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Three large and diverse areas of the literature, and their associated sections in this chapter, inform my study of how social contexts may influence self-concept change during the transition to adulthood. The first section examines individual constancy and change over the life course, including psychological, social psychological, and sociological perspectives. The psychological contributions focus on the stage theories of human development found in the works of Erikson (1963, 1982) and Levinson (1978). Attention is also paid to aspects of self-concept formation. The social psyshological contributions assess the social contexts as a source of attitude, value and belief change or stability over time as people move through their lives. Attitute formation over the life co urse serves as the backdrop for this discussion, with particular attention to Glenn’s (1980) aging-stability hypothesis. The sociological contribution to life course research is expressed chiefly through Dannefer’s (1984) sociogenic thesis, although the aging-stability hypothesis also has a strong socioloigcal component.

The second section reviews contemporary perspectives on socialization. The sociogenic thesis, aging-stability hypothesis, and House’s (1981) model social structure and personality all emphasize the need to incorporate micro- and macro-social processes in our understanding of human development. In terms of the micro-social processes, attention centers on the contexts and contents of socialization to roles, particularly during adolescence and adulthood.

The final section of the chap ter examines issues related to occupational choice. Although the choice of work, military, or college after high school involves a somewhat different set of issues than the choice of a specific occupation, the choice literatyre is examined because it provides useful theoretical insights that can be applied to my assessment of the movement into social contexts. The occupational choice literature review is divided into three areas: (1) the psychological contributions as expressed by the vocational interest theories of Super (1957, 1984) and Holland (1997); (2) Blau, Gustad, Jessor, Parnes, and Wilcock’s (1956) landmark social psychological conceptualization of occupational choice; and (3) the structural contribution illustrated by Granovetter’s (1983, 1974) emphasis on weak tie contacts in occupational choice. The occupational choice literature guides the formulation of the context choice scheme presented in chapter 3.

In order to assess the impact of social contexts and objective statuses on the stability of self-esteem during the transition to adulthood, secondary data from Bachman’s Youth in Transition study (YIT) is used (see Bachman, O’Malley, and Johnston, 1978 for a description of the study). YIT is a longitudinal study utilizing a representative sample of 10th-grade high school boys attending 87 public high schools in the continental United States in the fall of 1966 (p. 2). Field operations were conducted between 1966 and 1974 by the University of Michigan Survey Research Center.

The transition to adulthood is a complex process which entails a wide variety of choices, influences, and pressures. Out of the turbulence of adolescence, perhaps one of the most far-reaching decisions a young person will make is what to do after high school. This chapter examines the complex factors which lead a young person to enter the important social contexts of the full-time labor force, the military, or college in the years following high school. Few publications, if any, take a polychotomous perspective on post-high school context choice. Most previous research focuses on single or dichotomous choices—such as choosing whether or not to go to college. As such, a major point stressed throughout this chapter is that post-high school social context choice, like occupational choice generally, is a multidimensional phenomenon. Since the choice of a social context is in many respects preliminary to selecting a particular occupation, the occupational choice literature is supplemented with insights from the large achievement and ambition literature (see Spenner & Featherman, 1978) and from empirical studies dealing with context choice.

The three post-high school social contexts are hypothesized to be important in a sociological view of adult development because each one represents a major pathway to adulthood. The three pathways are conceptualized as social contexts not only because each one fulfills a crucial societal function which brings the individual in contact with different organizational goals, priorities, and social relationships, but because each context places quite different socialization pressures on the young person who enters it. If socialization is the “;development or change that a person undergoes as a result of social interaction and the learning of new roles” (Gecas, 1979, p. 365), then it follows that the newcomer will likely be changed as he or she confronts the realities of context membership, learns new institutional roles, and becomes identified as a worker, a (college) student, or a serviceman, respectively.

This chapter examines the effect of three different adult social contexts— the workplace, the military, and college—on a person’s self-esteem. The theoretical rationale for the investigation is provided by three perspectives: (1) Dannefer’s (1984) sociogenic thesis, (2) Glenn’s (1980) aging-stability hypothesis, and (3) Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological perspective on human development. Dannefer (1984) observes that many models of adult development contain an ‘ontogenetic fallacy’ that “surrender[s]... socially produced age-related patterns to the domain of ‘normal development’” (p. 101). Rather than use a sociogenic approach to examine the profound influence diverse social environments have on psychological development over the life course, some research still views development ontogenetically. With the approach: (1) the individual is treated as a self-contained entity, and both the (2) “profoundly interactive nature of self-society relations” and (3) the complexity and variability of social environments go largely unexplored (p. 100).

The aging-stability hypothesis (Glenn, 1980) complements the sociogenic thesis: “attitudes, values, and beliefs tend to stabilize and to become less likely to change as a person grows older” (p. 602). Although the particular timing of the decline in “change-proneness” over the life course remains unsettled, “it is generally accepted that late adolescence and early adulthood.., are times of high susceptibility to change” (Mortimer, Lorence, and Kumka, 1986, p. 7). However, Glenn (1980) and many other life course researchers reject the idea that development ceases with the attainment of adulthood. The adult development literature also suggests that adults are most subject to change when they enter new organizational contexts or move across organizational boundaries, or when salient social roles are acquired or relinquished (e.g., Bush and Simmons, 1981; Mortimer and Simmons, 1978; Van Maanen, 1976; Van Maanen and Schein, 1979; Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Glenn stresses the need to assess psychological stability and change through measures of attitudes with stable or highly abstract objects (1980, p. 605; see also Sears, 1981, p. 184). The self indeed is such an object (e.g., Rosenberg, 1979; Wylie, 1974; Wells and Marwell, 1976; O’Malley and Bachman, 1983), and is thus appropriate to the “sociogenic” and “aging stability” models.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological perspective places the developing individual within a nested system of micro to macro relations which impact the person directly and indirectly. The microsystem is the immediate setting—or “context” in the present research—containing the developing person. The mesosystem is the relations between microsystems, while the exosystem reflects the events of the larger social system (e.g., war, civil unrest, economic depression) which affect the developing individual.

