Shirley Ogletree

An Inspiring Mentor: Psychology Alumna Shirley Ogletree Honors Lois W. Hoffman

Shirley Ogletree (PhD: Developmental Psychology, 1976) was born into a family of farmers in central Kansas. Always a curious and engaged student, she attended McPherson College, where she encountered ideas that challenged her traditional upbringing and shaped the interests she would carry throughout her life.

Exposure to psychology and philosophy proved especially transformative. “Psychology was one of the factors that led me to grow and change—learning about who we are,” Ogletree recalls. “I became very interested in questions of free will versus determinism, which I have continued to study throughout my career. I am basically a determinist in that I think who we are is a product of our genes, past/present environments, and the related interactions.”

Ogletree became particularly interested in how gender roles influence opportunities, personality, and life choices. She enrolled in Michigan’s Developmental Psychology program and was drawn to Lois W. Hoffman’s groundbreaking research on women’s (especially mothers’) employment. As more middle-class mothers joined the workforce in the mid-20th century, important questions arose about how maternal employment affected both mothers and children. 

Ogletree explains that Hoffman’s work showed different outcomes based on mothers’ reasons for working. “One of Hoffman’s findings that was meaningful to me was that women who chose to be employed had different outcomes than those who felt forced to work by economic needs,” she says. Maternal guilt was one hypothesized factor. “Other research suggests that when women are happy being full-time at home, their children also tend to do well. But when mothers are unhappy because they feel they’re doing it from duty, that often does not lead to the best outcomes for children either. Dr. Hoffman was one of the first to study these questions and was very influential on me and on the field.”

Much of Ogletree’s own research has also focused on gender. Influenced by Hoffman, her first publication found that daughters of employed mothers held more inclusive views of gender roles than those whose mothers did not work outside the home. Her dissertation explored the interrelationships between attachment, empathy, and altruism, with attention paid to gender differences in those traits.

Ogletree spent most of her career at Texas State University, San Marcos, where she published widely on topics including media portrayals of gender, gender bias in elections, and even how children perceive gender among Pokémon characters. Her publication record is especially notable given Texas State’s focus on teaching and lack of a psychology PhD program. Many of her papers were coauthored with undergraduate students she mentored, often helping them achieve their first publications as lead or co-authors. She retired with Distinguished Professor Emeritus status in 2020.

To give back to the Department of Psychology, Ogletree began making annual gifts in 1987 and has never missed a year in the 39 years since. To honor Lois Hoffman and celebrate the 50th anniversary of her PhD (and 40th anniversary of her first gift), she plans to make a larger gift of $5,000 in 2026.

“I want the funds to be used by the Developmental Area in whatever ways they will be most useful,” she says. “It will simply be an open-ended gift to the area in honor of Dr. Lois W. Hoffman, an inspiring mentor to me as well as others.”