Reinvigorating the concept of situation in social psychology

The concept of situation has a long and venerable history in social psychology. The author argues that recent approaches to the concept of situation have confused certain important elements. Herein, the author proposes that attention to three of these elements will reinvigorate the concept of situation in social psychology: (a) that the analysis of situations should begin with their objective features; (b) that situations should be conceptualized as affordances; and (c) that the interpersonal core of situations, in particular the extent to which they are influenced by relationships, is the proper and most profitable focus for social psychology. These elements are consistent with recent developments in the study of situated social cognition and may help better define social psychology's position within the sciences.     

Gender Role Attitudes and Careers: A Longitudinal Study

Data from the Monitoring the Future Study were used to examine the impact of early gender role attitudes on later career outcomes for women and men. We also examined the impact of marriage, children, and labor market outcomes on changes in gender role attitudes. Women’s early gender role attitudes predicted their later work hours and earnings. Women’s work hours predicted their later gender egalitarianism. Children were negatively associated with later gender egalitarianism for both women and men. Findings indicated that gender role attitudes influence subsequent behavior, but they may also be adjusted to accommodate to situational constraints.     

Careers education and the informal economies

It is suggested that careers education tends to be preoccupied with the bureaucratised sector of the formal economy. The importance of the free' sector of the formal economy is outlined, as is the growing importance of three informal economies: the 'black' economy, the 'communal' economy, and the 'household' economy. The implications for careers education of these alternative economies are discussed.     

Careers guidance in the knowledge society

In modern society individuals are becoming responsible for their own work allocation. They have to acquire so-called 'actor competences'. They have to learn to form their own identity, to determine a direction and to plan a career. However, the individual's shortage of actor competences confronts him or her with many problems; several institutions risk becoming overburdened by allocation or career problems. As a result, the role of the career counsellor must change from that of a ferryman to that of a pathfinder.     

Autonomy Within Subservient Careers

While there is much literature on autonomy and the conditions for its attainment, there is less on how those conditions reflect on agents’ ordinary careers. Most people’s careers involve a great deal of subservient activity that would prevent the kind of control over agents’ actions that autonomy would seem to require. Yet, it would seem strange to deny autonomy to every agent who regularly follows orders at work—to do so would make autonomy a futile ideal. Most contemporary autonomy accounts provide purely theoretical analysis without reference to any practical goal that autonomy could serve. These accounts are likely to resolve this issue in one direction: either almost entirely including or excluding subservient workers from autonomy. Either solution would fail to distinguish agents who sufficiently control their lives, in spite of limited subservience, according to their own standards, from agents for whom subservience precludes a fulfilling life. I suggest the solution lies in a return to goal-oriented autonomy accounts, which can use the goal to distinguish when subservience overwhelms autonomy from when subservience and autonomy can coexist. I present an account that anchors autonomy in the happiness that it provides for agents who sufficiently control their lives as determined by their more important prudential standards. On this account, agents in subservient careers can be autonomous if they determine how to make their careers consistent with their happiness.     

Academic Careers of Gifted Women

As part of a larger study concerning academically gifted college women, gifted freshman women who graduated (723) were compared with those who did not graduate (526) on certain academic variables. Graduates took an average of 12.6 quarters to complete their degrees. Average length of attendance before departure for Nongraduates was 5.8 quarters. Graduation with honors was achieved by 51.9 per cent of the Graduates. Graduates and Nongraduates differed significantly in GPA (3.06 to 2.50), contact with the Counseling Bureau (43.6 to 30.9 per cent), and in major fields of study. More Graduates had Liberal Arts (CLA) “social science,” CLA “interdepartmental and double,” Education, and Home Economics majors. More Nongraduates had CLA “English, linguistics, and languages,” CLA “natural science and mathematics,” and Business Administration majors. These results are discussed in relation to findings of the larger study concerning personality characteristics and vocational interests of gifted women, and a follow-up study of the Nongraduates.     

A Case-Study of the Careers Service Placement Function

A number of models of the placement function of the Careers Service are presented. Various hypotheses generated by the models are tested, using data collected from Careers Service records. Specifically, a multivariate analysis is performed to show which personal and social characteristics are associated with a higher probability of being submitted for a permanent vacancy. The implications of the analysis for the Careers Service are discussed.     

Life Stories and the Psychosocial Construction of Careers

ABSTRACT This paper describes and interprets the narratives that middle-aged businessmen tell about their careers It draws a symbolic connection between these men's careers and the longings and frustrations of their childhood, revealed in part by the characters that populate these men's stories But the connection is also revealed by something more abstract the formal shape of their stories' plot These plots, which emphasize relentless forward movement, are shaped by career culture, which demands constant advancement But advancement is also a psychodynamic symbol It expresses men's aggressive self-aggrandizement, while denying their desire for affection and their vulnerability to rejection The result of this alliance between psychodynamic motives and social practices is that men pursue one type of recognition–that of aggressive achievement–while they systematically disavow their longing for more personal attachment     

Careers for Women In Accounting

Progress is being made in improving employers' attitudes toward women accountants. A few years ago, most organizations did not actively recruit women accountants. Recently, however, accounting firms have become aware of the increasing number of women accounting graduates and are sending women recruiters to college campuses to recruit prospective women applicants. To analyze the progress in employment opportunities available to women during the past five years, a follow-up of a survey was conducted. Chi-square contingency tests were used to analyze some of the results. The survey showed that most accounting firms are either actively trying to solve the problem of discrimination or are at least interested in seeking solutions. Some companies indicated that they would hire more women college graduates if they were qualified accountants. Women need better career planning and counseling. They should be encouraged to study job market forecasts in view of their personal abilities and goals. Many women either have not been aware of job opportunities in accounting or have been interested in the field but discouraged by the attitudes of parents, professors, or guidance counselors, or overt discrimination by employers. In the past, such attitudes may have caused many capable women to select the more traditional “feminine” professions instead.     

