The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among self-esteem, open-mindedness, and adjustment in retirement in women. There is evidence in the literature that retirement is a life change event that requires the retiree to cope with the changes involved with the retirement process.

It was hypothesized that adjustment in retirement could be made successfully and with an outcome consistent with the woman's adjustment to previous life change events, depending on her level of self-esteem and open-mindedness. A positive relationship between self-esteem, open-mindedness, and adjustment in retirement was hypothesized. In this study, 102 women who retired between the ages of 62 and 65 and between one to five years ago volunteered to be participants in this study. These women lived in a large metropolitan area and had all worked full-time and were receiving Social Security benefits. Their levels of self-esteem were measured by Coopersmith's Self-Esteem Inventory, Form C. Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale, Form E was administered to determine the level of open-mindedness. Adjustment in retirement was obtained by the summation of life satisfaction and self-rated health scores on the Cantril Ladder.

Statistical analyses of the data supported the positive relationship between self-esteem and adjustment (p < .001) and between open-mindedness and adjustment (p = .023), using Pearson product moment correlations. However, multiple regression analysis did not support the interactive relationship between self-esteem and open-mindedness (p > .05). The open-mindedness and self-esteem interaction did not make a significant contribution to the prediction of adjustment, independent of self-esteem.

An interesting finding in this study was the levels of self-esteem, open-mindedness, and adjustment obtained, which are comparable to the levels found in the general population. Another finding was that Hollingshead's Index of Social Position II to IV did not confound the results of this study, contrary to the socioeconomic effects found by previous researchers. Also of consequence was that acceptable reliability scores were obtained for using the Self-Esteem Inventory (.84) and the Dogmatism Scale (.88) for this population.