Relationships between work and love scales

Holland's theory of vocational choice (1985a) postulates most people can be categorized as one of 6 vocational personality types. Similarly, Hendrick and Hendrick's (1986) love theory postulates most people can be described by one of 6 love styles. If Holland's vocational personalities represent a broad set of personality characteristics, then people should show overlap of vocational values with other values. To test for possible overlap between values associated with vocational interests and love styles, the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Love Attitude Scale (LAS) were administered to 146 women and 117 men. A principal component factor analysis of the VPI and LAS yielded four factors. The first and second factors were defined separately by the VPI and LAS scales respectively, suggesting that the VPI and LAS measure separate aspects of personality. A third factor was comprised of 2 vocational interest scales and 1 love style scale, while the fourth factor consisted of 2 love style scales and one vocational interest scale. These results, related measures of social involvement, gender differences, and mediating effects of being in or not being in love are discussed and suggestions for future research are derived from the results.