individuals continue to maintain the skills needed for the occupation they have chosen. They also continue to learn new skills to keep up with changes in their job.
The final career developmental stage is disengage- ment. Around age 65, when individuals plan for or begin the process of retirement, they enter the disen- gagement stage. At this time, individuals reduce their work efforts as they retire from their careers, and they shift the focus of their lifestyle from work to other activities such as family or leisure interests.
Though individuals are assumed to progress through the career stages at certain ages and in a par- ticular order, Super concedes that the stages may not take place at the same age for everyone, and people may actually cycle through each stage more than once. This concept, known as recycling, suggests that individuals go through previous stages when they begin a new job or new career. Furthermore, the the- ory speculates that this cycle of developmental stages may also apply to non-work-related roles such as leisure activities or familial roles. For example, if an individual becomes physically unable to participate in athletic leisure activities, he or she may recycle back to the exploration stage to develop skills for a new leisure activity.
As people progress through the career development stages, the choices they make reflect their self- concept. In other words, as individuals select voca- tions, they attempt to choose a career that depicts their own self-image. Career development, then, is an iter- ative process whereby the congruence between self- concept and career increases with each subsequent occupation or job.
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY OF CAREER DECISION MAKING
John Krumboltz’s social learning theory of career decision making (SLTCDM) has its origins in Bandura’s social learning theory of behavior. Krumboltz con- tended that individuals are guided into careers based on their learning experiences and skill knowledge. He also proposed that reinforcement, whether positive or negative, plays an important role in shaping self- efficacy and motivations for behaviors. For example, if a student does poorly in math, SLTCDM predicts that the student’s interest and motivation in math courses will decline, and the student will not enter a career that requires math skills. On the other hand, if the same student is rewarded in music by winning a
competition, SLTCDM predicts an increase in that student’s music self-efficacy, and he or she will be likely to pursue a career related to music. These are examples of instrumental learning experiences, in which preference is developed for activities in which one succeeds or is reinforced and interest is dimin- ished if one fails, receives no rewards, or is punished for participating.
The learning process can also occur through obser- vation or associative learning experiences. Instead of participating in activities, individuals can learn about specific occupations and careers vicariously from the media, role models, or peers. Positive or negative associations about an occupation then influence an individual’s assessment of that occupation and affect whether he or she decides to pursue that occupation.
As individuals accumulate learning experiences, they begin to make judgments—called self-observation generalizations—about how well or how poorly they can perform specific tasks. These generalizations may be accurate or incorrect, but they influence how indi- viduals try to translate their skills into possible occu- pations. These skills, which Krumboltz referred to as task approach skills, provide information about an individual’s problem-solving ability, work habits, performance, and work values.
Career development in SLTCDM, then, is a contin- ual process of learning that shapes one’s self-observation generalizations and task approach skills. Like Super’s idea of enacting one’s self-concept, SLTCDM explains how accumulated learning experiences guide career decisions and how individuals identify occupations that match their interests and skills.
SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY
Social cognitive career theory (SCCT), proposed by Robert Lent, Steven Brown, and Gail Hackett, takes a cognitive approach to the process of career develop- ment. It was formulated in response to growing ideo- logical changes that placed importance on people’s cognitions. This theory posits that individuals’ inter- ests are first influenced by contextual factors such as education, support, and role models and by individual factors such as gender, race, and culture. Contextual factors and individual factors then influence one’s self-efficacy in certain activities that, in turn, reflect one’s interests. Therefore, SCCT places importance on the individual’s cognitive process of choosing a career based on environmental and social factors, 64———Career Development
self-efficacy, interests, and performance outcomes.
Additionally, SCCT contends that as individuals gain more learning experiences over time, they revise their career-related self-efficacy.
Both SCCT and SLTCDM conceptualize career development as a continuous process of participat- ing in activities, assessing one’s success, and refin- ing career choices based on self-evaluations. The difference between the theories is that SLTCDM emphasizes learning new activities, whereas SCCT emphasizes self-efficacy for the tasks in which an individual participates.
