a review of career flow: a hope‐centered approach to career development

Spencer G. Niles, Norman E. Amundson, and Roberta A. Neault. (2011). Career Flow: A Hope‐Centered Approach to Career Development. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall. 264 pages, $32.00 List, ISBN 978–0132241908.     

Cognitive career counseling: A rationalemotive approach to career development

The application of cognitive techniques to the career counseling process has been minimal. Since the career and personal development of individuals is interwoven, practitioners from a variety of disciplines are faced with a wide range of complex presenting problems regardless of their specialty. Providing occupational information and assessing job skills are partial components of the career counseling process. This paper addresses the cognitive barriers which interfere with successful career development. Cognitive career counseling (CCC) is described as a methodology for helping clients modify their vocational irrational beliefs (VIBes) so that they may achieve their career and personal goals during realistically unstable changes in economic conditions.Diana R. Richman, Ph.D., Senior Supervisor, Staff Psychologist, and Graduate Fellow, Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, New York City, maintains a private practice in Queens and Manhattan. She is Director of Clinical Supervision at APPLE Continuing Treatment Program, and serves as an organizational consultant.     

A life-span,life-space approach to career development

A career is defined as the combination and sequence of roles played by a person during the course of a lifetime. These roles include those of child, pupil or student, leisurite, citizen, worker, spouse, homemaker, parent, and pensioner, positions with associated expectations that are occupied at some time by most people, and other less common roles such as those of criminal, reformer, and lover. A Life-Career Rainbow is presented as a means of helping conceptualize multidimensional careers, the temporal involvement in, and the emotional commitment to, each role. Self-actualization in various roles, role conflicts, and the determinants of role selection and of role performance are discussed. The use of the Rainbow in career education and in counseling is briefly considered.     

A self-efficacy approach to the career development of women

An approach to the conceptualization and facilitation of women's career development based on Bandura, 1977, Bandura, 1977, 84, 191–215) self-efficacy theory is presented. The model presented postulates that largely as a result of socialization experiences, women lack strong expectations of personal efficacy in relationship to many career-related behaviors and, thus, fail to fully realize their capabilities and talents in career pursuits. Sex differences in the access to and availability of four sources of information important to the development of strong expectations of personal efficacy are reviewed and discussed in relationship to women's career decisions and achievements. The utility of the proposed model for integrating existing knowledge of women's career development, for generating productive avenues of inquiry, and for guiding intervention efforts is discussed. The conceptual framework provided is seen as having implications for the career development of men as well as women, but the focus herein is on its potential for contributing to knowledge of the career development of women.     

Empowering high‐risk clients to attain a better quality of life: a career resiliency framework

Career counselors frequently encounter clients who are at high risk for career and life development difficulties. Research suggests there is a connection between resiliency and successful career development in high‐risk clients. Many high‐risk individuals have poor decision‐making skills and lack motivation to succeed in life and career development. This article describes a career resiliency framework in which career resiliency is best understood within the context of psychological resiliency. Specifically, this article explicates how career counseling from a resiliency theory perspective may promote successful career development for populations dealing with multiple barriers.     

Children’s career development: A research review from a learning perspective

Recent advances in career theory have resulted in widespread acceptance of the lifespan perspective on development. However, a review of research and practice conducted during 2001 revealed that little attention has been paid to the career development of children (Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002). In response to calls for a greater concentration on this important stage in the lifespan, the present article uses learning as a unifying theme to structure a research review of career development in children. This theme highlights the need to understand more holistically the influences on and the process of career development learning in children. The learning framework accommodates the dynamic and interactional nature of career development and suggests the need for dual focus research that examines the what and the how of children’s career development learning.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1980: A review

Papers were reviewed in the sections where their major findings seemed to have the most important implications. Since it typically was not possible to do justice to individual studies in a few lines of summary, readers are referred to the specific articles of their interest for further information regarding other findings.As has been the case in the past several years, the number of studies related to vocational behavior and career development appears to be expanding, along with perceptions of what is relevant to the field. As greater emphasis is placed on the working life of individuals after initial occupational choices are made, researchers on vocational behavior and career development will increasingly find it necessary to synthesize research findings from the areas of industrial/organizational psychology, organizational sociology, and organizational behavior and theory. This factor may suggest greater collaboration among researchers across these fields in the future. In any event, the broadening base of relevant research, while challenging, also is an exciting development with rich potential for increased knowledge of vocational behavior.As Walsh mentioned in his review of 1978 literature, there is a vital need for more work of a longitudinal nature. We see some increase this year, but we are too frequently forced to draw conclusions regarding long-term vocational development from studies which are mainly crosssectional and correlational in nature.Among the research directions of note this year is the increasing emphasis on information processing/decision-making frameworks as a means of studying the vocation development process. Other trends were the growing concern with the relationship between work and nonwork, interest in recruitment processes, and the emphasis on situational as well as individual factors in predicting vocational behavior.     

