An Anti-Introspectivist View of Career Decision Making

This article reviews 50 years of empirical literature on career decision making, summarizing 10 things the field knows “for sure.” An anti-introspectivist view of career decision making is then presented, developed by applying findings from cognitive and experimental social psychology to career decision making. This view holds that most processing performed by the human mind for decision making and behavior initiation is not performed at a conscious level and that reflection on those processes may be futile, and detrimental to good decisions. Although the anti-introspectivist perspective challenges many strongly held assumptions, it provides a plausible explanation of some of the difficulties encountered by decision makers and those who counsel them.     

Adaptable Careers: Maximizing Less and Exploring More

Today, young adults are expected to decide between educational, vocational, and job options and to make the best choice possible. Career literatures emphasize the importance of young adults' career decision making but also acknowledge the problems related to making these decisions. The authors argue that career counselors could support clients' intuitive processing of career information and help their clients to develop a positive and flexible view of the self and the environment while diminishing concerns about accountability for and irreversibility of career decisions. The authors argue that career adaptability rather than decision making should become the focal concept of career theory and practice.     

Applying a Systemic Procedure to Locate Career Decision‐Making Difficulties

Locating clients' career decision‐making difficulties is one of the first steps in career counseling. The authors demonstrate the feasibility and utility of a systematic 4‐stage procedure for locating and interpreting career decision‐making difficulties by analyzing responses of 626 college students (collected by Tai, 2007) to the Career Decision‐making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ; Gati, Krausz, & Osipow, 1996). In addition, the responses of 2 students selected from this group are individually analyzed and interpreted. The procedure makes it possible to map the various career decision‐making difficulties of undergraduate students and tailor the appropriate career counseling intervention to the unique needs of clients.     

Career Decisions From the Decider's Perspective

The authors used a phenomenological research method to investigate the career decision‐making experiences of 17 employed adults. Thematic results from interview data analysis were organized within 3 overarching themes: decisions centered on relational life, decisions centered on personal meaning, and decisions centered on economic realities. Study results supported and extended contentions that career decisions are embedded in relational life and have contextual meaning. Belonging and the potential for meaningful engagement were integral to career decisions. Implications for the role of career counselors and career counseling are discussed. Recommendations for counseling that facilitates the consideration of belonging and personal meaning in career decisions are offered.     

Prescreening,In‐Depth Exploration,and Choice: From Decision Theory to Career Counseling Practice

The authors present a 3‐stage model—Prescreening, In‐depth exploration, and Choice (PIC)—aimed at increasing the quality of the career decision‐making process and its outcome. PIC provides a framework for a dynamic and interactive process that emphasizes the role of career counselors as decision counselors, whose aim is to facilitate an active decision‐making process. The proposed model offers the advantages of systematic, analytical processing, while remaining compatible with individuals' natural way of thinking. The authors outline the implementation of PIC, discuss the role of intuition in decision making, and compare the PIC with the person‐environment fit approach.     

Decision Making in Voluntary Career Change: An Other‐Than‐Rational Perspective

The authors present a qualitative study of voluntary career change, which highlighted the importance of positive emotions, unplanned action, and building certainty and perceiving continuity in the realization of change. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to broaden theoretical understanding of real‐life career decision making. The accounts of 8 women who had changed careers were explored, and the analysis supported other‐than‐rational perspectives of career decision making. An action‐affect‐cognition framework of decision making is proposed. The framework adds the role of emotion and the importance of self‐regulation to existing theory of career decision making. Implications for career counseling are discussed.     

Construction and Initial Validation of the Career Maximizing Scale

Applying the concept of maximizing—careful evaluation of options in pursuit of optimal goals—to career decisions, the authors developed the Career Maximizing Scale (CMS). The measure was administered to samples of working adults and university students across 3 studies. Factor analysis indicated that the measure is unidimensional and has favorable psychometric properties. Career maximizing was related to but distinct from general maximizing. Career maximizing was positively related to indicators of decision confidence (e.g., career decision‐making self‐efficacy) and positively related to desirable career outcomes (e.g., career satisfaction). Career maximizing was also modestly related to certain desirable academic outcomes (e.g., commitment to university major). Use of the CMS may facilitate effective career counseling.     

