Anne Roe Research Paper

Anne Roe: Psychology of Career Choice Dr. Anne Roe came into the world on August 20th, 1904, the second eldest of four children. Born into a family which assisted in the settlement of Denver, her lineage regarded education in a favorable light. When her father’s transport business failed in the 1920s, her mother became a strong role model for her by becoming the main breadwinner for the family, as a teacher and as national secretary for the Parent Teacher Association. Anne helped to pick up the slack at home by taking over the general housekeeping and looking after her younger siblings. She learned quickly how to manage a household when things were going wrong. Having begun her college career at the age of sixteen, Anne graduated from

Roe’s most important work was in developing the idea that how one is parented significantly impacts one’s career choice. She identified three parenting “styles” and how they relate to the adult child’s career field. First, she named the “Emotional Concentration of the Child”, which states that the parent would be warm and permissive (Dr. Roe called this “over-protective”), or it also could be a parent who encourages the child to be high-achieving or, as Dr. Roe called it “over-demanding”. The second parenting style was termed “Avoidance of the Child” and was subcategorized to “rejecting” and neglecting”. The “rejecting” parent is cold and overly critical, while the “neglecting” parent advances little to no warmth and fails to provide for the child’s basic needs. The final style of parenting was called “Acceptance of the Child” and was subcategorized as well. The subcategory of “casual acceptance” indicated a parent who has limited rules, is indulgent, and somewhat accepting of their offspring. The subcategory of “loving acceptance” pointed to parents who are warm, loving, and happy to be of help to their offspring. All of these parenting styles and their results were primarily based on Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. Dr. Roe was of the opinion that when an offspring’s needs were left unmet during childhood, “the child would either forget about those needs, or use them as motivators in choosing a career” (Vulcan,