IDENTITY IN 3 COHORTS OF MIDLIFE WOMEN

To study similarities and differences in personality across historical periods, ego identity patterns, assessed by Q-sort prototypes, were c ompared in longitudinal samples of midlife women who had been young ad ults in the 1950s, early 1960s, and late 1960s. Identity pattern had s imilar relationships across sample with vector dimensions of the Calif ornia Psychological Inventory but was related to work and family outco mes only in the younger cohorts, whose lives were less restricted. Wom en with the achieved-foreclosed pattern were more alike across cohort than women with the achieved-moratorium pattern. Among the latter, ind ependence and high aspirations were salient features of the younger co horts, whereas interest in motives of self and others were salient in the older cohort.