Career Theory: Brief Overview
Frank Parson: Father of Vocational Guidance (Trait-oriented approach)
Three step procedure for career decision making:
 Study the individual
 Survey occupations
 Match the individual with the occupation
TRAIT-FACTOR THEORIES
John Holland: Holland Theory/RIASEC Theory/Holland Typology/Congruence Theory
 Career choice is an expression of personality
 Six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional
 Six work environments: (RIASEC)
 Key concepts: congruence, consistency, differentiation, identity, calculus, hexagon, SDS
Summary Code,
 Instruments: SDS, Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI), My Vocational Situation, Position
Classification Inventory (PCI)
 Most visible and practical, researched career theory
Person-Environment Correspondence (PEC) (Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA): Lofquist and Dawis
 Individuals seek to achieve and maintain a positive relationship with their work environment
 To survive, the individual and the work environment must correspond (congruence)
 Work adjustment: the process of achieving and maintaining correspondence
 Job satisfaction is a significant indicator of work adjustment
 Terms: Work Reinforcers, vocational needs (values), job satisfaction, job satisfactoriness,
personality style, ability dimensions,
DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES
Donald Super: Life-Span, Life Space Approach (14 propositions)
 Occupational choice should be considered an unfolding process, not a point-in-time event
 Self-concept system is the picture a person has of self in numerous roles and situations (one of
Super’s most significant and unique contributions to vocational psychology)
 Developmental stages and vocational developmental tasks
 Life-Career Rainbow
 Archway Model
 Vocational (Career)Maturity
 Cyclical Counseling
 C-DAC Model (Career Development Assessment and Counseling)
Developmental Theories continued…
Ginzberg, Ginzburg, Axelrad, and Herma (Ginzberg Group)
 First to posit a theory of occupational choice from a developmental approach
 Stressed the importance of early choices in the career decision making process
 Occupational choice is a lifelong process that often requires re-assessment
 Three stages of occupational choice (fantasy, tentative, realistic)
 Useful approach for elementary school counselors (role of play and fantasy)
David Tiedeman and R.P. O’hara
 Stresses the importance of ego identity and self-development
 A decision making paradigm that parallels Erickson’s psycho-social stages
Theory of Circumscription: Linda Gottfredson
 Model of Occupational Aspirations
 People want jobs that fit their own self-image
 Key determinants of self-image: social class, level of intelligence, sex-typing
 People construct their own cognitive maps that are compatible with their self-image
 Terms: Stages of Circumspection, compromise, social space, cognitive map (zone of acceptable
alternatives)
SOCIAL LEARNING & COGNITIVE THEORIES
Learning Theory of Career Counseling (LTCC): John Krumboltz
 Four factors: genetic endowments and special abilities, environmental conditions and events,
learning experiences, task approach skills
 Emphasis on learning experiences throughout the life span
 Career counselors are professionals who promote client learning
 Happenstance Approach: Planned Happenstance is an amendment to LTCC
o Unplanned events are opportunities for learning
o Open-mindedness displaces indecision
Career Information Processing Perspective: Peterson, Sampson and Reardon
 Based on models of Cognitive-Behavioral Theory/Models
 Major strategy is to provide learning events that develop an individual’s processing abilities
 Career problem solving is a cognitive process that can be improved through a sequential
procedure known as CASVE (CASVE Cycle): Communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing,
execution
 Pyramid of Information Processing
Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT): Lent, Brown and Hackett
 Derived from Bandura’s General Social Cognitive Theory
 SCCT subscribes to Bandura’s model of causality (Triadic reciprocal)
 Three central variables: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, personal goals
 Additional key terms: personal agency and career beliefs
 The Towards Working Life (TWL) intervention (one week intensive workshop)
PERSON IN ENVIRONMENT PERSPECTIVE (Contextual or constructivist approach)
 Narrative Approach: Mark Savickas
o Contextual interactions over the life span
o The Career Style Interview (CSI)

Contextual explanation of career: (constructivism: people construct their own reality)
OTHER THEORIES
Ann Roe: A Needs Approach
 Early relations within the family and their subsequent effects are the key to understanding
career direction
 Person-oriented or nonperson oriented
Value-Based, Holistic Model of Career and Life-Role Choices and Satisfaction: Duane Brown
 Values are the fundamental building block of personality and considered most important in the
career decision making process
Sociological Perspective on Work and Career Development
 Emphasize the interrelationship of psychological, sociological, and economic factors
 Status attainment theory, sociology of labor markets, race and gender, school processes, family
effects, work commitment/environment
Chaos Theory: Robert Pryor & Jim Bright
 The complexity of influences on career development make accurate predictability challenging.
 Elements of chaos theory that can be used to help counselors assist clients include:
o Complexity
o Emergence
o Nonlinearity
o Unpredictability
o Phase Shifts
o Attractors
Sunny Hansen: Integrated Life Planning (ILP): A Holistic Theory for Career Counseling with Adults
 Life Planning includes work/career but also multiple aspects of life and their interrelatedness
 Quilts and quilters are a primary metaphor (various pieces fitting together to make a whole
along with the care and nurturing {counselors} that go into making a quilt)
 A second metaphor, Mother Earth, an image that evokes wholeness and connectedness
ADDITIONAL NAMES
David Blustein: “Integrative Relationship Theory of Working”
 In this original and major work, David Blustein places working at the same level of attention for
social and behavioral scientists and psychotherapists as other major life concerns, such as
intimate relationships, physical and mental health, and socio-economic inequities.
 The Psychology of Working perspective is an alternative to traditional career development
theories which have primarily explored the lives of those with choice and volition in their
working lives. This perspective addresses the lives of those who traditionally have been ignored
or forgotten because of their social class or as a result of racism and other forms of social
oppression (based on disability status, sexual orientation, immigration status, age, gender,
poverty, and/or lack of access to material and social resources and opportunities).
John Crites: Developed a comprehensive model of career counseling
HB Gelatt: Positive Uncertainty (A creative decision making approach)