I employ Murphy’s (1947, p. 996) concise definition of self-concept: “the individual as known to the individual.” Self-esteem is the evaluative component, one’s assessment of the worth of the self as an object (Owens, 2003; Rosenberg, 1979; Wells and Marwell, 1976). However, as discussed in chapter 2, the dimensionality of self-esteem is unsettled. While Rosenberg finds it a unidimensional, or global construct, others (e.g., Kohn, 1969, 1977; Kohn and Schooler, 1983; Owens 2001, 2003, 1994, 1993) separate it into its positive and negative self-evaluative components. Kohn (1977) views self-confidence as the “positive component of self-esteem: the degree to which men are confident of their own capacities” (p. 81) and self-deprecation as the “self-critical half of self-esteem: the degree to which men disparage themselves” (p. 82). This empirical division of self-esteem enables one to be “simultaneously confident of one’s capacities and critical of oneself” (p. 82).

The impact of work experience on psychological development has been well established in the sociological literature on social structure and personality, going back at least to Marx’s (1964) early writings and extending to the highly regarded research of Kohn and his colleagues (Kohn et al. 2002; Kohn et al. 2000; Kohn and Schooler, 1983; Kohn, 1969, 1977). The effect of higher education (e.g., Newcomb, 1943; Astin, 1977; Bowen, 1977; Sanford and Axelrod, 1979) and military service (e.g., Moskos, 1970; Borus, 1976; Egendorf and associates, 1981; Elder, 1986) have also been given attention. The present study of the impact of post-high school social context on self-esteem is an outgrowth of this research tradition in the area of social structure and personality and life course analysis.

While most life course theorists agree that adolescence and young adulthood are important years in the development of adult attitudes and identity, chapter 1 showed that a growing body of sociological research points to the important role that social environments and organizations play in the development of adult personality as well. The research to date, however, has not been brought together in a comprehensive analysis of the effect of post-high school social context on personality development. Little attention has been directed to how the three major social contexts persons typically enter after the completion of secondary school influence their development during the transition to adulthood. This study was designed to help bridge the gaps in the literature by examining how participation in the full-time labor force, the active Federal military, and college impact self-esteem during the transition to adulthood. The four objectives of this study were:

The literature review in chapter 1 showed that while stage theories of the life cycle (Erikson, 1963, 1982; Levinson, 1978; Sears, 1981) have been accepted explicitly or implicitly by many life course researchers, stage theories often fall victim to an ontogenetic fallacy (Dannefer, 1984). This fallacy stems from an overemphasis on age-graded (i.e., stage-specific) change which too often fails to acknowledge the important role that diverse social environments play in human development, especially in adulthood (Bandura, 1997; Dannefer, 1984; Elder, Johnson, and Crosnoe, 2003). Three key life course perspectives were introduced in chapter 1 which incorporate a strong sociological view of human development and which offer alternatives to ontogenetic explanations of the life course: Dannefer’s sociogenic thesis, Glenn’s aging-stability hypothesis, and Elder, Johnson, and Crosnoe’s paradigmatic principles of life course theory.

The sociogenic thesis emphasizes the importance of environmental influences on human development, and the situational diversity of these influences. It along with the life course principles informed the analyses presented in chapter 4, dealing with the effects of post-high school social contexts. The sociogenic thesis also features the active role of the individual in choosing and molding his or her environment, represented in this study by the context choice schema presented in the logit analyses of chapter 3. The sociogenic thesis and Elder and associates’ life course principles form the backbone of my investigation of the role that post-high school social context plays in the development of self-esteem.

The aging-stability hypothesis posed by Glenn (1980) complements Dannefer’s sociogenic thesis and Elder, Johnson, and Crosnoe’s life course principles. As discussed in chapter 1, the aging-stability hypothesis holds that “attitudes, values, and beliefs tend to stabilize and to become less likely to change as a person grows older” (Glenn 1980, p. 602). Glenn (1980) discusses the aging-stability hypothesis in terms of developmental and environmental influences, but emphasizes the latter by asserting that the environment may be the critical factor in the observed decrease in “change-proneness” over the life course. Attitude stabilization over the life course was considered to be largely due to a general consolidation of social experiences and social roles as people move through adulthood. The adult development literature generally supports the idea that adults are most susceptible to change when they enter new organizational contexts, move across organizational boundaries, or when salient social roles are acquired or relinquished (e.g., Lutfey and Mortimer, 2003; Gecas, 2000; Bush and Simmons, 1981; Moss and Sussman, 1980; Mortimer and Simmons, 1978; Van Maanen, 1976, 1979).

The literature on socialization to roles links socialization to psychological change. This position is contrary both to the idea that aging itself tends to stabilize attitudes, and to the developmental paradigm which confines psychological development to specific age periods. Glenn criticizes the idea that human development largely ceases when adulthood is attained. Since the period of transition between adolescence and adulthood is a time when the roles of childhood and adolescence are relinquished and new adult social roles and organizational affiliations are acquired, this period was selected as my research focus.