VARIATIONS IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT PATHWAYS
For many people, career development may not be orderly and predictable. For example, when women entered the workforce in the 1940s to replace the men who had been called to military service, many had never worked outside the home. However, women were—and still are—expected to care for their fami- lies in addition to working. The demands of working in both arenas have created somewhat different career paths for women and for men. The conflict between the roles of wife, mother, and worker often has an effect on women’s career progression. For example, single working women are more likely to be promoted than women who are married and have children. For men, having children does not seem to have as much effect on career development.
Increasingly, both women and men are beginning to take more time away from their careers to spend time with their families; therefore, the tradition of par- ticipating in full-time paid labor for the majority of one’s adulthood is changing. Workers are also begin- ning to decentralize the role of employment in their lives to pursue other interests. In response to this shift in priorities, employers have begun to adapt to par- ents’ desire for more family time and flexibility by developing new work situations such as job sharing, working from home, or working part-time. Maternity and paternity leaves offer parents the opportunity to leave the workforce temporarily to raise children. As a result of these changes, career development may not be a linear process for parents who take time away from the workforce to raise families.
Another group that has experienced variations in career development is immigrants. During the 20th century, the rapid increase in technology and
globalization of corporations made the world smaller.
One result was the migration of workers. For immi- grants in a new country, especially professionals, entering a career is more challenging than it is for cit- izens of that country. For example, people who are trained as doctors or lawyers in other countries may find they are unable to work in the United States because their training is not transferable. Therefore, they must retrain in the same career or move into another profession. Other challenges to career devel- opment for immigrants may include language barri- ers, access to well-paying jobs, difficulty obtaining a work visa, or discrimination.
APPLYING CAREER
DEVELOPMENT THEORIES
Though career development theories offer some valu- able explanations of the process of career choice and development, these theories do not address career decisions and career commitment that may result from external factors such as family expectations, job avail- ability, or even occupational prestige. Moreover, for people who do not have the luxury of choosing occu- pations based on their interests or self-efficacy—
for example, women, parents, or immigrants—extant developmental theories may not provide an adequate model of the process of career development. On the other hand, career development theories do offer some direction for career counselors. For example, Super suggested a counseling approach to apply his theory to practice. That approach includes assessments to help clients gain information about their level of career development, as well as information about their interests and values to identify potential careers.
Krumboltz also provided suggestions for applying his theory, SLTCDM, to practice. Consistent with that theory’s emphasis on learning, he suggested that counselors help clients recognize salient career infor- mation they have learned in past jobs and reframe unexpected incidents into positive career opportuni- ties. Finally, SCCT provides a framework for coun- selors to address clients’ career issues. At its core, career counseling modeled on SCCT assesses clients’
self-efficacy for various activities and uses this infor- mation to suggest possible careers. Furthermore, coun- selors address perceived barriers to careers to give clients more options to pursue.
—Jo-Ida C. Hansen and Melanie E. Leuty Career Development———65
FURTHER READING
Betz, N. E., & Fitzgerald, L. F. (1987). The career psychol- ogy of women.Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Brown, D., & Brooks, L. (Eds.). (1996). Career choice and development(3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Brown, S. D., & Lent, R. W. (Eds.). (2005). Career devel- opment and counseling: Putting theory and research to work.Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Krumboltz, J. D., Mitchell, A. M., & Jones, G. B. (1976). A social learning theory of career selection. Counseling Psychologist, 6,71−81.
Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (1996). Social cognitive approach to career development: An overview. Career Development Quarterly, 44,310−321.
Super, D. E., Osborne, W. L., Walsh, D. J., Brown, S. D., &
Niles, S. G. (1992). Developmental career assessment and counseling: The C-DAC model. Journal of Counsel- ing and Development, 71,74−80.