they hold in bureaucratic
Japanese businesses. In such businesses,
women generally are not fully accepted;
rather they are seen as short-term employees
who are ineligible to embark on the career
promotion ladders available to men or to
receive many of the benefits that the compa-
nies offer.
Being young is the final significant deter-
minant of distress in our model. The path
from age to distress is - .19 (t= 2.89). This
finding for Japanese working wives is similar
to that for their husbands, among whom the
younger also are more anxious than the older
(A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). Finally,
Japanese wives who hold traditional jobs tend
to feel less distressed than other women
(-.12; t= 1.81 p< .075), although this
finding does not reach the .05 level of
significance when a two-tailed probability test
is used. This result is consonant with the
significant effect of traditional jobs on
distress among their husbands (Schooler and
A. Naoi 1988b). Such findings accord with
both Durkheim's and Marx's beliefs that
modem industry leads to anomie and alien-
ation.
Traditional Values towards the Elderly
It seems unlikely that a woman's attitudes
towards responsibilities for the older genera-
tion would affect her level of occupational
self-direction, once she has entered the work
force. Thus we assumed that the causal
direction would be from occupational self-
direction to values towards the elderly.
Accordingly we modified the model presented
in Figure 1 by eliminating the reciprocal path
from the psychological variable to occupa-
tional self-direction.
When we test such models (see Table 2B),
the path from occupational self-direction to
our second-order factor measuring willing-
ness to care for elderly parents in one's home
is significant; the path from occupational
self-direction to wanting to live with one's
children when one is older is negative and
very close to significant (t = 1.84). Thus we
confirm our hypothesis that the self-directed
orientation resulting from doing self-directed
work would decrease people's willingness to
tolerate the constraints involved in living with
the older generation.
We also find support for our hypothesis
that working in a traditional industry in-
creases the traditionalism of family attitudes.
Although traditionalism of industry is not
related significantly to the second-order
measure of traditionalism of attitude towards
care of elderly parents, it is related signifi-
cantly to two of the component factors.
Working in a traditional industry increases
Japanese women's willingness to take elderly
parents into their homes, both if the parents
were sick (.15) and if doing so would cause
problems (.17). In addition, women working
in traditional industries are significantly more
likely than those working in nontraditional
industries to want to live with their own
children when they themselves are elderly
(.15). These findings-that Japanese women
working in traditional industries retain tradi-
tional attitudes towards the elderly-are
congruent with earlier findings for Japanese
men (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b). Those
earlier findings show that Japanese men who
work in traditional industries tend to be
traditional in their orientations and values.
When we look at the effects of the other
variables in our model, we see that coming
from a high-social-status background de-
creases directly the acceptability of older and
younger generations of adults living together.
This finding is reflected both in a decreased
willingness to take elderly parents into one's
home, as measured by the second-order factor
(- .19), and in a decreased desire to live with
one's own children when one is older
(respondents with children= -.19).
Working in a bureaucracy is another
occupational variable that affects attitudes
towards the elderly. Such a work setting leads
to less willingness to take elderly parents into
one's home (- .34) and to less desire to live
with one's own children during one's own old
age (- .16). One possible explanation is that
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10 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
bureaucracies may be less likely to permit the
flexible work arrangements that sometimes
are needed to care for the elderly at home.
The findings also can be explained by the
hypothesis that working in a bureaucratic
setting leads to a more general bureaucratic
view of life, in which problems are solved
through bureaucratic rather than personal
arrangements. If this is so, working in a
bureaucracy should lead individuals to believe
that impersonal agencies rather than families
should bear the responsibility for care of the
aged.
Another finding seems more puzzling:
Women from large families are less likely to
want to live with their children during their
own old age than are those from smaller
families (-.12). One possible explanation is
that such women are tired of the interpersonal
complexities that can arise in large house-
holds and thus would rather stay by them-
selves than become involved again in their old
age in potentially complicated family situa-
tions.
