Super’s Theory: Late Adolescence to
Early Adulthood
Indicators of the Salience of Life Roles
Indicators of the Salience of Life Roles
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Involvement is measured in terms of:
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Participation - measures actual behavior of a
person
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Commitment - future plans, a desire to be
active
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Knowledge - information about a role from
experiencing the role or by observing it
Value Expectations -opportunity for various roles
to meet a variety of needs; values measured by
Value Expectation Scale of the Salience Inventory;
includes 14 value expectations*:
Value Expectations
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Ability utilization – using one’s skills and knowledge
Achievement – feeling that one has produced good results
Aesthetics – finding beauty in the role one chooses
Altruism – helping others with problems
Autonomy – independent and working on your own
Creativity – discovering or designing new things
Economic Rewards – to have a have a high standard of living and
material things
Lifestyle – plan one’s own activities and live the way you want to
Physical activity – being physically active
Prestige – opportunity for individuals to be acknowledged for what they
accomplish
Risk – dangerous or exciting challenges
Social Interaction – being with other people and working in a group
Variety – being able to change work activities
Working Conditions
Life Roles
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Studying--Includes a number of activities: during school years – courses, school,
studying at library or home. Many people continue their education at some point in
their life for pleasure or to enhance their job advancement or success
Working-May start in childhood (e.g. babysitting, mowing lawn, etc.). Adolescents
usually get part-time work. Adults work at one or more jobs at various times in their
lives. At retirement, jobs for pay or profit may be for fewer hours than when
individuals were younger
Community Service
Includes broad range of voluntary service groups (e.g. social, political, or religious)
Home and Family
Varies greatly depending on age of individual
As adults enter later years, their responsibility for home and family may increase or
decrease markedly
Leisure Activities
Nature and importance of leisure varies considerably throughout life
Particularly important for children and adolescents
Lifetime sports – sports that are less physically demanding and require fewer
participants, so they are easier for adults to participate in at various times in their
lives
Citizen
Child
Parent
ADULT LIFE STAGES
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Basic Stages of Career Development
Exploration – 15 to 25 years old, the efforts that individuals
make to get a better idea of occupational information, choose
career alternatives, decide on occupations, and start to work.
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Crystallizing – clarify what they want to do, learn about entry-
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Specifying - college graduates, early 20’s, high school students
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Implementing - last phase prior to working, making plans to
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level jobs, typically high school students, narrow choices
who go straight to work, must choose their first full-time job,
specify their preferences so they may find an employer
fulfill their career objectives, start to network, talking to
university counselor
ADULT LIFE STAGES
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Establishment - 25 to 45, getting established in one’s work by
starting in a job that is likely to mean the start of working life,
work in an occupation that will probably be steady for many
years, for semi- and unskilled workers, it refers to the person
who works for much of his or her lifetime.
Stabilizing - settling down in a job and being able to meet those
job requirements that will ensure that a person can stay in the
field in which he started, apprehensive about whether he has
the skills necessary to stay with the work
Consolidating - starts to become more comfortable with work
and wants to be a dependable producer, competent, and
reliable
Advancing - occurs any time in the establishing stage, moving
ahead into a position of more responsibility with higher pay
ADULT LIFE STAGES
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Maintenance - 45 to 65, not advancing,
but maintaining their status in work. Find
out how their work will change in the
future
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Holding - some level of success has been
attained, concerned with holding onto the
position that they have
Updating - updating workers on changes in
their field, learning new things
Innovating - making progress in one’s
profession, develop new skills
ADULT LIFE STAGES
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Disengagement - continue to use their mental
capacities for growth and at the same time
disengage from various activities (e.g. work)
Deceleration - slowing down one’s work
responsibility (i.e. finding easier ways to do work
or spending less time at work)
Retirement Planning - financial planning and
planning activities to do when retired, individuals
return to crystallization stage
Retirement Living - late 60’s, leisure, home and
family, and community service becomes more
important than work
Recycling
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Not everyone follows stages in a
neat orderly outline, may reenter
any stage at any time
SUPER’S LIFE STAGES OF WOMEN
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1.
Stable homemaking career pattern - get married soon after school
and do not work
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2.
Conventional career pattern - enter work after high school or
college, but after marrying, they are full-time homemakers
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3.
Stable career working pattern - after school, work continuously
4.
Double-track career pattern - combine work and homemaking
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5.
Interrupted career pattern - enter work, then marry and full-time
homemaking, then go back to work after children are older
6.
Unstable career pattern - drop out of workforce, return, drop out,
return.
7.
Multiple-trial career pattern - works, but never really establishes
career, has a number of unrelated jobs in her career
Bardwick described typical
experiences of women at various
points in their adult life
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1.
Many women between 30 to 40 who have been involved
in a career are concerned with not wanting to delay having
children any longer
2.
Many women are concerned with balancing their
professional role and their feminine role
3.
Between 40 to 50, women start to develop more
autonomy and to become more independent. Women got back
to work after children have gotten older, not a time of
maintenance, but of career accomplishments
4.
Bardwick is contrasted with Super by her notion that
marriage and family are important to women’s career decision
making and planning
5.
Ecological perspective focuses on relationship between
women and their environment
LIFE STAGES OF CULTURALLY DIVERSE
ADULTS
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Minority Identity Development (Atkinson, et al.)
1. Conformity - prefer majority culture
2. Dissonance - through information and
experience, encounter conflict and confusion
between values of own culture and majority’s
3. Resistance and immersion - rejects dominant
culture and embraces minority culture
4. Introspection - begins to question total
acceptance of minority culture
5. Synergetic articulation and awareness incorporates cultural values of both the dominant
group and other minorities