Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

Figure 2.2 Occupational Daydreams and Summary Code from the Self-Directed Search

Protocol. [Source: Reproduced by special permission of the publisher and the client, Psy-

chological Assessment Resources, Inc., 16204 North Florida Avenue, Lutz, Florida 33549,

from the Self-Directed Search Professional User’s Guide, by John L. Holland, PhD; Amy

Occupational Daydreams _______________________________

List below the occupations you have considered in thinking

about your future. List the careers you have daydreamed

about as well as those you have discussed with others. Try to

give a history of your daydreams. Put your most recent

choice on Line 1 and work backwards to the earlier jobs you

have considered.

How to Organize Your Answers _________________________

Summary Code

Start on page 4. Count how many times you said L for “Like.”

Record the number of Ls or Ys for each group of Activities,

Competencies, or Occupations on the lines below.

The letters with the three highest numbers indicate your

Summary Code. Write your Summary Code below. (If two

scores are the same or tied, put both letters in the same box.)

Occupation

1. ___________________________________

2. ___________________________________

3. ___________________________________

4. ___________________________________

5. ___________________________________

6. ___________________________________

7. ___________________________________

8. ___________________________________

Architect

Artist (artisan/craftsman)

Welder (ornamental)

Actor

Jeweler (gemologist)

Photographer

Musician

Chef

RAS

AS C

AR S

RE C

AE S

RLS

AS E

AI R

Activities (pp. 4–5)

Code

Competencies (pp. 6–7)

Occupations (p. 8)

Self-estimates (p. 9)

(What number did

you circle?)

Total scores

(Add the five R scores,

the five I scores, the

five A scores, etc.)

_______________________________

Highest

Second

Third

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Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personalities in Work Environments 37

the restoration of three rental buildings and the purchase of two additional build-

ings. She also keeps the books for the family business. This integration appears to

provide a good combination of hands-on practical work, use of her accounting

background, and incorporation of her ACS three-letter code.

The client terminated with the option to return for future sessions, and she ap-

pears happy, active, and adapting well to her work and personal lifestyle combi-

nation. The anxiety that characterized her early work with my clinical colleague

appeared to be well managed and less salient. On follow-up at one and two years,

Jennifer was stable in her career, happy, and emerging as a community planner

and developer.

PROMOTING CAREER DEVELOPMENT

The consummate counseling psychologist, Holland views human differences as

assets and strives to provide practical assistance to a wide array of individuals

using the personal and environmental resources available to them (Holland,

1997). Holland reasons that individuals search for occupational environments

that are congruent with their vocational personality. A variety of forms of voca-

tional assistance from brief, self-guiding interventions to intensive interactions

with a counselor or in a formal class can promote career development by facilitat-

ing the search process. Critical ingredients in successful career interventions

(Holland, Magoon, & Spokane, 1981) include:

1. Absorption of information about self and the world of work.

2. Acquisition of a realistic and accurate cognitive framework for approaching

and understanding the search task.

Provision of social support (e.g., from a counselor, coach, or group members).

4. Opportunities to imagine and envision future possibilities.

5. Mobilization of effective exploratory behavior.

These five ingredients are effective across intervention type (Brown & Ryan Krane,

2000; Brown et al., 2003). A fundamental assumption of Holland’s theory is that in-

tervention should be geared toward promoting the effective implementation of a

reasonably fitting or congruent career option. Thus, studies of the process and ele-

ments of career interventions contribute substantially to our ability to assist clients

in their search for a reasonably fitting option (Spokane et al., 2000).

WORKING WITH DISSATISFIED AND

POORLY PERFORMING CLIENTS

Successful career search, selection, and entry depend on the client’s ability to ex-

plore and assess possible career options in an unimpeded manner. Barriers and

impediments can be external, such as job discrimination or undue family pres-

sure; or they can be internal, such as anxiety, depression, or psychopathology.

Holland’s model depends on the client’s ability to project himself or herself into

vocational options—or in the case of the assessment devices, onto occupational

tles to ascertain the potential for positive outcomes (e.g., Physicists are careful, I

am careful; therefore, I would make a good physicist.). To the extent that such

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pediments exist, clients will be less able to execute a successful search and may

distort or misconstrue the reasonableness of available options, thereby entering

work environments that are incongruent with their personalities. The result, ac-

cording to Holland’s theory, would be a reduced likelihood of finding satisfaction

and achieving success. Thus, career interventions with such clients would focus

on finding more congruent work environments and overcoming internal and ex-

ternal impediments to entering congruent careers. Career intervention, absent im-

pediments, can be a straightforward process. High levels of anxiety may reduce or

limit exploration just as depression may inhibit effective consideration of other-

wise appropriate options. Therapeutic interventions may need to shift focus for a

time to address such issues to facilitate client progress (Spokane, 1991). Career

problems may result from mental health concerns, and mental health problems

may exacerbate career concerns. Some evidence suggests that career intervention

can alleviate mental health concerns and personal therapeutic interventions can

reduce career concerns. Counseling psychologists are uniquely suited to integrate

and intervene in these overlapping domains, and Holland’s theory can provide

theoretical guidance.

