Essays on Vocational Psychology and Career Counseling

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What Was Vocational Psychology?
Andrew D. Carson, VocationalPsychology.com

Introduction
Seven Subfields
Differentiation from Kindred Fields
Conclusions
References
Author Note

Introduction

In this essay, I explore what I will call the "received view" of vocational psychology, and the orientation will be looking backwards on a long and fruitful discipline of inquiry that has been mainly empirical, positivist, and concerned with hypothesis testing and the falsification of theories, in the Popperian tradition. This is not to say that all of vocational psychology fell within this orientation, just most of it. In recent years, several theorists and researchers have challenged the received view of vocational psychology as inadequate for the task of carrying forward our understanding of vocational behavior and experience; such individuals often advocate for qualitative or postmodern approaches to the field.

In Vocational Psychology (1969), John Crites provides a section in which he defines the field of vocational psychology and describes its relations to other fields of study and practice. Crites defines vocational psychology as "the study of vocational behavior and development" (p. 16), defining vocational behavior as "all responses the individual makes in choosing and adjusting to an occupation" (p. 16). Many of his definitions of vocational psychology and kindred fields have held up well over these past three decades, and his timeline of the history of the field is worth reading.

Most career or vocational textbooks have organized the presentation of material around either life stages (Crites, 1969; Herr & Cramer, 1996; Seligman, 1994), career development theories (Brown & Brooks, 1996), or phases of career intervention (Spokane, 1991). Each of these approaches has distinct advantages for highlighting facets of what we know through research in vocational psychology.

However, a focus on research activities rather than life stages, theories, or career interventions per se may provide the best way to provide an overview for the field of vocational psychology as traditionally conducted. With the goal of examining the nature of vocational psychology, so as to distinguish it better from developmental psychology or career counseling, it may be more useful to focus on research-oriented subfields (reflecting the activities and interests of vocational psychological researchers) rather than on vocational theories per se (reflecting the theories of theorists). For one thing, the major theories have a high degree of overlap in the underlying variables, e.g., most of the theories incorporate a measure of the degree to which personal characteristics fit those of the work environment (congruence). Many theories are likely to apply to both vocational psychology and career counseling.

Although Crites (1969) does organize his material into two broad developmental categories (choice and adjustment), much of his text appears to organize itself through research oriented categories, and he cites an earlier effort along these lines by Borow (1964; see Crites, p. 17). I agree with Crites’ admonition that the problem with research-taxonomic approach is that "there is no ideal solution" (Crites, p. 17), but I believe that it is possible to achieve a good enough solution with relatively little fuss.

Seven Subfields

I arrived at the following classification system based on my own experience with the vocational literature and through personal knowledge of the research interests of several vocational psychologists. Others may parse the field's activity differently. I make no claim that my solution is either ideal or even my final solution. With that caveat in mind, the following seven research-based subfields appear to account for most of the research activity in "mainstream" vocational psychology: person-environment (PE) correspondence, vocational personality, work environments, development in context, cognitive, evaluation research, and non-work.

The first three areas relate to the basic model described by Parsons (1909), itself a modern update of much older person-job matching models dating back to antiquity (see Carson & Altai, 1994; Dumont & Carson, 1995). I separated these three areas out because they each account for substantial research activity in their own right.

Although at the beginning of their research careers most vocational psychologists focus on only one of these seven subfields, as they gain experience they usually try their hand at problems in some of the other subfields as well. I will provide some brief notes on each of the research-oriented subfields.

Person-Environment (PE) Correspondence. The first area deals with the degree to which individuals possess the particular personal characteristics (traits, states, and skills; what Holland [1997] has called Vocational Personality) associated with particular jobs and career patterns (what Holland has called the Work Environment). Jobs may be considered as fuzzy sets of requirements and opportunities for reinforcements. Personal characteristics have predictable but fuzzy (probabilistic) relations to jobs, and the degree of fit between personal characteristics and jobs is associated with both satisfaction and satisfactoriness (performance). One may generalize from jobs to occupations (fuzzy sets of jobs) and from jobs to careers (a unique pattern of jobs across a lifespan found in a person's work history). Some patterns (ordered sequences) of jobs are more likely than others, and such career patterns may themselves have predictable relations to personal characteristics. Personal characteristics include both objective characteristics and subjectively perceived ones.

Career counselors usually gain some exposure in training to PE correspondence research and theories, but I suspect most such exposure focuses on Holland's theory. However, there are other important theories and research traditions to which counselors should also attend, especially theory of work adjustment (see work of René Dawis, especially Dawis, 1996). Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1996) have proposed a social cognitive theory as a variation of PE correspondence theory that emphasizes subjective aspects that is also worthy of the attention of counselors. Each of these theories has generated impressive research traditions.

