Perceived social status and learning experiences in Social Cognitive Career Theory

The purpose of this study was to test a model based on Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) that placed perceived social status as an antecedent of career-related learning experiences, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations. Gender was included in the present model and results indicated that gender related as expected to differential exposure to career-related learning experiences in Holland's (1997) RIASEC domains. After controlling for the effects of gender, results demonstrated that perceived social status related positively to learning experiences in the Investigative, Enterprising, and Conventional areas among 380 college students. Further, these enhanced learning experiences mediated the relationships between perceived social status and self-efficacy, and between perceived social status and outcome expectations, for the Investigative, Enterprising, and Conventional areas. These findings highlight the importance of perceived social status as a predictor of exposure to different types of career-related learning experiences that subsequently shape students' self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and (presumably) interests in particular RIASEC areas. Results are discussed in terms of exposure to career-related learning experiences in RIASEC domains with differing levels of prestige and implications of these results for developing interventions to enhance the learning experiences of students who report lower levels of perceived social status are presented.