SUMMARY

Holland’s theory is unique in employing a comprehensive and integrated assess-

ment system of individuals and their work environments based on a theoretical

formulation of vocational personalities. The system has been subjected to more

tests and analyses than any other model of career development. A surprising

amount (though certainly not all) of this research has been supportive of the ex-

istence of a limited set of types, the underlying circular (or hexagonal) structure

of those types, the validity of the instruments to measure types, and, to a lesser

extent, the interactive proposition of the theory. The cross-cultural validity and

utility of the model and the interventions that logically derive from it are encour-

aging, especially in Asian populations. Evidence examining career interventions

using the instruments and principles of the theory supports the rigor as well as

the practicality of the theory and related assessments and interventions for use in

evidence-based counseling practice.

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CHAPTER 3

The Theory and Practice of

Career Construction

Mark L. Savickas

HE THEORY OF

career construction explains the interpretive and interper-

sonal processes through which individuals impose meaning and direction

on their vocational behavior. The theory updates and advances Super’s

(1957) seminal theory of vocational development for use in a multicultural soci-

ety and global economy. It incorporates Super’s innovative ideas into a contempo-

rary vision of careers by using social constructionism as a metatheory with which

to reconceptualize central concepts of vocational development theory. In viewing

these traditional concepts as processes that have possibilities, rather than contin-

uing to view them as realities that predict the future, I am certain to alienate both

constructionists and positivists who argue that their positions are theoretically

incommensurate and that in trying to credential both, I slight each one. Never-

theless, I have been intrigued by viewing conventions in vocational psychology’s

canon, including Holland’s hexagon and Super’s stages, as social constructions

rather than scientific discoveries.

In addition to advancing vocational development theory by transforming its cen-

tral concepts, I have tried to integrate its segments. Super formulated his theory by

focusing, in turn, on circumscribed segments of vocational behavior, which re-

sulted in a “segmental theory” that is actually a loosely unified set of theories,

each dealing with specific aspects of vocational development. Super (1969) hoped

to someday integrate the segments into one comprehensive theory. To move toward

that goal, in addition to using social constructionism as a metatheory, I adapted the

tripartite framework devised by McAdams (1995) to organize personality theories.

Using McAdams’ general framework as a common theoretical foundation enabled

me to progressively incorporate into one overarching theory the three classic seg-

ments of career theory: (1) individual differences in traits, (2) developmental

tasks

and coping strategies, and (3) psychodynamic motivation—or, for short, the

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The Theory and Practice of Career Construction 43

differ

ential, developmental, and dynamic views of career (Savickas, 2001). Career

construction theory incorporates these three perspectives—representing the what,

how, and why of vocational behavior—under the rubrics of vocational personality

types, career adaptability, and life themes. Before describing in detail these types,

tasks, and themes, I present a brief overview to orient readers to the whole theory

before examining its parts.

OVERVIEW

Career construction theory addresses how the career world is made through per-

sonal constructivism and social constructionism. It asserts that we construct rep-

resentations of reality, but we do not construct reality itself. Furthermore, the

theory views careers from a contextualist perspective, one that sees development

as driven by adaptation to an environment rather than by maturation of inner

structures. Viewing careers from constructionist and contextual perspectives fo-

cuses attention on interpretive processes, social interaction, and the negotiation

of meaning. Careers do not unfold; they are constructed as individuals make

choices that express their self-concepts and substantiate their goals in the social

reality of work roles.

Career construction theory, simply stated, asserts that individuals construct

their careers by imposing meaning on their vocational behavior and occupational

experiences. Whereas the objective definition of career denotes the sequence of

positions occupied by a person from school through retirement, the subjective

definition used in career construction theory is not the sum of work experience

but rather the patterning of these experiences into a cohesive whole that produces

a meaningful story. Herein, career denotes a subjective construction that imposes

personal meaning on past memories, present experiences, and future aspirations

by weaving them into a life theme that patterns the individual’s work life. Thus,

the subjective career that guides, regulates, and sustains vocational behavior

emerges from an active process of making meaning, not discovering preexisting

facts. It consists of a biographical reflexivity that is discursively produced and

made “real” through vocational behavior. In telling career stories about their

work experiences, individuals selectively highlight particular experiences to pro-

duce a narrative truth by which they live. Counselors who use career construction

theory listen to clients’ narratives for the story lines of vocational personality

type, career adaptability, and life theme.

OCATIONAL

ERSONALITY

By attending to individual differences in vocational traits, career construction the-

ory seeks to improve practice in augmenting, not replacing, person-environment fit

theories that match people to occupations. The rational model (Parsons, 1909) for

matching people to positions has been one of vocational psychology’s most signifi-

cant contributions to the human sciences. This model has been fully explained

in the preeminent statements of person-environment psychology presented by Hol-

land (1997) and by Lofquist and Dawis (1991). While career construction theory

reconceptualizes some aspects of these foundational formulations about vocational

personality types and work adjustment, it really concentrates instead on the

imple

mentation of vocational self-concepts, thus providing a subjective, private,

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and id

iographic perspective for comprehending careers to augment the objective,

public, and nomothetic perspective for understanding occupations.

