Jim E. H. Bright

The Chaos Theory of Careers.

Most contemporary theories of career development have difficulty taking into account current realities of career decision-making including complexity, change, constructivism and chance. We sought a conceptual formulation that incorporated the best of contemporary theories in a larger framework, which at the same time incorporated such realities. Under the influence of four intellectual currents—contextualism/ecology; systems theory; realism/constructivism; and chaos theory—an attempt was made to adumbrate a chaos theory of careers emphasising complexity, order, randomness and sensitivity to non-linear change.

Order and chaos: a twenty-first century formulation of careers

A chaos theory of career choice and development is outlined. Traditional trait–factor theories of career choice and development overlook too many pertinent influences on career decision-making, such as change and chance events. As a consequence these reductionist approaches fail to adequately capture some of the most salient influences on an individuals career decisions. More recent systems theory approaches better acknowledge the complex array of influences and the recursive nature of many of those influences. These models have been useful in providing taxonomy of influences that have frequently been overlooked. Developing from such models the chaos theory of careers is outlined. The chaos theoretical approach to career decision-making builds upon this identified complex array of influences. It provides a framework for understanding why career trajectories are not exactly repeatable, how relatively minor changes in subtle variables can lead to major changes in career path and how realist and constructiv...

Testing the 3-factor model of occupational stress: The impact of demands, control and social support on a mail sorting task

This study tests a 3-factor model of occupational stress, which predicts that job demands, job control and social support influence levels of strain. In a laboratory simulation of mail sorting, task demands, control and social supports were manipulated systematically. Pre- and post-task measures of self reported stress and arousal were compared across groups. Performance was measured continuously during the computer task and all 120 participants reported their perceived performance afterwards. Stress was found to be higher and perceived performance was lower in conditions of high demand; this pattern was also observed in conditions of low social support. Contrary to the hypotheses put forward in this paper, task control did not affect stress and the manipulations did not interact to produce elevated stress. However, task performance was poorer in conditions of high demand and in conditions of low control, and there was a significant interaction between demand and control for performance. Work preference m...

Helping people to sort it out: The role of social support in the Job Strain Model

This paper reports three studies of occupational stress investigating the role of social support as an intervening variable in the Job Strain Model (Karasek, 1979). A computer simulated mail-sorting work environment was used to assess the effect of demands, control and social support on measures of strain, satisfaction, and perceived and actual task performance. The first experiment ( N =60) tests the basic Job Strain Model by manipulating levels of task demand and control. The second experiment ( N =120) compares high and low levels of two types of social support (informational support and emotional support) to determine whether and how they interact with extreme conditions of the Job Strain Model (high strain and low strain). The final experiment ( N =90) investigates positive and negative forms of social support (praise and criticism) in relation to extreme job strain conditions. Results show that the job strain model is consistent with the stress and performance data, although stress showed no Demand 2 Control interaction. Social supports increased arousal, satisfaction and perceived performance, but did not affect stress or task performance. Moreover, contrary to buffer theories, social supports did not interact with the job strain variables. Congruence between preferred and experienced emotional support levels also predicted performance.

The relationship between the structural mere exposure effect and the implicit learning process

Three experiments are reported that investigate the relationship between the structural mere exposure effect (SMEE) and implicit learning in an artificial grammar task. Subjects were presented with stimuli generated from a finite-state grammar and were asked to memorize them. In a subsequent test phase subjects were required first to rate how much they liked novel items, and second whether or not they thought items conformed to the rules of the grammar. A small but consistent effect of grammaticality was found on subjects’ liking ratings (a “structural mere exposure effect”) in all three experiments, but only when encoding and testing conditions were consistent. A change in the surface representation of stimuli between encoding and test (Experiment 1), memorizing fragments of items and being tested on whole items (Experiment 2), and a mismatch of processing operations between encoding and test (Experiment 3) all removed the SMEE. In contrast, the effect of grammaticality on rule judgements remained intact in the face of all three manipulations. It is suggested that rule judgements reflect attempts to explicitly recall information about training items, whereas the SMEE can be explained in terms of an attribution of processing fluency.