Vocational Personality (Vocational Individual Differences). PE correspondence research depends on having good measures of vocationally relevant individual differences. This is probably the most active subfield of vocational psychology, so much so that some researchers are tempted to do all their work within its borders. This subspecialty caters to this need, and has links to areas outside of vocational psychology, especially personality research and cognitive psychology. The primary variables studied are interests, personality traits, abilities/skills/aptitudes, values, and life history variables (the latter of which unites researchers in this area with career development research). Most vocational and career textbooks provide chapters on available measures of these traits, although measures of values tend to be underrepresented. Counseling and career development texts generally do not address the assessment of life history variables, although some industrial/organizational texts do address "biodata" (see Stokes, Mumford, & Owens, 1994).

Work Environments (Occupational Information). PEF research also depends on having good information about the personal characteristics associated with different occupations. This has historically been the least active subspecialty within vocational psychology, relying generally on a few major and often federally funded studies, often in the form of job analyses conducted through industry. It borders on occupational sociology or what Crites (1969) termed occupationology. Crites even argued that this area should not be considered part of vocational psychology per se, because he thought it dealt only with stimulus variables, and not with behavioral variables. However, the major PEF theories, given their implicit or even explicit reliance on system theoretic concepts, reconceptualize the work environment as a behavioral system in its own right. Such theorists argue that one cannot account for and understand the vocational adjustment of the individual worker unless one also understands better the nature and behavior of the work environment, there have been several excellent occupational information studies in recent years that may be of interest to the career counselor. Perhaps career counselors would benefit from a collection of such studies organized within a single volume, preferably organized according to some major taxonomic system such as Holland's (1997) hexagon or Gottfredson's (1986) Occupational Aptitude Patterns (OAP) Map; this would serve to introduce the career counselor to vocational research as well as to provide the counselor with more in-depth training in occupational information.

Development in Context. This subfield of psychology is also quite active, but it also has drawn researchers from a variety of theoretical backgrounds (psychodynamic, sociological, behavioral genetic). Major questions addressed in this subfield's research include: are there typical stages in development toward adult vocational behavior and adjustment? How can one measure developmental milestones associated with this developmental process? To what degree is this process universal, and to what degree do such issues as group membership or culture affect these developmental processes? How important are parents and peers to career development? How does a sense of vocational self or identity develop? Are their elements of vocational behavior that arise due to non-conscious psychic factors, especially factors that arose due to early life experiences? In the early decades of vocational psychology, the researchers interested in this research subfield had a strong psychodynamic or even psychoanalytic theme in their research interests. Over the last two decades, this subfield has tended to attract those vocational researchers with somewhat less interest in vocational personality (as reflective of enduring traits) and more interested in the impact of environmental context on career development.

Cognitive (Decision-Making, Modeling, and Learning). A number of models for how people make (or should make) decisions about work and career have been proposed, and such research has contributed to a number of research programs (e.g., Peterson, Sampson, Reardon, & Lenz, 1996; Gati, 1986). A hot area in recent research on decision-making has been career decision-making self-efficacy, essentially beliefs that one can make effective career decisions. An emerging area has been creating computer-based models of how individuals make career decisions, or at least how career counselors make career recommendations to clients based on client data (e.g., scores on tests; some of my own research program has involved training artificial neural networks to simulate how counselors make career recommendations on the basis of ability test scores.). A related line of research (e.g., Krumboltz, and to some degree the social cognitive researchers) involves how individuals learn the skills to make effective career decisions. Each of these three areas focus on the acquisition of skills needed to make decisions about work and career.

Evaluation Research. Some vocational psychologists conduct research on the effectiveness of career interventions, including career assessment components of career intervention. Psychologists engaged in such research necessarily work closely with career counselors and others engaged in the delivery of career interventions. Individuals charged with the evaluation of career guidance programs may find Johnson and Whitfield's (1991) work useful.

Non-Work (Play, School-to-Work, Leisure/Avocational, and Retirement). This is the least active of the subfields in number of studies. However, the research that has been reported is generally intriguing and suggests that much of what has been developed to study vocational behavior may be extended to avocational or leisure behavior. Given the aging of the baby boomer generation, and given the importance that retirement issues are therefore likely to hold over the next few decades, this subfield is likely to grow in importance. Some very interesting research has been published on the negative effects of extreme overwork -- called karoshi in Japan -- that may be generalizable to other nations. It may also be useful to reconceptualize much of the study of contemporary educational psychology (in terms of studies of K-12 school behavior) in reference to play and leisure studies; perhaps we could use a term such as "prework" studies to correspond to "retirement" on the other end of the career. The leading US researchers in leisure psychology as a subfield of vocational psychology are Diane and Howard Tinsley.