Careers guidance and choosing a job

Data from the 16-year-old follow-up of the National Child Development Study relating to certain aspects of careers guidance are examined. These include the proportion of the 12,000 study children who were in schools with teachers responsible for careers guidance, the amount of training these teachers had received, and whether they were paid a special salary. The children's expected age of leaving school, their plans for further education and work, and their choice of likely first full-time jobs, are considered in relation to the presence of teachers with some training in careers guidance and to contacts with careers officers. The use made of sources of information about job choices is also described.     

French Professionals in Genetic Counselor Careers

The profession of genetic counseling in France was recognized in 2004, based on the recommendations of a mandate commissioned by the Health Minister to explore the medical demographics of France. The report predicted a shortage of health professionals in the field of genetics, particularly in light of the rapid development of molecular testing. Development of the profession was supported by a legal framework, and today 107 genetic counselors have graduated from the specific educational program which awards the Professional Master’s Degree of Human Pathology, entitled Master in Genetic Counseling and Predictive Medicine. Here we will trace the development of the profession in France and review the demographic characteristics of the students and genetic counselors practicing the profession today.     

Conditions for a Justifiable Careers Education

It is argued that an earlier analysis of careers education and guidance (R.J. Roberts, 1980) provided a justification for careers education at the level of theory, but that for this theory to give rise to practical consequences that can be similarly justified, several conditions have to be met. Six conditions relating to the operation of schools are discussed, and a number of further lines for consideration are identified.     

Careers Guidance and Counselling in England

This article gives a brief background on the history and recent developments in career counselling for young children, high school students, unemployed teenagers, and university undergraduates.     

Transition Discontinuities and the Biographical Shaping of Early Work Careers

Because of the restructuring of work and deregulation of the labor market school-to-work transitions have been predicted to become destandardized. These structural changes will finally also erode Germany's renowned dual system of apprenticeship training. From an economic-structural point of view it is likely that young persons' social integration and biographical plans can no longer rely on this occupation-driven transition arrangement. Based on a quantitative and qualitative longitudinal study with young adults in two German labor-market regions, this exploratory study shows that the dual system not only trains for certain occupations, but also socializes for the contingencies of the labor market. The results are interpreted in the new conceptual framework of self-socialization, which links individual agency with social contexts across the life course in terms of a biography-environment fit. Applied to transition discontinuities and shifting contexts of career development, processes of self-socialization are reflected in different modes of biographical agency in the shaping of early employment careers. Self-initiated and enforced discontinuous employment and occupational change are mediated by various constellations of occupational contexts and modes of biographical agency. The study suggests that for young adults the dual system still provides skills and orientations for coping with career discontinuity.     

Super's Career Stages and the Decision to Change Careers

This study examined Super's (1990) concept of recycling through the stages of adult career development in a sample of 226 Australian men and women who were approximately evenly distributed across the following four steps in the uptake of a second career: (a) contemplating a change, (b) choosing a new field, (c) implementing a change, and (d) change fully completed. A group of adults of similar age, gender, education, occupation, and career history who had no intention of switching careers was also included for comparison. Recycling predictions were supported by the finding that the three groups who were in the throes of career change displayed greater concern with Super's first (exploration) stage than the nonchanging control group. In addition, the two groups who were most intensely involved in the change process (choosing field and implementing) scored higher in exploration concern than the group whose career change was fully completed. Satisfaction also varied as a function of the participant's stage in the process of switching to a new career. Global satisfaction with the present job was highest in workers who had completed the change to a new career, but nonchangers were more satisfied than the three groups who were actively caught up in the change process. On the other hand, satisfaction with the overall pattern of career development was higher in the two stable groups (nonchangers and change-completed) than among the three groups still actively involved in making a change. Implications of these results for midlife career counseling were considered.     

Current Developments in Computer-Assisted Careers Guidance in the USA

Four factors associated with the design and use of computer-assisted careers guidance (CACG) systems in the USA are reviewed, and likely future developments in the field are described. The four major factors include trends in CACG system development, problems related to system development, trends in system use, and problems related to system use. International collaboration in the design and use of CACG systems is identified as one possible strategy for dealing with problems in this area.     

Children and Careers: A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Young Children on Critical Career Outcomes of MBAs

The purpose of this study was to investigate theimpact of young children on the careers of men and womenwith MBAs who graduated between the years of 1973 and1982. The outcome variables studied were salary, months of non-full-time employment, andpromotions. We began our analyses by looking at the fullsample of 829 respondents. We found that men had highersalaries than women regardless of parental status. Women with young children experiencedsignificantly more months of non-full-time employmentand were more likely to drop out of the workforce thanmen and other groups of women. The spouses of men with young children and only older children workedin paid employment significantly fewer hours than allother groups of respondents. Those women with youngchildren who did remain continuously in the paidworkforce did not appear to experience any salary benefitbased on this decision. Interruptions to full-time workwere detrimental for women without children or thosewomen whose children were older. In general, having children was correlated with lowersalaries for women and higher salaries formen.