In our evaluation of the meaning of these
results, the type of analysis employed (see
Figure 1) searches for and controls statisti-
cally the effects of several other potentially
relevant background variables. Thus although
respondent's age, education, and urban back-
ground have no significant direct effects on
attitudes towards the elderly, these variables
are controlled statistically, so that the findings
we report take their effects into account.
Therefore the differences in traditionality of
attitudes between respondents working in
self-directed and in nonself-directed jobs, or
between respondents working in nontradi-
tional and in traditional industries, are not due
to differences in characteristics such as the
age of these different groups.
Husband's birth rank is another possible
cause of differences in attitudes towards
caring for elderly parents in one's home.
According to the traditional Japanese ie
family system, the oldest son not only inherits
the major share of his parents' wealth but also
the responsibility of caring for them in their
old age. Consequently it might be expected
that women who are married to first-born sons
would feel a special obligation to care for
their husbands' parents.
There is some evidence that in the past,
husband's birth rank may have affected the
likelihood of living with the husband's
parents, but that the pattern has changed. M.
Naoi, Okamura and Hayashi (1984), in
examining the actual patterns in which elderly
parents lived with their children, found more
women whose husbands were first-born
among respondents whose parents had lived
with them but then had died. Among those
living with their elderly parents at the time of
the interview in 1983, however, husband's
birth rank did not affect the likelihood of such
living arrangements. In this group the major
demographic predictor of living with one's
parents is whether the parents own a home
that provides comfortable accommodation for
the children.
We also modified the present analyses to
check whether the husband's birth rank
affects the wife's attitude about caring for
elderly parents. We did so by adding to the
model presented in Figure 1 a new variable-
whether the husband was first-born-and
estimating the path from that variable to
traditional attitudes towards living with the
elderly. Both for attitudes about living with
elderly parents or about living with ones
children, such a path, which serves as a
control for the effects of husband s birth rank,
was not significant and did not affect the
other values in the model.5
DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL
CONDITIONS
Having shown that occupational conditions
affect the psychological functioning of Japa-
nese wives in ways not too dissimilar to those
in which their husbands are affected, we now
examine the differences between the occupa-
tional conditions to which working wives and
their husbands are exposed to learn whether
such differences in themselves may have
sociocultural consequences. Table 3 presents
a comparison of Japanese working wives and
their husbands on the mean levels of various
occupational dimensions included in our
models. Because there can be some difficul-
ties in comparing mean levels of multiple-
indicator concepts when the item loadings on
the factors are somewhat different in the two
populations involved, we compare directly
S We also tried to develop confirmatory factor analysis
models based on the possibility that attitudes towards
one's husband's parents were different from attitudes
towards one's own parents. After a long series of
attempts, however, we were forced to conclude that such
a hypothesis was not supported by any well-fitting
confirmatory models.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 111
Table 3. Means and Differences of Means for Husbands' and Wives' Work Conditions
eans Difference
ofSignfcance
Wves Husbands Means t-Value Level
A. Complexity of Work
1 Comlexityofdata 256 309 -053 424 .0001
2 Comlexityofthings 358 490- 132 9.07 .0001
3 Comlexityofpeople 333 426 -093 525 .001
4 Overall comlexity268 456 -187 2063 .0001
B. Closeness of Supervision
1. Not free to disagree wth boss 2.51 2.13 0.39 2.22 .029
2 Closelysupervised276 236 040252 .013
3 Boss tells what todo192 167 024 209 .040
C. Routinization
Nonvariable, easily predictible work 4.66 4.31 0.35 4.99 .0001
D. Hierarchical Position
Numerofsubordnates 113 236 - 124 1109 0001
E. Working in Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy index (including owners) 1.91 2.31 -0.40 3.50 .001
F. Pressures
1. Held responsible for things outside
ones contro 184 223 -039 514 0001
2 Frequencyoftim pressure 324 355 -031 287 004
3 Drtiness 194 223 -029 475 001
4. Riskofloss ofjob 1.41 1.32 009 1.01 ns
G Incom 1 = 10000Yen348 8.17 -467 1456 .0001
Note: Work conditions compared here are those at current job.
the mean levels of the individual items for
husbands and for wives. When we examine
such measures of the conditions of the current
job, we find that in every instance women's
conditions are less favorable than men's.