Bonuses, goals, and instrumentality effects.

Three experimental studies showed that bonuses based on end-of-period determinations of standards led to the setting of more challenging goals but lower performance than a control condition in which bonuses were based on the achievement of self-set goals. Performance differences between the bonus and control conditions were not mediated by levels of self-set goals or goal commitment as predicted by goal theory. However, self-set goals and self-efficacy were significant predictors of performance within both the bonus and control conditions. Changes in performance under the end-of-period bonus condition in Study 3 were fully mediated by judgments of instrumentality. Participants in the end-of-period bonus condition were less certain of receiving a bonus, and this negatively affected their performance. Implications for the use of appraisal ratings to allocate bonuses and for the design of bonus schemes for management are discussed.

Modelling occupational stress and health: the impact of the demand–control model on academic research and on workplace practice

Kareseks demand–control model has been extremely influential and is widely used to predict a range of health outcomes, yet there have been comparatively few intervention studies and relatively little evidence of its impact on the design of work to improve health. This article discusses the tension between meeting the need for a model of psychosocial work factors and health outcomes which is simple enough to be theoretically useful in multidisciplinary research over a wide range of occupations yet is specific enough to generate useful information to influence policies and guide interventions. It is suggested that the success of the model in driving research has led to the neglect of a range of other psychosocial factors. Furthermore, while the appeal of the model lies in its apparent simplicity, variables are too broadly defined and complex to easily translate research findings into practical recommendations. To provide more practically useful evidence about risk factors, it is suggested that epidemiological studies should employ more clearly defined and specific variables incorporated in more complex psychosocial models which take into account the work context and the changing nature of work.

Shiftwork: A Chaos Theory of Careers Agenda for Change in Career Counselling

This paper presents the implications of the Chaos Theory of Careers for career counselling in the form of Shiftwork. Shiftwork represents an expanded paradigm of career counselling based on complexity, change and uncertainty. Eleven paradigm shifts for careers counselling are outlined to incorporate into contemporary practice pattern making, an emphasis on planning, openness, flexibility, risk, possibility thinking, mattering and meaning, transforming information, scalable reasoning, emergence and trust as faith.

The Impact of Competency Statements on Résumés for Short‐listing Decisions

Sixty-two managers and human resource consultants rated a series of genuine resumes with covering letters. The resumes were manipulated to contain varying amounts of information about the candidate’s knowledge, skills and abilities (competency statements). This information appeared at different locations in the resume and covering letter. In addition, half the managers were provided with extra job requirement details beyond the job advertisement. Managers rated the candidate resumes for candidate suitability, decision to interview and overall ranking. The inclusion of competency statements resulted in higher manager ratings. However, the location of the competency statements did not influence ratings given to resumes. Further, the extra information provided to managers did not influence their ratings. The results replicate and extend an earlier study by Earl, Bright and Adams (1998) and challenge the idea that selection decisions are largely based on the notion of applicant fit. The results suggest that the inclusion on the resume of statements that address job competencies even in a general fashion will boost an applicant’s chances of being short-listed.

Chaos in Practice: Techniques for Career Counsellors.

The chaos theory of careers emphasises continual change, the centrality and importance of chance events, the potential of minor events to have disproportionately large impacts on subsequent events, and the capacity for dramatic phase shifts in career behaviour This approach challenges traditional approaches to career counselling, assumptions about the importance of chance events, and the idea that counselling should aim to reduce career options to a rational and manageable set of logical choices. This new approach demands new techniques and tools to assist the counsellor and client. Four different techniques and exercises are outlined that are designed to assist a counsellor in applying chaos theory in practice. The techniques cover: reality testing; limits to rational decision making; using the media to illustrate non-linearity and chance events; and using forensic techniques to establish historic and contemporary patterns of influence on career behaviour.