Motherhood VS Career

I have finally finished a semester-long psychology project. When I signed up for Experimental Psychology I expected to read a plethora of journal articles (we did) and learn about famous experiments in the history of psychology like The Stanford Prison Experiment. I had no idea I would be conducting my own psychology experiment from the ground up. I came up with the plan, did the researched, performed the test, got the statistical results, wrote the conclusion and put it all together in APA format (which I'm getting quite used to after writing 4 papers in it over the past six weeks).

My study was to see if the women at a conservative Christian college in the Deep South would view themselves as more motherly or career oriented. I gave each participant a small strip of white paper and told the group that it was a PTC strip. I told them that a study found that motherly women tasted sweetness and career-oriented women tasted sourness then asked them to record what they tasted. They were forced to choose between sweet and sour. I found out that 61% of the participants chose the option associated with careers. Mothers were only slightly more likely to say they tasted sweetness than non-mothers and African Americans tasted sourness at a much higher frequency than Caucasians.

In my research I found that only 55% of working mothers spend more than three hours an evening with their children but more working mothers breast-feed more often than non-working mothers.

How do you feel about the work vs. home debate?