Neuroticism,Negative Thinking,and Coping With Respect to Career Decision State

Using structural equation modeling, the present study investigated relationships between neuroticism, coping strategies, and negative career thoughts within the context of attaining a positive career decision state. Results from the initial model, based on a sample of college students (119 women, 113 men; M = 20.3 years) enrolled in a career development course, revealed that coping strategies were not a significant contribution to the model. The final model, without coping strategies, showed that neuroticism had a significant indirect effect on career decision state through negative thinking and that the relationship between neuroticism and career decision state was also significant. Findings also indicate that in the presence of negative career thoughts, neuroticism becomes associated with a more positive career decision state. Practical implications include suggestions that counselors intervene on clients' negative career thoughts to potentially render their neurotic tendencies more productive in reaching a desired career decision state.     

Mindfulness and Decision‐Making Style: Predicting Career Thoughts and Vocational Identity

Mindfulness has been a focus of psychological research and practice in recent decades. Yet, there is limited research on the relationship between mindfulness and vocational decision‐making. This study’s purpose was to examine the role of mindfulness in a career context by investigating the relationships among mindfulness, decision‐making style, negative career thoughts, and vocational identity. The sample included 258 undergraduate students (204 women, 54 men) at a large southeastern U.S. university. Mindfulness was significantly (p < .01) associated with fewer negative career thoughts, external and thinking‐based decision‐making styles, and higher vocational identity. Multiple regression procedures found that mindfulness, coupled with decision‐making style, accounted for 31% of the variance in negative career thoughts and 22% of the variance in vocational identity. These findings suggest that more holistic career counseling interventions could incorporate mindfulness techniques to help reduce anxiety and negative thoughts while increasing self‐clarity and problem‐solving skills. Future research could include more diverse samples, additional constructs (e.g., choice volition, self‐efficacy), and a pretest–posttest design to examine the efficacy of mindfulness‐based career interventions.     

Student Veterans: Meaning in Life,Negative Career Thoughts,and Depression

Student veterans may experience challenges as they transition from military to student life, including adjusting to the academic environment, coping with mental health concerns, and redefining their identities. Research indicates that veterans may have difficulty finding meaning and purpose outside of the military (Brenner et al., 2008; Doenges, 2011). This study explored variables that may affect meaning and purpose in student veterans' lives, specifically negative career thoughts and depression. One hundred thirty-two student veterans at U.S. institutions were surveyed. The results revealed that both negative career thoughts and depression were statistically significant predictors (p < .001) of the presence of meaning in life, with 46% of the variance in the presence of meaning in life scores accounted for by participants' negative career thinking and depression levels. Pearson correlations indicated that all variables were statistically significant (p < .01). Future research could explore how other career readiness and self-assessment constructs are related to meaning and purpose in student veterans' lives, as well as the intersection of mental health and career factors. Interventions that focus both on the presence of negative career thoughts and depressive symptomatology may positively influence student veterans' report of meaning and purpose in life.     

Negative Career Outlook and the Working Alliance in Career Counseling

The authors investigated 3 dimensions of the working alliance—goal, task, and bond—and the reduction of negative career‐related thoughts. A pretest–posttest design revealed a significant reduction in negative career thoughts after an initial career counseling interview was provided to college students (N = 87). Regression analyses revealed that task predicted negative career thoughts. The findings offer evidence of the effectiveness of career counseling and of the contribution of working alliance to counseling as a process and outcome variable.     

Relationships Among Career Thoughts,Vocational Identity,and Calling: Implications for Practice

The concept of a calling in relation to career choice is a topic of interest in current literature. Exploring variables that may contribute to the presence of a calling is an important gap in the literature. This study examined career thoughts and vocational identity in relation to the presence of calling in a sample of 329 undergraduate university students enrolled in a career development course. The findings revealed significant relationships among all the variables of interest, as well as moderate predictive power, indicating that vocational identity and career thoughts may contribute to the formation of a calling to pursue a particular career. Limitations, implications for practice, and future research are discussed.     

The Influence of Career Planning on Career Thoughts in STEM‐Interested Undergraduates

Undergraduate career planning courses have shown efficacy in decreasing students’ negative career thoughts; however, universities have minimally applied these courses to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) populations. This study compared the influence of a STEM‐focused career planning course for undecided STEM students with a seminar course for decided STEM majors. An analysis of covariance with covariate adjustment revealed that undecided career planning students had lower adjusted mean scores on a measure of negative career thinking than the decided STEM majors after the first semester of college. The results provide support for the efficacy of STEM‐focused career planning courses and measuring negative career thoughts with STEM undergraduates.     

