A Reexamination of Nursing Role Conceptions

This study tested 101 beginning nurses for the relationships of three personality variables, ego development, sex typing, and assertiveness, to role conceptions and role conception combinations. Responses were examined on four self-completion questionnaires. Two research questions guided the study; one examined the relationships of the personality variables to role conceptions and the other examined the contribution of the personality variables to the role conception combinations. The correlation analysis for the first research question indicated that of all the variables examined, the femininity (F) and masculinity-femininity (MF) sex-typing attributes contributed most toward understanding which nurses were likely to hold particular role conceptions. Both of these sex- typing attributes were related to two role conceptions; F was related to professional role and service role conceptions, MF to bureaucratic and service role conceptions. Assertiveness was also significantly related to the professional role conception. The multivariate analysis of variance, used to examine the second research question, indicated that the nurses in the four role combinations (the number of roles held to a high degree) differed in their mean scores on some combination of one or more personality variables. Follow-up analyses indicated the MF score and the androgynous sex- typing category were both significantly higher for nurses who held all three role conceptions to a high degree.