Thus in terms of the components of occupa-
tional self-direction, Japanese women score
significantly lower than their husbands on
complexity of work with data, things, and
people as well as on overall complexity.
Japanese wives' work also is significantly
more routinized than their husbands', and
they are significantly more likely to be
supervised on each of our three indices of that
concept. In addition, they are less likely than
their husbands to work in large bureaucratic
organizations, the generally preferred work
setting in Japan.6
When we look at the psychological effects
6 Hours of work with things, data, and people also are
part of the model of occupational self-direction; hours of
work with data and with people are positive indicators of
occupational self-direction, and number of hours of work
with things is negative. The Japanese men work longer in
each of these three types of work than do their wives, a
difference reflecting the men's generally longer hours of
employment. This difference in hours of work also may
account for part of the sex difference in pay (unfortu-
nately, we do not have directly comparable measures of
the total number of hours a week worked by the two
sexes). The men earn 2.35 times as much as the women
for perhaps one and one-half times as many hours.
of such work conditions on women, we find
that working in a bureaucracy has a moderate
negative effect on intellectual flexibility, but
that self-directed work has a strong positive
effect (.41). Thus the nature of their work
puts Japanese women in a less advantaged
position than that of their husbands in terms
of developing such flexibility. Working in a
bureaucracy has a nonsignificant effect on
self-directed orientations, but occupational
self-direction has a strong positive effect
(.44). The fact that Japanese women are less
self-directed at work than are their husbands
means that they are less likely to develop
self-directed orientations from their work
experience. Thus we see the possibility of a
feedback loop between cultural expectations
and the development of gender differences in
self-directed orientations. Japanese cultural
norms suggest that even if women work, they
should be in generally subservient, nonself-
directed positions. Occupying such positions
may serve to reduce the self-directedness of
their orientations in comparison to those of
their husbands; thus they become even more
amenable to the culture's norms.
DISCUSSION
In this paper we have examined the effects
of occupational conditions and job settings on
the psychological functioning of Japanese
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12 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
women. We have done so partially in the
belief that replication among Japanese women
of the findings for Japanese men-that the
experience of occupational self-direction in-
creases both intellectual flexibility and self-
directedness of orientation-would add sub-
stantially to the robustness and theoretical
implications of those earlier findings. Such a
replication obviously also increases the gener-
alizability of similar findings for Polish men
and for American men and women. Of at
least equal importance is the evidence that our
results provide about the intricacies of the
causal interconnections among the psycholog-
ical, social structural, and cultural levels of
phenomena in which Japanese working wives
are enmeshed.
This web of interconnections extends to the
very question of which Japanese wives work.
Our findings suggest that whether a Japanese
wife goes to work is determined primarily not
by her social background, her educational
attainment, her husband's income, or even
her psychological orientation, but rather by
her stage in the life course, whether she
comes from a rural background, and the
degree to which her husband works in the
periphery of the economy. Socioeconomic
incentive to work is determined not by the
husband's earning power, but by financial
uncertainty and possibly by the actual need
for the wife's labor in small business and
rural settings. Who works and who does not
work seems to be determined strongly by
cultural expectations about what women at
certain stages of their lives and in certain
positions in the socio-economic system are
supposed to do.
Among women who work, our analyses
show that self-directed work in fact increases
intellectual flexibility and self-directedness of
orientation. Thus in a society in which
self-directedness generally is not valued, even
those for whom self-directedness is particu-
larly disvalued provide evidence the Kohn
and Schooler (1983) hypotheses about the
ways in which the psychological effects of
self-directed work generalize beyond the
workplace. In terms of orientation towards
Japanese cultural norms, our findings support
the hypothesis that the experience of occupa-
tional self-direction increases the importance
that Japanese wives place on being self-
directed and independent, while reducing
their adherence to traditional values that
emphasize the importance of family obliga-
tions over individual autonomy.
