This paper reports a study of the influence of two parent education programs on mothers' personality processes as measured by the Loevinger Scale of Ego Development. Participating in either a Discussion Group program focusing primarily on the mother's needs or a Toy Demonstration program focusing mainly on the child, low income black mothers (n=61) were administered the Loevinger Sentence Completion Test, a projective instrument, in their homes by black, female interviewers at the end of the first and second years of a 2-year study. Eighteen test items were scored for analysis. Results of several statistical manipulations indicate that Discussion Group effects on Loevinger performance were significant. Because an alternative explanation for positive program effects is a reduction of adversive influences in the program mothers' lives, stress was measured by the Slaughter-Pearson SOHE Scale. It was found that stress was positively related to ego growth in the overall sample, rather than negatively as might be expected. (Author/RH)