Lois Wladis Hoffman’s research while affiliated with University of Michigan and other places

Recent research is reviewed to consider the effects of the mother's employment on the child in the two-parent family. This work deals mainly with maternal employment during the child's preschool years. Because of the difficulties in measuring enduring traits in young children, and because neither previous nor current research has revealed clear differences between children in dual-wage and single-wage families, attention is also given to the effects on the family processes that mediate child outcomes: the psychological well-being of the parents, their marital relationship, the father's role, and parent–child interaction. The influence of maternal employment on these variables, as well as on child outcomes, is found to be dependent on the attitudes of the parents, the number of hours the mother is employed, social support, and the child's gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Differences in infant outcome, predictor variables, and their relationships were explored as a function of maternal employment. Thirty 18-month-olds and their mothers were studied. Child intelligence, attachment security, and dependency were measured, as well as frequency of stressful events in the mother's life, quality of the parents' marital relationship, frequency of the mother's social contacts, and extent of the mother's emotional and parenting supports. Also included were the mother's ability to cope; satisfaction with emotional, parenting, and child care supports; and role satisfaction. For children of employed mothers, attachment and dependency were negatively correlated; securely attached children showed less dependency behavior. For employed mothers, satisfaction with child care and frequent social contacts predicted secure child attachment. Satisfaction with child care, role satisfaction, and ability to cope were strongly interrelated. For nonemployed mothers, maternal coping predicted attachment security, while frequent social contacts predicted greater child dependency. Predictors of child outcome were highly interrelated for nonemployed mothers, with satisfaction with emotional supports playing a pivotal role. These differences suggest that different models to predict infant outcome in employed and nonemployed mother families may be appropriate. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27040/1/0000028.pdf

Sixty-nine Midwestern middle-class children and adolescents were tested on justice and care orientations when reasoning abstract and interpersonal moral dilemmas. Nona Lyons' (“Two Perspectives on Self, Relationships and Morality,” Harvard Educational Review, 1983, 53, 125–145) scoring method was used to score subjects' responses. A 2(sex)×2(age) analysis of variance run on the total justice and care scores, as well as each individual dilemma, supported Carol Gilligan's ( In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) theory that two distinct ways of thinking about moral problems exist — justice and care — and are differentially related to gender. Girls emphasized the morality of care significantly more than justice. Contrary to Gilligan (1982) and Lyons (1983), however, boys in both age groups emphasized the morality of justice and care equally. Data from the interpersonal dilemmas using Lyons's (1983) coding scheme are consistent with J. Piaget ( The Moral Judgement of the Child, New York: Free Press, 1966) and Lawrence Kohlberg [“The Cognitive-Developmental Approach,” in D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969]: older subjects became more justice oriented and younger subjects emphasized the morality of care. Sex differences on Kohlberg's stage theory were not significant and the protagonist's gender in the Heinz dilemma had no effect on moral reasoning. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45582/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00288055.pdf

A sample of elderly parents in the state of Florida was contrasted with a national sample of parents in their childbearing years with respect to the satisfactions and dissatisfactions of having children. For both groups, children were most commonly seen as satisfying the needs for love and companionship and fun and stimulation. The Older group was more likely than the younger to report that children fill economic-utility needs. The older group was also more likely to indicate that there were no disadvantages to having children, and they were less likely to specifically mention disadvantages such as restrictions on freedom or financial costs. This study found that elderly parents are actually more likely to be giving financial help to their children than receiving it, and that contact with children was frequent despite geographical barriers.

Methodological problems in follow-up and replication studies and in using projective tests in research are discussed with particular reference to three fear-of-success studies: the original research by Horner in 1965, a replication in 1972, and a follow-up of the original 1965 subjects carried out in 1974. The importance of each of the following is stressed: obtaining responses from the full original sample in follow-up work; matching the settings in which projective tests are administered; establishing coder reliability between the data sets that are to be compared; and matching the stimulus value of the cue, which may not always mean using the same cue.

Reviews the literature on maternal employment in low-income families and its effect on the academic performance of boys and girls. Hypotheses are generated to explain a possible adverse effect of maternal employment on middle-class sons' academic orientations: (1) how the intensity of mother–child relationships affect cognitive stimulation and motivation; (2) results of inadequate supervision of sons; (3) how maternal employment may undermine the father's role as a model of high achievement; (4) how boys' IQ may be more susceptible to maternal influence; and (5) the effects of the father's participation in childcare. Social class, the sex and age of the child, family structure, the father's role, and various stress factors are cited as other aspects that mediate the effects of maternal employment. (88 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)