We also sought to examine whether
findings about the effects on Japanese men of
working in a traditional Japanese industry
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b) also hold true
for Japanese women. Here the replication was
only partial. We expected on the basis of both
Marx's and Durkheim's reasoning that Japa-
nese women working in traditional industries
would be more psychologically comfortable
and less distressed than those working in
modem industries, as is the case for Japanese
men (A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). For their
wives, the same trend just misses reaching the
accepted standard for level of statistical
significance. Not even marginally replicated
among the women is the finding for Japanese
men that working in a traditional industry
leads to traditional, nonself-directed psycho-
logical orientations.
On the other hand, we found evidence in
data that were not available for Japanese
men-traditionality of attitudes towards the
care of the elderly-that among Japanese
women, working in a traditional industry
results in traditional ways of thought. Even
when the effects of all other variables in our
model are controlled statistically, women
working in traditional industries have a more
traditional approach to assuming responsibil-
ity for the care of the older generation than do
those working in modem industries. Another
occupational variable that significantly affects
attitudes towards the elderly is working in a
bureaucracy. Here too we see some evidence
of modernization. Working in a bureau-
cratic setting seems to lead to the belief that
caring for the elderly should be done through
bureaucratic means rather than personally by
family members.
Most important, in terms of the effects of
occupational conditions on attitudes towards
the elderly, we were able to confirm our
hypothesis that occupational self-direction
would lead to less traditional attitudes. Our
findings demonstrate that women who are
more self-directed in their jobs are signifi-
cantly less likely to consider caring for elderly
parents. We also find that coming from a
high-status family background makes women
less willing to take their elderly parents into
their homes and also leads them to reject the
idea of living with their children in their own
old age. Coming from a high-status social
background previously was linked empirically
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 113
to a nontraditional, individualistic orientation
among Japanese women (Schooler and Smith
1978; Smith and Schooler 1978). These
findings have several explanations, not neces-
sarily incompatible. One plausible explana-
tion hinges on the fact that being raised in a
high-status family is linked to experiencing
high levels of environmental complexity
during childhood. Such exposure seems to
result in a self-directed orientation among
people in general (Schooler 1972, 1984) and
among Japanese women in particular (Schooler
and Smith 1978). As a consequence, such
childhood experience may lead (as does
self-directed work) to the rejection of tradi-
tional values which emphasize obligations to
others, including the family, at the expense of
the satisfaction of the individual. Another
possibility is that the greater resources
available to higher-status families make
alternative arrangements for the care of the
elderly more viable.
Finally, let us note an unexpected but
probably not artifactual finding: among our
sample of Japanese working wives, distressed
women are more likely to seek out self-
directed jobs or to do their jobs in self-
directed ways than are those who are not
distressed. The reasons underlying this pat-
tern of behavior are obscure. As we have
noted, women with self-directed orientations
are not particularly more likely than other
women to seek self-directed work. Neverthe-
less, women who are distressed because they
are not in tune with Japan's cultural climate
may be more likely to go against cultural
norms by seeking self-directed work.
Just as the effect of a psychological
variable such as distress on an occupational
condition such as self-direction takes place in
the cultural context of Japan, the effects of all
occupational conditions on psychological func-
tioning do not occur in a social vacuum. As
we have seen, the differences between
Japanese women's occupational conditions
and those of their husbands may well
contribute to the continuation of cultural
norms about differences in sex roles. Paid
employment of Japanese women is signifi-
cantly less self-directed than that of Japanese
men. Less self-directed work leads to less
intellectual flexibility and to less self-directed
orientations. It may well be that this occupa-
tionally induced lessening of self-directed
orientation contributes to Japanese women's
apparent acceptance of cultural norms that
keep them in subservient positions.
