60 Questions
Organizational researchers have been proposing theories of career for more than a ______ (cf. Parsons, 1909).
century
In that time, hundreds of models, theories, and frameworks have been developed that attempt to explain the processes through which individuals enter, manage, explain, and leave their ______.
careers
Career theories can be broadly grouped into three categories—person-environment fit theories, developmental career theories, and ______ career models.
management
A selection of prominent theories from each of these groups is summarized in ______ 1.
Table
Early career theories focused on assessing important characteristics of individuals and work environments and hypothesized that a match between person and environment would lead to positive ______.
outcomes
On completing this chapter, you should be able to define these key concepts. You should also know about: Learning outcomes career management ______
theories
Career Development Theories focus on how individual capabilities match job requirements and how job or organization features match individual desires
P-E fit
The Theory of Work Adjustment (______) includes predictive and process models focusing on needs/values, skills/abilities, job requirements, and job reinforcers
TWA
Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personality Types and Work Environments articulates 6 types to describe individuals and work environments (RIASEC)
Holland’s theory
______ predicts that a match between an individual’s type and their occupation is a major contributor to satisfaction, performance, and tenure
Holland’s theory
______ is popular due to its parsimony and ease of remembering, using types for wide interpretations of factor definitions and assessment results
Holland’s model
P-E fit theories and TWA have been influential in vocational guidance and personnel selection, with ______ dominating vocational counseling practice
Holland’s theory
______ theory of career development includes five stages, which can be repeated multiple times, and emphasizes the role of developing a self-concept in career decision making.
Super's
Research using ______ framework has been common, limited to propositions regarding childhood development and retirement.
Super’s
______ theory of career choice and development considers hereditary and biological factors alongside sociocultural factors in describing how individuals make career choices.
Gottfredson’s
Both ______ career development models emphasize psychological assessment and advocate quantitatively assessing traditional individual differences.
classic
______ career development theories adopt a perspective that views the subjective career as more important than objectively observable career events and work positions.
Postmodern
Extreme forms of ______ completely reject traditional positivistic notions that any form of truth or knowledge exists objectively and independently of a particular community of meaning.
social constructionism
RIASEC interests do not form a ______, contrary to popular belief, and many researchers' data actually contradicts Holland's model
hexagon
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), based on general social cognitive theory, focuses on self-efficacy and outcome expectations in driving vocational ______
behavior
SCCT includes four predictive models: interest development, career choices, educational and vocational performance, and work and career ______
satisfaction
The SCCT self-management model specifies a large set of adaptive career behaviors and predicts how self-efficacy, outcome expectations, contextual factors, and general personality traits are related to different classes of these ______
behaviors
Super's Life-span, Life-space Theory describes a sequence of five developmental stages through which individuals pass during their lives, each with particular developmental challenges, determined by personal characteristics, environmental features, and past ______
experiences
A key construct in Super’s theory is career maturity, defined as an individual’s readiness to face the particular developmental challenges at each ______
life stage
Savickas suggests that psychometric assessments may be useful in career counseling, but only because they provide a useful ______ for examining and discussing clients’ constructed meanings, not because they provide any form of objective description of individual characteristics
vocabulary
G. D. Gottfredson (2001) strongly criticized the postmodern movement in career research, especially its tendency to disregard quantitative research and its preference for complexity and individualized theory over parsimony, even going so far as to call the perspective
unscientific
Hesketh (2001) cautioned
vocational psychologists and career counselors
Savickas suggests that vocational psychologists and career counselors not to believe the reification fallacy by treating ______ as if they were a real thing
linguistic abstractions
postmodern perspectives on career counseling have become very prevalent, they have not gone without
criticism
In a special issue commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, G. D. Gottfredson (2001) strongly criticized
the postmodern movement in career research
Explain the criticism of the postmodern movement in career research by G. D. Gottfredson.
G. D. Gottfredson strongly criticized the postmodern movement in career research for its tendency to disregard quantitative research and its preference for complexity and individualized theory over parsimony, even going so far as to call the perspective 'unscientific'.
According to Savickas, why are psychometric assessments useful in career counseling?
Savickas suggests that psychometric assessments may be useful in career counseling because they provide a useful vocabulary for examining and discussing clients’ constructed meanings, not because they provide any form of objective description of individual characteristics.
What does Savickas caution vocational psychologists and career counselors against?
Savickas cautions vocational psychologists and career counselors against believing the reification fallacy by treating linguistic abstractions as if they were a real thing.
What does Savickas suggest as the usefulness of psychometric assessments in career counseling?