Developmental Transitions of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual-Affirmative,Heterosexual Career Counselors

This article proposes parallels between gay, lesbian, and bisexual identity development and the professional development of gay/lesbian/bisexual-affirmative, heterosexual career counselors. This perspective gives a developmental framework for understanding the changing feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and actions that accompany the professional, personal, and political growth of heterosexual career counselors who are seeking to become affirmative to career and life planning issues associated with sexual orientation.     

Explaining Career Decision‐Making Self‐Efficacy: Personality,Cognitions, and Cultural Mistrust

The authors explore the hypothesis that career decision‐making self‐efficacy could be affected by negative career thoughts, Big Five personality factors, and cultural mistrust in a sample of African American and Caucasian college students. Findings demonstrated that negative career thinking, openness, and conscientiousness explained a significant amount of variance in career decision‐making self‐efficacy in a general sample of college students, but no unique variance was explained by cultural mistrust in a sample of African American college students.     

A Cognitive Career Course: From Theory to Practice

A university career development course based on cognitive information‐processing theory was assessed. Students who took the course showed a significant decrease in their negative career thoughts when the Career Thoughts Inventory (J. P. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1996a) was used as a pretest and posttest measure. The greatest decrease in negative thinking was found in students with the highest level of negative thinking at the beginning of the course. The specific components of negative career thinking—decision‐making confusion and commitment anxiety—contributed significantly to the main effect. There were no significant interactions with ethnicity or sex.     

Student Veteran Career Transition Readiness,Career Adaptability,and Academic and Life Satisfaction

Student military veterans pursuing higher education present with unique career development needs. To better understand these needs, the authors conducted an exploratory study to examine career transition readiness, career adaptability, academic satisfaction, and satisfaction with life among 134 student military veterans (34 women, 100 men). Results indicated statistically significant positive correlations between satisfaction with life scores and scores on measures of career transition readiness and career adaptability. Regression results demonstrated that career transition readiness and career adaptability predicted satisfaction with life, but not academic satisfaction. The findings suggest a need to understand the complexity of student veterans’ career and academic development in both research and practice.     

General Job Satisfaction From a Developmental Perspective: Exploring Choice—Job Matches at Two Career Stages

The authors explored predictions of general job satisfaction at early and middle adulthood and uncovered several findings about developmental processes associated with job satisfaction. Tests of life‐span career theory propositions revealed that neither choice‐job congruence nor gender added significantly to predictions of job satisfaction at 2 career stages. Earlier occupational choice and current job added to predictions of midcareer (modal age 43 years) job satisfaction, especially for men. The predictability of job satisfaction is apparently influenced by the career stage when satisfaction is appraised.     

Annual Review: Practice and Research in Career Counseling and Development, 1990

This review of the 1990 literature on career development and counseling emphasizes literature on career counseling approaches and interventions, and literature related to the general theme of “work within a life.” This theme addresses how work simultaneously expresses and influences how an individual functions as an integrated psychological being. The importance of the context of an individual's life is also emphasized throughout the review. Topics include race, sex, and multiple role issues, selected career choice issues and indecision, coping on the job, and job change and unemployment. Implications for career counseling are provided.     

Family‐of‐Origin Influence on Career Thoughts

The family can exert an important influence on career decision making. This study investigated the impact of adaptability and cohesion in family‐of‐origin relationships on dysfunctional career thoughts in 269 college students (221 women, 48 men). The Career Thoughts Inventory and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales–IV were used to assess family dynamics and dysfunctional career thoughts. The study addressed the following research question: What is the impact of family cohesion and adaptability in the participant's family of origin on dysfunctional career thoughts, specifically decision‐making confusion, commitment anxiety, and external conflict? Results revealed that higher levels of family cohesion were associated with lower levels of decision‐making confusion, commitment anxiety, and external conflict and that higher levels of family adaptability were associated with lower levels of external conflict.     