Taken together, our results portray a
complex pattern of interrelationships among
cultural, socioeconomic, and psychological
levels of phenomena. The likelihood of a
Japanese wife's working seems to be affected
strongly by cultural norms about what is
appropriate for a woman in her stage of the
life course, whose family is in the position
that hers occupies, in terms of its centrality to
the Japanese economic structure. If and when
a Japanese wife works, the occupational
conditions that she experiences-particularly
the level of occupational self-direction-
affect her psychological functioning and
social attitudes in ways generally similar to
those in which similar conditions affect her
husband. Differences between spouses in the
nature of their occupational conditions-
particularly the lower level of occupational
self-direction experienced by women-may
contribute to the perpetuation of cultural
norms that limit the opportunities open to
Japanese women.
Appendix IA.
Measurement Model of Intellectual Flexibility
Standardized
path from
concept to
Concept/Indicators indicators:*
Intellectual Flexibility (chi-square = .74,
df= 1, ratio=.74)
Reasons for/against cigarette ads ......... .23
Embedded Figures Test ........ ........ .64
Propensity to agree .................... -.51
Interviewer's estimate of R's intelligence. . .45
Notes:
1. The model has one correlation of residuals, that
between estimate of intelligence and cigarette ads
(.12).
2. Intellectual flexibility corresponds to the ideational
component of a two-factor model for U.S. men (the
other component is perceptual), which was repli-
cated for Polish and Japanese men and for U.S.
women. Because in all those populations the
ideational component was the only component
whose causal relationships with occupational condi-
tions could be modeled successfully, we replicate
only that factor for Japanese women.
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114 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
Appendix IB.
1st-Order Measurement Models of Self-Conception and Social Orientation
Standardized path from
oncept/ndcators concept to indcator
1. Authoritarian conservatism
(chi-square = 24.78, df= 22, ratio = 1.13)
The most important thing to teach children is absolute obedience to their parents ......... .64
People who question the old and accepted ways of doing things usually just end up causing
troube ................................................................... .45
In this complicated world, the only way to know what to do is to rely on leaders and experts ....... 47 ...
No decent man can respect a woman who has had sex relations before marriage ......... .33
Prison is too good for sex criminals; they should be publicly whipped or worse .......... .30
Any good leader should be strict with people under him in order to gain their respect ..... .58
It's wrong to do things differently from the way our forefathers did ..... .............. .55
One should always show respect to those in authority ............................... .58
2. Personally responsible criteria of morality
(chi-square= 1.39, df= 1, ratio= 1.39)
It's all right to do anything you want as long as you stay out of trouble ..... ........... -.55
If something works, it doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong ..... ................ -.62
It's all right to get around the law as long as you don't actually break it ................ -.64
Do you believe that it's all right to do whatever the law allows or are there some things
that are wrong even if they are legal? ........ ................................. -.33
Self-esteem two-factor model
(chi-square = 19.74, df = 17, ratio = 1.16)
3. Self-confidence:
I take a positive attitude toward myself ........................................... .54
I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others ..... ........... .71
I am able to do most things as well as other people can .58
I generally have confidence that when I make plans I will be able to carry them out ...... .34
4. Self-deprecation:
t times I thnk I amno good at all .............. ............................... .56
feel useless at times ......................................................... .54
There are very few things about which I'm absolutely certain ..... ................... .31
(Correlation: self-confidence/self-deprecation) (0.56)
5. Idea-conformity
(chi-square= 1.85, df= 1, ratio = 1.85)
According to your general impression, how often do your ideas and opinions about impor-
tant matters differ from those of your relatives? .................................. -.62
How often do your ideas and opinions differ from those of your friends? ..... .......... -.67
How about from those of other people with your religious background? ..... ........... -.49
Those of most people in the country? ............. ............................... -.43
6. Anxiety (chi-square = 56.25, df= 37, ratio = 1.52)
How often do you feel that you are about to go to pieces? ....... .................... .64
How often do you feel downcast and dejected? ......... ........................... .55
How often do you find yourself anxious and worrying about something? ..... .......... .58
How often do you feel uneasy about something without knowing why? ..... ........... .67
How often do you feel so restless that you cannot sit still? ........................... .35
How often to you find that you can't get rid of some thought or idea that keeps running
through your mnd? ......................................................... .51
How often do you feel bored with everything? ..................................... .68
How often do you feel powerless to get what you want out of life? .................... .50
How often do you feel that the world just isn't very understandable? ..... ............. .34
How often do you feel that there isn't much purpose to being alive? ................... .52
t
Notes:
1. A high score on the indicator generally implies agreement or frequent occurrence; where alternatives are posed,
the first alternative is scored high.