Savickas suggests that psychometric assessments may be useful in career counseling because they provide a useful vocabulary for examining and discussing clients’ constructed meanings.
Why does Savickas suggest not to believe the reification fallacy in career counseling?
Savickas suggests not to believe the reification fallacy in career counseling by treating linguistic abstractions as if they were a real thing.
What did Hesketh caution in the special issue commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Journal of Vocational Behavior?
Hesketh cautioned in the special issue commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Journal of Vocational Behavior.
What are the three broad categories into which career theories can be grouped?
Person-environment fit theories, developmental career theories, and management career models.
According to early career theories, what did a match between person and environment lead to?
Positive outcomes.
Who has been proposing theories of career for more than a century?
Organizational researchers.
What are the key concepts that one should be able to define after completing the chapter on career management?
Career management theories.
What did early career theories focus on assessing?
Important characteristics of individuals and work environments.
Where has research using a certain framework been common, limited to propositions regarding childhood development and retirement?
Organizational psychology.
- What are the five stages in Super's theory of career development and what role do they emphasize?
The five stages in Super's theory of career development are growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline. They emphasize the role of developing a self-concept in career decision making.
- What factors does Gottfredson's theory of career choice and development consider in describing how individuals make career choices?
Gottfredson's theory considers hereditary and biological factors alongside sociocultural factors in describing how individuals make career choices.
- What are the two postmodern perspectives applied in many contemporary career theories?
The two postmodern perspectives are constructivism and social constructionism.
- What does constructivism focus on in the context of career development?
Constructivism focuses on understanding how individuals develop and manage their career identities and life narratives through psychological processes.
- What does social constructionism argue about knowledge and meaning?
Social constructionism argues that knowledge and meaning are the product of social practices, institutions, and interactions between different social groups.
- How do postmodern career development theories view the subjective career compared to objectively observable career events and work positions?
Postmodern career development theories view the subjective career as more important than objectively observable career events and work positions.
- What is the focus of P-E fit theories in career development?
P-E fit theories focus on how individual capabilities match job requirements and how job or organization features match individual desires.
- What is the Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) and what does it predict?
Theory of Work Adjustment includes predictive and process models focusing on needs/values, skills/abilities, job requirements, and job reinforcers. It predicts satisfaction, effective performance, and long-term tenure when correspondence is present, and describes adjustment strategies for mismatches.
- What does Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personality Types predict?
Holland’s theory predicts that a match between an individual’s type and their occupation is a major contributor to satisfaction, performance, and tenure.
- What is the reason behind the popularity of Holland’s model?
Holland’s model is popular due to its parsimony and ease of remembering, using types for wide interpretations of factor definitions and assessment results.
- What has received substantial empirical support and influenced other P-E fit models in organizational research?
Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) has received substantial empirical support and influenced other P-E fit models in organizational research.
- What role have P-E fit theories, TWA, and Holland’s theory played in vocational guidance and personnel selection?
P-E fit theories and TWA have been influential in vocational guidance and personnel selection, with Holland’s theory dominating vocational counseling practice.
Explain the focus of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and its predictive models.
SCCT focuses on self-efficacy and outcome expectations in driving vocational behavior. Its predictive models include interest development, career choices, educational and vocational performance, and work and career satisfaction.
What is the key construct in Super’s Life-span, Life-space Theory and how is it defined?
The key construct in Super’s theory is career maturity, defined as an individual’s readiness to face the particular developmental challenges at each life stage.
What is the key criticism of Holland's Theory of Vocational Personality Types and Work Environments?
The key criticism is that many specific hypotheses of Holland's theory have been proven false, contrary to popular belief.
How does the text describe the complementary relationship between developmental career theories and person-environment fit theories?
The text describes developmental career theories as complementing person-environment fit theories by focusing on the attitudes, contexts, and behaviors related to individuals’ career decisions.
What is the main focus of Contemporary Career Theories, particularly the postmodern career models?
The main focus is on rejecting the entire P-E fit paradigm, emphasizing the importance of constructing a strong career identity, and remaining flexible and adaptable in the face of rapid societal, economic, and technological changes.
What are some critiques and modifications of the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) according to the text?
Some critiques and modifications include systematic meta-analytic tests leading to modifications of the theory and providing point estimates for many of the parameters in its structural models.
Study Notes
Contemporary Career Theories: RIASEC, SCCT, and Developmental Theories
- RIASEC interests do not form a hexagon, contrary to popular belief, and many researchers' data actually contradicts Holland's model (Tinsley, 2000a, 2000b, 2001).