Career Choice Anxiety,Coping, and Perceived Control

Extrapolating from D. H. Barlow (2000), the authors explored whether perceived control moderated the relation between coping with career indecision and choice anxiety among 126 women in low‐level jobs. Analyses of the women's career indecision, coping, perceived control, and career choice anxiety scores through regression identified the moderator effect. Perceived control interacted with problem‐focused coping to increase accountable variance in choice anxiety (p < .05). Women perceiving high control and doing more problem‐focused coping reported lower anxiety than did women doing comparable coping but perceiving lower control. Implications are discussed for interventions with women in low‐level jobs.     

Impact of Dysfunctional Career Thoughts on Career Decision Self‐Efficacy and Vocational Identity

This study examined the mediating role of dysfunctional career thoughts in the relationship between career decision self‐efficacy (CDSE) and vocational identity (VI). For this purpose, the data were collected from 446 Korean college students. The authors used the Hayes ( 2013 ) PROCESS tool to analyze the data. The results showed that CDSE positively correlated with VI, whereas all 3 types of dysfunctional career thoughts negatively correlated with CDSE and VI. The results also indicated that all 3 subscales of dysfunctional career thoughts partially mediate the association between CDSE and VI. We provide implications and limitations of the findings.     

Using the Adult Career Concerns Inventory to Measure Task Involvement

The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) uses an attitudinal item-response scale to measure the planning attitudes dimension of career adaptability. This study examined the psychometric properties of the ACCI when used with a behavioral item-response scale. Results supported the hypothesized unidimensionality of the ACCI-B Exploration subscales, which related as expected to vocational identity, need for occupational information, career choice certainty, and career indecision. Using a behavioral ACCI item-response scale, in addition to an attitudinal one, may provide counselors with important information when working with client's making an initial career choice.     

Construction and Initial Validation of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory

This study was conducted to develop and initially evaluate the psychometric properties of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory (PHCI), which aims to assess skill in using chance events to develop career opportunities. After item generation and exploratory factor analysis, 130 original items were reduced to 25 items across 5 factors (5 items for each corresponding factor). Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of this 5‐factor structure, and the goodness of fit showed an adequate fit to the observed data for both women and men. Results showed that PHCI subscales correlated moderately and in expected directions with career preparation, career decision‐making self‐efficacy, and career stress. These findings suggest that the PHCI, which assesses 5 dimensions of career‐related planned happenstance skill, shows promise as a useful tool for facilitating understanding of the influence of chance events on career choice behavior.     

Career Maturity Determinants: Individual Development,Social Context,and Historical Time

Two samples of 16- to 19-year-old adolescents from different contexts were compared. Whereas young East Germans had experienced an educational system that offered relatively little choice, West Germans had experienced more leeway. In 1991, youth from East Germany reported more career maturity than did same-aged adolescents from the West. Different variables predicted career maturity in the 2 groups. Whereas person-related variables predicted career maturity in both groups, family and peer contexts were relevant only among the West German youth. In 1996, when differences in social context had greatly diminished, these differences had disappeared. Results confirm the usefulness of a cross-cultural and contextual approach to career development.     

Dysfunctional Career Thoughts and Perceived Quality of Parental Relationships in Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to cause significant difficulties in interpersonal relationships. Empirical research in career development has demonstrated that close, supportive relationships are associated with positive vocational behaviors (Kenny et al., 2018). We examined dysfunctional career thoughts and perceived quality of parental relationships in high school students with ADHD. One hundred two adolescents (76 boys, 26 girls) with ADHD responded to measures of career thoughts and interpersonal relationship quality. Preliminary exploratory analysis, using multiple linear regression, showed that male participants' dysfunctional career thoughts were statistically significantly related to their relationships with their mothers. For female participants, relationships with fathers represented an area for further exploration. Results suggest that career professionals can enhance positive outcomes of decision-making and problem-solving issues in adolescence with additional focus on relational interventions. Future research should incorporate the influence of gender and race/ethnicity on crucial relationships and focus on paternal relationships using cognitive information processing–based interventions with this population.     

Attachment Style and Dysfunctional Career Thoughts: How Attachment Style Can Affect the Career Counseling Process

This article examines the relationship between attachment style, measured by Experiences in Close Relationships‐Revised (R. C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), and dysfunctional career thoughts, measured by the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. J. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1994a). Two hypotheses related to attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts were tested with 46 adult immigrants (17 men, 29 women). Results show that both attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly related to scores on the CTI; increased attachment avoidance also significantly correlated with decision‐making confusion and external conflict. Implications of the relationship between attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts for the career counseling process are discussed.