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A longitudinal study of 391 physicians tested two hypotheses regarding personal values and career choices: that higher preference for social values would be associated with physicians' being more interested in 'people-oriented' rather than 'technology-oriented' specialties and that higher preference for economic values would be associated with expectations of high income. The physicians (344 men, 47 women) were graduates of Jefferson Medical College in 1974 and 1975 who completed the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values during medical school. Analysis showed that physicians currently in the 'people-oriented' specialties scored significantly higher on the Social Value scale than their peers in 'technology-oriented' specialties. A moderate but statistically significant correlation was found between scores on the Economic Value scale and expectations of higher income. The findings suggest that physicians' personal values are relevant to their career decisions such as specialty choice and expectations of income. The findings have implications with regard to two major issues in the evolving health care system, namely, the distribution of physicians by specialty and cost containment.

To examine values and career and life expectations among a sample of 216 Canadian business students, 83 female and 133 male undergraduate and graduate students provided data on anonymously completed questionnaires. The men and women valued very similar work characteristics and attached generally similar importance and involvement to work, marital, parental, and home-care roles; however, comparisons of hopes and beliefs about work, family, and parental responsibilities indicated a traditional division of labor.

This study examined change in values based on grade in school, stage of moral reasoning, and sex. Boys and girls were selected from Grades 6, 9, and 12, as well as college. Rokeach's (1973) Value Survey and Gibbs' (1982) Social Reflection Questionnaire were administered. As quantitative analyses indicated no statistically significant differences among groups, qualitative analyses were implemented to examine more accurately the relationship of values to the independent variables.

This study was conducted to investigate whether men and women differ in what they view as important. Using Gilligan's theory, it was predicted that women would prefer a more caring, personal world-view. A questionnaire with 40 contrasting word pairs and phrases was developed to measure this caring perspective. It was administered to 56 husbands and wives. They were each asked to circle the choice of each pair that was more important to them. Using chi squared, 14 of the word pairs showed a significant difference between men and women, and all differences were in the direction predicted.

In reviewing work values and job satisfaction questionnaires one may find similar items included in both. It is argued that the item range (important to unimportant, satisfied to dissatisfied) defines the research problem rather than the item domain, and so the same item domain may be included in both questionnaires.