Intensity of Aspirations in Adult Households and Its Relation to Household Status Attainment.

In an effort to construct a quantitative aspiration measure for adults, a hypothetical situation with job related conditions was presented to a stratified sample of 21 counties in 5 southern states randomly selected from a 7-state regional sample of low-income county household heads and homemakers in 1960. Resulting data were tested for scalability, and two independent Guttman scales were constructed. The household head scale consisted of seven conditions and the homemaker scale of six conditions. A restudy of the same 21 counties was conducted in 1972 with the objective of determining changes which had occurred in counties classified as low-income in 1960 (no effort was made to contact the same households, but 190 of the same households were interviewed again). Three social and economic factors describing household status attainment (occupation of household head, family income, and social participation) were considered in terms of differentiated aspiration levels. Findings indicated use of a hypothetical goal situation to measure the aspirations of adult females was valid; however, it was concluded that aspiration projected by the homemaker for her husband was a less appropriate procedure in the context of the 1970's than it was in the 1960's. (JC)