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Chapter 7 - Exploring the social biographical patterns of Dutch mothers’ attitudes 
169 
lives), they are likely to protest at overly fanciful re-interpretations of people’s 
new identities. Even within partial transformational processes, individuals must 
convince themselves that the personal changes that have taken place are plausible 
(Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p.181). Bandura (1977) also recognised that people 
are initially reluctant to embark upon new undertakings. People willingly take up 
what they (and their significant others) regard as praiseworthy, but resist new 
ways of behaviour that violate their social and moral convictions (Bandura, 1977, 
p.53).  
The last research question of this study concerns whether mothers tend to 
sustain their (acquired) attitudes through secondary social relations, by creating 
and recreating the familiar, or whether they are able to reset their attitudes if 
confronted with new models of behaviour or supportive others. In this study, I 
specifically explore the previously perceived support of secondary others towards 
mothers’ professional choices and career ambitions. The theoretical choice to 
focus on the perceived support is also induced by the socialization theory of 
Berger and Luckmann (1967), the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1991; 
Ajzen and Fishbein 1973, 2005) and social learning theory of Bandura (1977). 
These theories agree in their view that the perceived approval of significant others 
towards specific behaviour will have a positive impact on people’s own values 
and attitudes related to the specific behaviour. This theoretical notion also 
corresponds with the contingent consistency theory, which suggests that the effect 
of attitudes on behaviour grows stronger when a person perceives there to be 
social support for her intended behaviour (Grube and Morgan, 1990). The 
theoretical expectation is that mothers who have received professional and career 
support from significant others have developed more egalitarian gender views, 
and are more motivated to seek paid employment. 
A concise overview of relevant literature concerning the influence of 
important ‘others’ is given below, respectively addressing the possible influences 
of teachers, partners, friends and people at work. Nevertheless, empirical studies 
on the influence of these significant others on mother’s gender and work 
attitudes, and subsequent behaviour, appeared scarce. Studies that do address 
these social influences mostly reveal a lack of encouragement of women’s career 
ambitions as a result of stereotypical gender expectations.   
The educational period is seen as an important phase for socializing young 
people in particular skills and values in society (Nagel and Ganzeboom, 2002). 
Research has demonstrated that teachers who communicate high expectations can 
bring positive changes in the behaviour and interests of their pupils and students, 
both in the classroom and the wider context of the school (Grusec and Hastings, 
2007, p.391; Wentzel, Battle, Russell and Looney, 2010). Nevertheless, teachers 
can also reinforce stereotypical gender roles with their different expectations for 
the boys and girls in their classes (Allana et al., 2010; Sáïnz et al., 2012).  
Next, the influence of a husband or partner on the wife’s gender attitudes 
appears important, although its influence must be perceived as two-directional, 
based on homogamy in mate selections (Inman-Amos et al., 1994). Regarding 

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Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
170 
employment decisions of mothers, Vlasblom and Schippers (2005) showed that 
these are made within the family, and that the views of both partners concerning 
the division of care play an important role (also Geist, 2005). Dutch empirical 
research has demonstrated that wives’ employment decisions generally are a 
subject that partners hardly talk about Portegijs et al. (2008, p.105), and when 
they do, mothers are more often encouraged by their partners to work less, rather 
than to work more (also Keuzenkamp et al., 2009, p.76).  
Socialization among peers is conceptualised by Ryan (2001) as a process that 
occurs through frequent interactions, shared experiences and exchanged 
information among a relatively intimate group of friends who interact with each 
other on a regular basis (p.1138). Much relevant research has been done on 
adolescents peer groups (e.g. Biddle, Bank and Marlin,  1980; Grusec and 
Hastings, 2007), and it is widely recognised that adolescent peer relationships or 
peer group pressures have consequences for emotional adjustment, school 
achievement, and risk-taking behaviours (Biddle et al., 1980; Carter et al., 2003; 
Windle, 1994). Concerning employment behaviour among adults, several studies 
have shown that labour market behaviour can be modified by the behavioural 
example of other people in the environment, and that other people can act as role 
models (Kapteyn and Woittiez, 1986; Sealy and Singh, 2009). Nevertheless, 
people do not haphazardly fall into one crowd or another; similarities are 
prevalent a priori to relationships (Brown et al., 1993).   
Finally, supervisors and colleagues can encourage or discourage a woman’s 
work attitude and ambitions (Estes, 2005; Karatepe and Kilic, 2007; Moen and 
Yu, 2000). Women’s ambitions, especially those of mothers, seem however, to be 
often neglected or underestimated by their supervisors (King, 2008, p.1703). For 
example, women receive smaller investments in training than men do (Ostroff 
and Atwater, 2003). 
Based on the concise overview of empirical literature above, the second 
research question is: 
What is the influence of significant others, like teachers, partners, friends, 
supervisors and colleagues at work, on mothers’ personal gender and work 
attitudes?  
7.6 Research 
method 
In order to answer the research questions, semi-structured face-to-face interviews 
have been conducted with 39 mothers, all of whom having at least one child 
younger than twelve years old living at home, and all living in the vicinity of 
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The age at which most parents deem their children 
old enough to be left on their own is eleven (Duncan, 2005).  
The interviews took place between April 2010 and November 2010. The 
interviews took on average one and a half hours to complete, and full transcripts 

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