CAREER DECISIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF SOCIAL WORK FACULTY: A GENDER COMPARISON

This study uses quantitative and qualitative findings from a mail and online questionnaire to examine the experiences and perspectives of 76 doctoral-degreed social work faculty about the factors that affected their career decisions. The authors discuss similarities and differences between women and men in job-related decision making. Respondent perceptions of gender-related barriers and organizational supports when working toward career goals are presented and implications for social work education programs are explored.     

Attributional Retraining Increases Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy

This study examined whether 60 college students (41 women and 19 men), grouped according to their career locus of control, were differentially affected by a videotaped career intervention. The intervention was an attributional retraining procedure designed to persuade students to attribute low levels of confidence in making career decisions and career-related failures to a lack of effort. Results indicated that the career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) of students who initially exhibited an external career locus of control significantly increased after the attributional retraining procedure (p < .05), whereas the students who initially exhibited an internal career locus of control demonstrated no significant increase in CDMSE after attributional retraining.     

Career Counseling From the Counselee Perspective: Analysis of Feedback Questionnaires

The effectiveness of career counseling as perceived by counselees was measured using evaluation questionnaires. The results showed that 75% of the respondents rated the career counseling they received as satisfactory. A systematic difference was found between satisfaction with counseling as a result of the enhancement of the counselees' personal understanding and satisfaction as a result of the assistance they perceived in decision making. Respondents were more positive concerning their gains in self-understanding than about the help they felt they were given in arriving at a career decision. On the average, counselees rated discussions with the counselor as more important in counseling than were objective tests, interest inventories or vocational information. Respondents who reported that counseling helped them in both their personal and career problems were more satisfied than those who reported being helped solely in either their personal problems or their career decisions. The theoretical and practical implications of these results for career counseling are discussed.     

A Framework for Promoting Women's Career Intentionality and Work–Life Integration

Work–life integration is a major problem for today's working women, as the demands of full‐time work conflict with the relational factors of family life. Women feel they have to make difficult decisions that sacrifice their career or family, with little understanding of the influences that affect decision making. Career counselors may not be discussing the strain of Work–life integration with female college students, leading them to believe “having it all” is attainable. A framework blending the Kaleidoscope Career Model with the Systems Theory Framework to help women understand the environmental, societal, and personal influences on Work–life integration is proposed as a solution. This framework allows college women to make decisions with an intentional background of how these systems interact and sway perception. Using this framework, career counselors may help students identify goals, research the benefits and challenges, and clarify their authentic selves in personal and work realms.     

Effects of a Career Course on Chinese High School Students' Career Decision-Making Readiness

Career decision-making is a critical task for high school students, yet little is known about how career interventions affect their decision-making skills and self-efficacy. We investigated the outcome of a career intervention in a Chinese high school setting to determine whether it would reduce the difficulties students faced in making a career decision and elevate their self-efficacy in career exploration. A career intervention course was delivered to 413 high school students (228 female, 185 male) who completed a demographic questionnaire, the Major Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (Peng & Long, 2003), and the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire–Chinese Version (Shen, 2005) before and after the intervention. Results indicated that the intervention had a positive impact on reducing students' difficulties making career decisions but had mixed results on career self-efficacy. Proactive, systematic, multilevel, and structured interventions over longer periods of time would likely help youth develop their career decision-making skills.     

Resilience and Decision‐Making Strategies as Predictors of Career Decision Difficulties

The purpose of this study was to examine resilience and decision‐making strategies as predictors of difficulties experienced during the career decision‐making process. College students (N = 364) responded to measures of resilience, career decision‐making strategies, and career decision difficulties. Results indicated that resilience and decision‐making strategies accounted for 46% of the variance in career decision difficulties. Resilience had a greater influence on problems encountered during decision making than on problems encountered at the outset of the process. Different decision‐making strategies appeared to be related to difficulties encountered at different stages of the decision‐making process. For example, aspiration for an ideal occupation was positively associated only with lack of readiness. Procrastination was the only strategy related to all three decision difficulties: lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information. The results indicated the importance of decreasing procrastination at all stages of decision making and the need to promote resilience to deal with decision difficulties.     

Decision‐Making Styles,Career Decision Self‐Efficacy,and Career Adaptability Among High School Students

We investigated the relationships between decision‐making styles, career decision self‐efficacy, and career adaptability among high school students. We also sought to determine whether gender moderates the relationships among these three constructs. A total of 216 Serbian final‐year high school students responded to career adaptability and decision‐making measures. Results of structural equation modeling showed that career decision self‐efficacy mediates a positive relationship between the rational and intuitive styles and a negative relationship between the dependent style and career adaptability. The rational style only had a direct effect on career adaptability. Gender moderated one path—a regression weight of self‐efficacy on career adaptability. For male students, self‐efficacy was not a significant predictor of career adaptability. The results suggest that career counselors might approach students differently depending on students' gender and that the role of gender in career decision‐making and adaptability processes should be investigated further.     