It may be worthwhile to compare objective personality traits to subjective

self-concepts because some counselors see no difference between the two. Person-

environment fit theory attributes recurring uniformities in a person’s social

behavior to personality structure. The underlying dimensions that structure

behavior are called traits (which career construction theory prefers to view as re-

semblances and reputation). According to R. Hogan (1983), “the primary function of

trait ascription is to evaluate other people, specifically, to evaluate their potential

as resources for the group” (p. 60). Thus, in a group that divides labor among its

members, traits can be used to assign individuals to work roles. For example, a con-

ventional person should make a better banker than an artistic person. Holland’s

RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)

model, composed of trait complexes organized into types, offers a useful approach

for appraising individual differences and for describing occupational groups. The

objective perspective of types and traits does not, however, recognize the signifi-

cance of subjective experience nor seek to understand behavior from the individ-

ual’s own point of view. Accordingly, the life theme and self-concept perspectives

of career construction theory complement the objective perspective by eliciting and

interpreting clients’ subjective conceptions of themselves and their world. These

personal ideas and feelings about self, work, and life reveal purpose—and purpose

rather than traits composes the life themes that control behavior, explain behavioral

continuity, sustain identity coherence, and foresee future action.

IFE

HEMES

The life theme component of career construction theory emerged from Super’s

(1951) postulate that in expressing vocational preferences, individuals put into

occupational terminology their ideas of the kinds of people they are; in entering

an occupation, they seek to implement a concept of themselves; and after stabi-

lizing in an occupation, they seek to realize their potential and preserve self-

esteem. This core postulate leads to the conceptualization of occupational

choice as implementing a self-concept, work as a manifestation of selfhood, and

vocational development as a continuing process of improving the match be-

tween the self and situation. From this perspective on the self, work provides a

context for human development and an important location in each individual’s

life (Richardson, 1993).

Most individuals, regardless of their social-economic status, can find opportu-

nities in their work to both express themselves and matter to their community.

However, rather than choose among attractive options, some individuals may have

to take the only job that is available to them, often a job that grinds on the human

spirit because its tasks are difficult, tedious, and exhausting. Nevertheless, the

work they do can be meaningful to them and matter to their community. Working

with diverse clients in manifold cultures around the globe, it has been my experi-

ence that career construction theory can be used to help most individuals create

deeper meaning and broader mattering in their daily work as well as assist them

to find better ways to implement their self-concepts and advance their life projects

despite painful pasts and social barriers to career adaptation.

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The Theory and Practice of Career Construction 45

AREER

DAPTABILITY

The third central component in career construction theory is adaptability, that is, the

attitudes, competencies, and behaviors that individuals use in fitting them

selves to

work that suits them. Viewing career construction as a series of attempts to imple-

ment a self-concept focuses attention on the sequence of matching decisions. Ac-

cordingly, career construction theory focuses on neither the person nor the

environment in the famous P–E symbol; instead it focuses on the dash (–), assert-

ing that building a career is a psychosocial activity, one that synthesizes self and

society. More accurately, the theory focuses not on a dash but on the series of

dashes that build a career. With a changing self (P) and changing situations (E),

the matching process is never really completed. The series of changing preferences

should progress, through successive approximations, toward a better fit between

worker (P) and work (E). The overriding goal toward which career adaptation

moves is a situation in which the occupational role substantiates and validates the

individual’s self-concept.

ROPOSITIONS

The three components of vocational personality, career adaptability, and life

themes

structure the 16 propositions that appear in Table 3.1. These propositions express

the current statement of career construction theory, one that incorporates, revises,

and expands Super’s initial (1953), definitive (1984), and final (1990) statements of

his vocational development theory. For a complete exposition of career construc-

tion theory, consult Savickas (2002). Instead of restating the theory herein, this

chapter concentrates on how it can inform and improve the practice of career edu-

cation and counseling.

Table 3.1

Career Construction Theory Propositions

1. A society and its institutions structure an individual’s life course through social

roles. The life structure of an individual, shaped by social processes such as gender-

ing, consists of core and peripheral roles. Balance among core roles such as work

and family promotes stability whereas imbalances produce strain.

2. Occupations provide a core role and a focus for personality organization for most

men and women, although for some individuals this focus is peripheral, incidental,

or even nonexistent. Then other life roles such as student, parent, homemaker,

leisurite, and citizen may be at the core. Personal preferences for life roles are deeply

grounded in the social practices that engage individuals and locate them in unequal

social positions.

An individual’s career pattern—that is, the occupational level attained and the se-

quence, frequency, and duration of jobs—is determined by the parents’ socioeconomic

level and the person’s education, abilities, personality traits, self-concepts, and career

adaptability in transaction with the opportunities presented by society.

4. People differ in vocational characteristics such as ability, personality traits, and self-

concepts.

(Continued)

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