- Vocational interests play a crucial role in successful work performance, but many specific hypotheses of Holland's theory have been proven false (Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2012; Van Iddekinge et al., 2011).
- Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), based on general social cognitive theory, focuses on self-efficacy and outcome expectations in driving vocational behavior (Lent, 2013b; Lent et al., 1994).
- SCCT includes four predictive models: interest development, career choices, educational and vocational performance, and work and career satisfaction (Lent, 2013b).
- SCCT has been expanded to incorporate a process model that applies social cognitive principles to describe how individuals make career-related decisions, including managing uncertainty and setbacks, finding jobs, and balancing goals (Lent and Brown, 2013).
- SCCT self-management model specifies a large set of adaptive career behaviors and predicts how self-efficacy, outcome expectations, contextual factors, and general personality traits are related to different classes of these behaviors.
- SCCT has received the most empirical research attention of any contemporary career theory and remains connected to advances from other fields of psychology (Lent & Brown, 2013; Savickas, 2013).
- Researchers have begun to conduct systematic meta-analytic tests of many of SCCT’s predictions, leading to modifications of the theory and providing point estimates for many of the parameters in its structural models (S. D. Brown et al., 2008; S. D. Brown, Lent, Telander, & Tramayne, 2011; Rottinghaus, Larson, & Borgen, 2003; Sheu et al., 2010).
- Developmental career theories, such as Super’s Life-span, Life-space Theory and Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise, complement P-E fit theories by focusing on the attitudes, contexts, and behaviors related to individuals’ career decisions.
- Classic developmental theories address how and why individuals make career decisions, while contemporary postmodern career theories reject the entire P-E fit paradigm, emphasizing the importance of constructing a strong career identity and remaining flexible and adaptable in the face of rapid societal, economic, and technological changes.
- Super's Life-span, Life-space Theory describes a sequence of five developmental stages through which individuals pass during their lives, each with particular developmental challenges, determined by personal characteristics, environmental features, and past experiences.
- A key construct in Super’s theory is career maturity, defined as an individual’s readiness to face the particular developmental challenges at each life
Contemporary Career Theories: RIASEC, SCCT, and Developmental Theories
- RIASEC interests do not form a hexagon, contrary to popular belief, and many researchers' data actually contradicts Holland's model (Tinsley, 2000a, 2000b, 2001).
- Vocational interests play a crucial role in successful work performance, but many specific hypotheses of Holland's theory have been proven false (Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2012; Van Iddekinge et al., 2011).
- Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), based on general social cognitive theory, focuses on self-efficacy and outcome expectations in driving vocational behavior (Lent, 2013b; Lent et al., 1994).
- SCCT includes four predictive models: interest development, career choices, educational and vocational performance, and work and career satisfaction (Lent, 2013b).
- SCCT has been expanded to incorporate a process model that applies social cognitive principles to describe how individuals make career-related decisions, including managing uncertainty and setbacks, finding jobs, and balancing goals (Lent and Brown, 2013).
- SCCT self-management model specifies a large set of adaptive career behaviors and predicts how self-efficacy, outcome expectations, contextual factors, and general personality traits are related to different classes of these behaviors.
- SCCT has received the most empirical research attention of any contemporary career theory and remains connected to advances from other fields of psychology (Lent & Brown, 2013; Savickas, 2013).
- Researchers have begun to conduct systematic meta-analytic tests of many of SCCT’s predictions, leading to modifications of the theory and providing point estimates for many of the parameters in its structural models (S. D. Brown et al., 2008; S. D. Brown, Lent, Telander, & Tramayne, 2011; Rottinghaus, Larson, & Borgen, 2003; Sheu et al., 2010).
- Developmental career theories, such as Super’s Life-span, Life-space Theory and Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise, complement P-E fit theories by focusing on the attitudes, contexts, and behaviors related to individuals’ career decisions.
- Classic developmental theories address how and why individuals make career decisions, while contemporary postmodern career theories reject the entire P-E fit paradigm, emphasizing the importance of constructing a strong career identity and remaining flexible and adaptable in the face of rapid societal, economic, and technological changes.
- Super's Life-span, Life-space Theory describes a sequence of five developmental stages through which individuals pass during their lives, each with particular developmental challenges, determined by personal characteristics, environmental features, and past experiences.
- A key construct in Super’s theory is career maturity, defined as an individual’s readiness to face the particular developmental challenges at each life
Test your knowledge of contemporary career theories with this quiz focusing on RIASEC, SCCT, and developmental theories. Explore how these theories have evolved and their impact on understanding vocational behavior and career decision-making.
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