Evaluating DISCOVER's Effectiveness in Enhancing College Students' Social Cognitive Career Development

College students (20 women, 14 men) seeking career counseling services at a university career center participated in this exploratory investigation. A 2 (DISCOVER treatment) × 2 (counseling treatment) research design was used to evaluate the individual and combined effects of DISCOVER (ACT, 1998) and counseling on participants' career decision‐making self‐efficacy and career decision‐making attributional style. Findings revealed a significant effect of the use of DISCOVER on participants' career decision‐making self‐efficacy and their sense of control over the career decision‐making process. Results are discussed regarding the implications for career counseling and ideas for further research in this domain.     

Relational Self‐Construal as a Moderator of Social Support in Career Decision Making

The authors examined relational self‐construal as a moderator of the influence of social support on career decision‐making difficulties among 352 college students (65% women, 63% Caucasian). Results of hierarchical regression analyses supported the hypothesis that individuals with higher relational self‐construal reported fewer difficulties in terms of lack of information and inconsistent information in career decision making as social support increased. Social support, however, did not reduce career decision‐making difficulties for those with lower relational self‐construal. Relational self‐construal did not moderate the relationship between social support and lack of readiness in career decision‐making difficulties as expected, possibly because of conceptual and measurement issues. Results suggest counselors work from relational and contextual perspectives to foster clients' self‐views and to use social support to facilitate their career decision making.     

Counseling for Career Decision‐Making Difficulties: Measures and Methods

Career indecision may be the primary reason people go to career counselors. Much effort has been exerted to identify and investigate the causes of clients' career decision‐making difficulties. With the aim of facilitating clients' career decision making, the use of career indecision assessments can promote the effectiveness and efficiency of face‐to‐face career counseling. The authors review three evidence‐based, cost‐free assessments derived from decision theory: the Career Decision‐Making Difficulties Questionnaire, the Emotional and Personality‐Related Career Decision‐Making Difficulties questionnaire, and the Career Decision‐Making Profile questionnaire. The unique features of these assessments are described, and the ways they can contribute to facilitating career decision making in career counseling are explored with a case study example.     

Academic and Career Development of Undocumented College Students: The American Dream?

Little is known about the academic and career decision‐making process for college students with undocumented status. This study used a multiple case study approach to explore how academic and work‐related decisions were made for 2 college students with undocumented citizenship status. Participants responded to a series of questions about their academic and career development. Data collected from these interviews were analyzed by a research team. After cross‐case analysis, 6 themes emerged: (a) barriers; (b) emotional impact; (c) resiliency, supports, and coping; (d) discrimination; (e) familial and cultural influences; and (f) academic, work, and career factors. Findings suggest that counseling professionals should attend to systemic, academic, and work‐related barriers that directly affect the educational and career decisions of students with undocumented citizenship status. Future research could expand on the present study by further exploring systemic and contextual factors that influence how undocumented students make academic and career choices using varied qualitative and quantitative methodologies.     

Career Counseling Is Personal Counseling

Despite many changes that have occurred in the field of career counseling, counselors continue to rely on models of counseling that emphasize the rational, informational aspects of career decision making. The author argues that career counselors need to pay more attention to the affective, psychological issues confronting clients with career problems. The impact of significant psychological variables that influence career decision making are discussed: developmental stages and tasks, identity formation and status, self-concept, psychological needs, and internal barriers.     

Tolerance of Uncertainty: Links to Happenstance,Career Decision Self‐Efficacy,and Career Satisfaction

This study investigated the extent to which tolerance of uncertainty affects the relationship between happenstance skills and career satisfaction via career decision self‐efficacy. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted on data collected from 321 graduates (175 men, 146 women) of Korean universities making the school‐to‐work transition. Results showed that career decision self‐efficacy fully mediated the relationship between happenstance skills and career satisfaction. Furthermore, the moderation effect of tolerance of uncertainty had a significant impact on the relationship between happenstance skills and career decision self‐efficacy. Tolerance of uncertainty should be considered an important variable in happenstance career theory and intervention. Unplanned influences should also be considered important factors in the career decision‐making process.