A mixed-method approach to post-retirement career planning

In times of rising longevity and shortage of skilled workers, post-retirement work has become increasingly prevalent in many countries. However, not much is known about the expectations and facilitating factors associated with work-related activities after retirement. In two studies we draw on the social cognitive career theory and investigated the role of outcome expectations and facilitating factors in post-retirement career planning. First, we interviewed 22 older employees and subject matter experts in a German aerospace company to learn more about expectations of post-retirement work and its facilitating factors to build a theoretical model. Second, to test our theoretical model, 212 employees of the same company aged 50 to 65 completed a web-based survey. Results showed that outcome expectations and the facilitating factors identified in the interview study were significantly related to post-retirement career intention. Further, the facilitating factor social approval moderated the relationship between outcome expectations and post-retirement career intention. We discuss implications of our findings in terms of how they inform retirement counselors, organizations, and society to help increase engagement in work-related activities after retirement.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1979: A review

Selected books and articles published in 1979 are summarized in this review of the literature on vocational behavior and career development. The articles are in journals representing the fields of vocational psychology, sociology, and organizational behavior. The topics covered include: perspectives on work; assessment measures; vocational aspirations-choice; job seeking and recruitment; occupational careers; motivations, needs, and goals; worker adjustment; work and the social structure; and interventions. The paper concludes with observations on literature trends and research needs.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1983: A review

This article reviews the literature related to vocational behavior and career development published during 1983. Journals in the fields of psychology, sociology, and organizational behavior were examined, and 445 relevant articles published in 42 different journals were identified. The review is organized around issues pertinent to the counseling psychology perspective (i.e., career development, vocational choice, vocational behavior of women, assessment, intervention strategies) and the industrial/organizational psychology perspective (i.e., personnel functions, worker adjustment problems, work adjustment) on vocational behavior.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1978: A review

In sum, the research in 1978 was diverse and of good quality and quantity. However, there continues to be a clear need for longitudinal research of all kinds (in particular on the career development process) and a need for additional research with the employed adult population, although the past few years demonstrate improvement in the latter area.In 1978 the most productive research area as suggested by this review was associated with the women's movement and manifested by research primarily on sex stereotyping and women's careers. Ranking second was the topic of theoretical developments in vocational behavior led by the research on Holland's constructs. These two research trends accounted for about 50 studies; 26 and 24, respectively. Job satisfaction assumed the third position with some concentration on satisfaction and work motivation. Next and very much clustered were life-span aspects, assessment, and job performance. Each of these research themes stimulated about 17 studies that were reviewed here. Vocational interventions and race differences received moderate attention while job interview variables and occupational environments sparked very limited work in the more psychologically oriented journals.The major contributor to the 1978 review was of course the Journal of Vocational Behavior (62 studies), followed by the Journal of Applied Psychology (25 studies). Five other journals contributed an average of about 10 studies. These were the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Measurement and Evaluation in Guidance, the Journal of Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Personnel Psychology, and the Vocational Guidance Quarterly. These appear to be the major journals publishing work on vocational behavior and career development.Finally, the volume of research on vocational psychology continued on an upward trend in 1978. This review and the previous reviews (Betz, 1977; Osipow, 1976; Zytowski, 1978) clearly document this trend.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1976: A review

This review covers selections from the literature published in 1976 on topics of interest in vocational and career behavior and development. Both theoretical and research contributions are included, representing investigations in vocational choice, career maturity and development, stereotyping, measurement, vocational behavior, and related variables.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1977: A review

This review covers several books and selections from several journals published in 1977 on topics in vocational behavior and career development. Coverage includes theoretical contributions in vocational choice, development and correlates of choice, decision and indecision, assessment of career skills and interests, self-estimates, and sex bias. Material relating to the vocational behavior of adults contains sections on theory, satisfaction, performance, career development, and mid-career change. A final section is devoted to a review of studies of interventions.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1982: A review

This paper reviews the research published on vocational behavior and career development in 1982. A total of 278 studies published in 31 journals are reviewed. The literature is presented in the following major categories: discrimination; performance; turnover; satisfaction; commitment and involvement; job analysis and evaluation; selection and classification; life history experiences; performance appraisal; assessment centers; training; unions and collective bargaining; alternate work schedules; job design; pay; motivation; leadership; stress; Type A behavior; career preference, choice and behavior; consistency; maturity; indecision; work orientation; assessment; interventions; instrumentation; and methodology. Trends in current research and possible directions for future research are discussed.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1975: A review

This paper presents a review of selected literature concerning career development and vocational behavior during 1975. Topics covered include sex roles and career development, women's careers, recent trends in interest measurement, trends in vocational theory, life span aspects of career development, vocational interventions, and racial differences and similarities in career development.     

Eliminating barriers to career development of women

Women, the largest group of “minority” workers, are actively seeking to reduce inequities in opportunities for career development. Counselors and clinicians, who as a group have been found to hold sex-role stereotypes, probably restrict the career opportunities of women. Vocational counselors of women need to consider key questions such as the number of children women would like to have. Researchers, in studying the job performance of highly educated women, need to investigate the amount of financial, clerical, and student assistance received by men and women scholars. Such research might in part explain sex differences in research productivity.     

From career decision-making styles to career decision-making profiles: A multidimensional approach

Previous research on individual differences in career decision-making processes has often focused on classifying individuals into a few types of decision-making styles based on the most dominant trait or characteristic of their approach to the decision process (e.g., rational, intuitive, dependent; Harren, 1979). In this research, an alternative approach, which offers a multidimensional profile characterization of individuals’ career decision-making processes based on a simultaneous consideration of 11 dimensions, is presented. Thus, the proposed model refers to career decision-making profiles rather than career decision-making styles. The model, which emerged from a systematic analysis of previous research, was refined on the basis of preliminary empirical tests (five samples, N = 2764) using the Career Decision-Making Profile (CDMP) questionnaire. Study 1 reports the psychometric properties and the results of an exploratory factor analysis of the CDMP questionnaire, in a sample of young adults deliberating their career decisions (N = 285). Study 2 presents the results of a confirmatory factor analysis, based on Israeli (N = 431) and US (N = 208) samples of young adults. The results of both studies supported the hypothesized 11 dimensions. The implications for future research and for counseling are discussed.