David L. Blustein

The Role of Work in Psychological Health and Well-Being: A Conceptual, Historical, and Public Policy Perspective.

The primary theme of this article, which serves as the introductory contribution of a special section of the American Psychologist, is that work plays a central role in the development, expression, and maintenance of psychological health. The argument underlying this assumption is articulated at the outset of the article in conjunction with a historical review of vocational psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. The article follows with an overview of contemporary vocational psychology and a presentation of the psychology-of-working perspective, which has emerged from critiques of vocational psychology and from multicultural, feminist, and expanded epistemological analyses of psychological explorations of working. Three illustrative lines of inquiry in which research has affected the potential for informing public policy are presented. These three lines of scholarship (role of work in recovery from mental illness; occupational health psychology; and working, racism, and psychological health) are reviewed briefly to furnish exemplars of how the psychological study of working can inform public policy.

The Role of Goal Instability and Career Self-Efficacy in the Career Exploration Process.

Abstract This study sought to ascertain why individuals engage in exploratory activity in late adolescence and early adulthood. A review of the relevant career development and human motivation literatures suggested that goal-directedness and career self-efficacy beliefs would be predictive of environmental and self-exploration. Measures of goal instability, career decision-making self-efficacy, and environmental and self-exploratory activity were administered to 106 college students. A canonical analysis was conducted, yielding one significant canonical root that accounted for 37% of the variance between canonical composites. A close examination of this root suggested that self-efficacious beliefs about career decision making and, to a somewhat lesser extent, goal-directedness are associated with environmental and self-exploration. These results were related to theory, research, and practice on the career exploration process.

Attachment Theory and Career Development: Current Status and Future Directions

This article reviews the growing literature on attachment theory and career development. The empirical and theoretical literature that has examined the contribution of attachment theory to ego identity formation, preimplementation career behavior, and postimplementation career adjustment is reviewed. Drawing from this literature, four propositions are advanced to guide subsequent empirical and theoretical efforts in this area. Implications for counseling practice that are derived from this review are also presented.

A Theory-Building Investigation of the School-to-Work Transition

This study sought to enhance an understanding of the school-to-work transition for work-bound high school students. The objective was to identify individual and contextual factors relevant to the school-to-work transition. The authors obtained interview data from a diverse sample of 45 employed young men and women (aged 18-29) who have been in this transition during the past 10 years. Using a grounded theory approach, a coding system was developed with quantitative and qualitative indexes. The authors used job satisfaction and occupational choice congruence as subjective and objective means of capturing an adaptive school-to-work transition. Initial correlational analyses were conducted with quantitatively derived variables to provide a framework for qualitative analyses. Qualitative analyses of participant narratives revealed several individual and contextual factors that characterize the adaptive school-to-work transition. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for career development theory as well as some propositions to guide future inquiry in this area.

An Emancipatory Communitarian Approach to Vocational Development Theory, Research, and Practice

Building on recent calls for a more explicit and intentional endorsement of social justice goals within counseling psychology and vocational psychology, this article proposes Prilleltensky’s (1997) emancipatory communitarian approach to psychological practice as a useful framework for vocational theory, practice, and research. Such a framework emphasizes the distinction between the concepts of work and career and illuminates the extent to which traditional vocational psychology has attended to the needs of the people who experience little, if any, volition in their choices of career or line of work. We present a rationale for integrating an emancipatory communitarian approach into vocational psychology theory and the implications of this approach for future research and practice.

Voices of the Forgotten Half: The Role of Social Class in the School-to-Work Transition.

This study examines the impact of social class on the school-to-work (STW) transitions of young adults in working-class occupations. Using an exploratory, qualitative research methodology, interviews were conducted with 10 men and 10 women to examine the role of social class in the STW transition. All participants were working in low-skilled jobs and grouped into 2 cohorts based on their family’s socioeconomic background: higher socioeconomic status (HSES) and lower socioeconomic status (LSES). The findings indicate that social class played an important role in the participants’ STW transition. Individuals from the HSES cohort expressed greater interest in work as a source of personal satisfaction, higher levels of self-concept crystallization, greater access to external resources, and greater levels of career adaptability compared with their LSES counterparts.

The relationship between motivational processes and career exploration

Abstract The purpose of this investigation was to examine the theoretical and empirical relationships between motivational processes, and career exploration beliefs and behavior. In order to test propositions that were derived from a review of the relevant career development and human motivation literatures, an individual differences measure of motivational orientations and a multidimensional measure of exploratory activity and beliefs were administered to 154 undergraduates (mean age = 18.7). A canonical analysis, which included age and gender along with the three motivational orientations, yielded one significant canonical root that accounted for 22% of the variance between canonical composites. This root indicated that the autonomy and control orientations, which are associated with intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation, respectively, are positively related to self-exploration and beliefs in the instrumentality of career decision-making exploration. The results were related to theory, research, and practice on the role of motivational processes in career development.

The Interface of Work and Relationships Critical Knowledge for 21st Century Psychology

This article introduces the Major Contribution in this issue of The Counseling Psychologist on the interface of work and interpersonal relationships. Initially, the various lines of literature that highlight the central place that work plays in human life are reviewed and integrated. The critically important perspectives offered by the relational movement are then reviewed with a particular focus on how this emerging body of work is transforming some fundamental beliefs within psychology. The existing literature on the connections between work and relationships is summarized next with attention to identifying the considerable needs for continued research and theory development in this line of inquiry. The article concludes by providing the reader with a framework with which to derive maximal meaning from the qualitative, discovery-oriented findings presented in the three articles by Phillips, Christopher-Sisk, and Gravino; Schultheiss, Kress, Manzi, and Glasscock; and Blustein, Fama, White, Ketterson, Shaefer, Schwam, Sirin, and Skau that collectively make up this Major Contribution.

The Development and Validation of a Two-Dimensional Model of the Commitment to Career Choices Process.

Abstract This monograph describes the development and validation of a two-dimensional model of the commitment to career choices process, which was operationally defined by the Commitment to Career Choices Scale. Drawing on an integrative literature review, two independent constructs pertaining to the commitment process were defined: a Vocational Exploration and Commitment (VEC) dimension reflecting variations in ones level of commitment to career choices, and a Tendency to Foreclose (TTF) dimension assessing individual differences in how one commits to career choices. Using a combination of methodological procedures (e.g., confirmatory factor analysis, expert raters), these two dimensions were first defined and then investigated via two construct validation studies. When considered collectively, the findings indicated that the first dimension (represented by the VEC scale) assesses progress in the commitment process from an uncommitted, exploratory phase to a highly committed phase. The second dimension (represented by the TTF scale) assesses a continuum that ranges from an openness to the experiences of the commitment process to a closed, dualistic approach. The results were discussed in relation to research, theory, and practice.

Vocational Hope and Vocational Identity: Urban Adolescents’ Career Development

Emancipatory communitarian perspectives advocate for theory, research, and action that address the needs of oppressed groups, such as urban adolescents. Considering the dearth of instruments sensitive to the career development needs of urban adolescents, this study examined the component structure of three indices of career development with 220 urban high school students. Analyses revealed a unique four-component (connection to work, vocational identity, commitment to chosen career, salience of chosen career) solution best fit the model. In addition to the traditional emphasis on vocational identity and future orientation in theories of career development, the obtained component solution suggests that (in a social context with pressure to disconnect) remaining connected to one’s vocational future in the face of external barriers, “vocational hope,” may be a particularly important consideration in urban adolescents’ career development.