The goals of this study were to examine (1) a theory of personal responsibility and its empirical measurement, and to relate it to an additional theoretical construct, level of ego development, and (2) to investigate the relationship between nursing role and the constructs of personal responsibility and level of ego development. The literature in nursing identified personal responsibility as a necessary characteristic in individuals and professional nurses. Responsibility was viewed as being within individuals who were aware of the need for critical thinking and independent judgment in choosing among alternatives in the decision-making process and were aware that their actions and this process were intertwined. Toedter's (1981) Self Perception Inventory was used to operationally define the concept of personal responsibility.

The literature on personality theory, particularly Loevinger's Theory of Ego Development (1976), encompassed a perspective similar to that of personal responsibility. Loevinger proposed that personal responsibility appeared at the Conscientious Stage of ego development. The Washington University Sentence Completion Test was used to operationalize the ego development variable.

It was hypothesized that there would be differences in the personal responsibility scores of those at the pre-conscientious levels of ego development and those at or above the conscientious level of ego development. A one way analysis of covariance using age and education as the covariates, ego group as the independent variable and personal responsibility as the dependent variable was performed. Nurses who were at or above the Conscientious Stage of ego development scored significantly higher on the personal responsibility measure than nurses below the Conscientious Stage at an alpha level of.001.

Additional hypotheses stated that there would be differences in personal responsibility scores and level of ego development according to one's nursing role. None of the four planned comparisons achieved statistical significance. Controlling for education alone affected the outcomes for the hypotheses concerning level of ego development.

This study demonstrated that personal responsibility was significantly related to level of ego development in a sample of 134 professional nurses. It did not, however, demonstrate a relationship between nursing role and personal responsibility or between nursing role and level of ego development when age and highest level of education were controlled. Implications for nursing administration, nursing education and nursing research were discussed.