Dr. Anne Roe’s work has been mainly concerned with ______.

Dr. Anne Roe has studied, occupational interests for more than 20 years. Most of her studies have been done with professional people like artists, psychologists, biologists, engineers, and social workers. At the same time, Dr. Roe believed that these people chose their occupations because of things that happened when they were young. Dr. Roe believed that children who had warm and accepting parents might later choose to enter "person-directed" occupations. Person-directed occupations require one to work a lot with other people. Good examples would be teaching, social work, or sales work. She also thought that children who grew up in cold and rejecting families might choose to enter "non-person-directed" occupations, such as astronomy, accounting, or engineering. In short, Dr. Roe thought that when people became adults they would choose to work in situations, like those they had enjoyed as children. She also felt that they would try to avoid the kinds of situations that brought them pain. She reasoned that a person who enjoyed people as a youngster would want to work with people when he or she grew up. On the other hand, a person who had a hard time with others when young would try to avoid person-directed occupations as an adult.
    For many years Dr. Roe talked with hundreds of people. Through interviews she tried to find out what their early childhoods were like. Then she compared this with the kinds of occupations they chose when they grew up. Now, after years of work, Dr. Roe says that she has neither proved nor disproved her original idea. The evidence is not strong either way. She now admits that the relationship between childhood experiences and occupational choice may not be as strong as she had imagined. A lot of things happen to people that tend to cancel childhood experiences. But it took many years of investigation by Dr. Roe to discover this.