2. In several of the models, some error correlations are allowed, which are not shown in the table.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 115
Appendix IC.
Second-Order Measurement Model of Self-Conception and Social Orientation
Standardized path from
oncept/ndcators concept to indcator
Second-order two-factor model (chi-square = 8.23, df= 6, ratio = 1.37)
Self-directedness (vs. conformity)
Authoritarian conservatism ...................................................... -.48
ersonally responsible criteria of morality ........ ................................. .96
Trustfuness .................................................................. .16
Self-deprecation . .............................................................. -.17
Distress (vs. sense of well-being)
Trustfulness ................................................................... -.25
Self-confidence . .............................................................. -.21
elf-deprecation . .............................................................. .42
Anxiety..................................................................... .96
Idea-conformty ............................................................... .35
Correation sef-drectedorentation/dstress) -11)
Notes:
1. A high score on the indicator generally implies agreement or frequent occurrence; where alternatives are posed,
the first alternative is scored high.
2. In several of the models, some error correlations are allowed, which are not shown in the table.
3. Because the measurement model of trustfulness, shows that this factor can be measured by a single indicator we
use that indicator alone as our index of trust in this second-order model: Do you think most people can be trusted?
Appendix II.
First-Order Measurement Models of Family Traditionalism
Standardized path from
oncept/ndcators concept to ndcators*
1. Parents-General: Thinks that it would be a good thing to do to live with parents:
If both of wife's parents were alive ................................................. .55
f one of wfes parents were alive ......... ........................................ .74
If both of husband's parents were alive .............................................. .43
f one of husbands parents were alive ........ ...................................... .66
(Indicators coded: 1 = parents live separately; 2 = parents live with other child; 3 = parents live with
us.)
2. Parents-Problems: Thinks one should live with parents even if:
der parents were jealous ............ ............................................ .70
There is trouble between couple about parents ........................................ .71
Older parents spoil the grandchildren ......... ...................................... .59
der parents are incontinent ........... ........................................... .38
(Indicators coded: 1 = completely disagree; 2 = somewhat disagree; 3 = cannot choose; 4 = somewhat
agree; 5 = completely agree.)
3. Parents-Ill: Thinks that it is a good thing to do to live with parents:
If only one of wife's parents is alive and is ill ........................................ .63
If only one of husband's parents is alive and ill ....................................... .55
(Indicators coded: 1 = parents live separately; 2 = parents live with other child; 3 = parents live with
us.)
4. Respondent with Children: When you are older would you want to live with your own chil-
dren if:
Both husband and wife were alive .................................................. .41
ny one were alive . ............................................................ .96
Only one were alive and were ill ................................................... .50
(Indicators coded: First Question: 1 = live separately; 2= cannot choose; 3= live together; Second
and Third Question s: 1 = live separately; 2 = live with other child; 3 = live with us.)
* chi-square = 317.01, df= 56, ratio = 5.66, adjusted goodness-of-fit index = .999.
Note: Correlations of residuals are not shown in the table.
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116 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY
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MICHIKO NAOI is Associate Professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. Her research interests include
sociology of aging, family and women's attitudes.
CARMI SCHOOLER is Acting Chief, Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies, National Institute of
Mental Health. His research interests include social structural and cultural determinants of both normal
and abnormal adult functioning throughout the life span.