Other topics. The proposed classification system does not have an obvious home for some areas of research, such as studies of sex-role in career development (context? Vocational personality? Non-work?). Sex-role research might also include homemaker studies. I suggest that where such work is classified would depend on the specific nature of the research.

Differentiation from Kindred Fields

We may distinguish vocational psychology from kindred fields such as career counseling and human development, vocational guidance, industrial psychology, and personnel selection. Career counseling, as a subset of career intervention, is the provision of services to assist individuals in solving career problems. Career counselors presumably develop and apply interventions based on research from vocational psychology as well as other fields. However, the practice of career counseling may also rest on philosophical bases lying outside the scientific realm. Career counselors should therefore not be expected to completely base their choice of career interventions solely on the findings and theories of vocational psychology.

Why do so many people continue to link the term "human development" with "career counseling"? It seems to add nothing useful to our understanding of career counseling per se. The usage probably arose to emphasize the need to avoid what was viewed by many as excessive reliance on a person-environment fit approach. However, use of the term "career development" with career counseling seems to imply that the only subspecialty of vocational psychology that is relevant to the career counselor is career development, which is hardly the case.

Vocational guidance and career counseling are both forms of career interventions. When delivered via counseling, guidance oriented interventions are a form of career counseling. Guidance implies more focus on directing the client to make particular decisions. However, it is not possible to draw a rigid boundary between more and less guided career interventions. The term "guidance" has generally fallen out of favor among most American career intervention professionals, but may reflect more of what the lay public (the consumer) wants. Who is right? I do not know, but I suspect that if the public wants it, and if officially sanctioned career professionals do not provide it, then I would expect that other unofficial career professionals will start to provide it. I would also note that in many other societies guidance is alive and well, sometimes going under other names, e.g., career orientation, as in Quebec.

Although vocational psychology is often characterized as a purely applied field, and as being merely a component element of another applied field (counseling psychology), this is not the case. One might argue that vocational psychology is the cognate basic research field and career counseling/career interventions the applied counterpart. There exists a continuum between the two, with some researchers being more applied, and some practitioners being more research oriented. Although the Vocational Psychology section of Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA) is clearly a subset of Division 17 both in its organizational history and in its membership roster, the field is probably large enough (with over 200 members) and distinct enough (hosting its own conferences and essentially publishing its own book series) to support its own division. The resulting division could draw psychologists from other areas of APA beyond counseling psychology, e.g., from clinical and industrial/organizational, as well as a number of other divisions indirectly interested in vocational issues. Although I doubt that there are any graduate training programs specializing in vocational psychology per se, I expect that a variety of programs would offer concentrations or specializations in vocational psychology as optional tracks within the programs.

One might ask how industrial-organizational psychology and human resources development fit into the picture. I suggest that vocational psychology is the cognate science for both of these fields just as it is for counseling psychology and counseling. And in this sense, counseling psychology is to industrial-organizational psychology as counseling is to human resources development. The former pair is more concerned with research related to the development of practical interventions, and the latter is more concerned with the practical delivery of those interventions per se. But where counseling psychology and counseling tend to focus more on vocational issues prior to organizational entry, industrial-organizational psychology and human resources development tend to focus more on vocational issues during and after organizational entry. However, each of these fields function as fuzzy sets without rigid category boundaries, and there exists substantial overlap across activities of psychologists and practitioners in these areas. Nevertheless, they all make use of vocational psychology, which is fundamental to them all.

Conclusions

Vocational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned primarily with research on vocational choice and adjustment, and more broadly with human work behavior and experience. My focus in this essay was on the traditional or "received" approach to the field. I classified the research into seven major areas. Although such research has a number of practical applications, it is especially useful for applications in counseling (through individual career decisions and interventions) and organizational selection and staff development (through organizational decisions and interventions).

References

D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.) (1996). Career choice and development (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1996). Career development from a social cognitive perspective. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.), Career choice and development (3rd ed.) (pp. 373-422). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Carson, A. D., & Altai, N. M. (1994). 1000 years before Parsons: Vocational psychology in classical Islam. The Career Development Quarterly, 43, 197-206.

Crites, J. O. (1969). Vocational psychology: The study of vocational behavior and development. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Dawis, R. V. (1996). The theory of work adjustment and person-environment-correspondence counseling. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.), Career choice and development (3rd ed.) (pp. 75-120). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Dumont, F., & Carson, A. D. (1995). Precursors of vocational psychology in ancient civilizations. Journal of Counseling and Development, 73, 371-378.

Gati, I. (1986). Making career decisions -- a sequential elimination approach. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 33, 408-417.

Gottfredson, L. S. (1986). Occupational Aptitudes Patterns Map: Development and implications for a theory f job aptitude requirements [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 29, 254-291.

Herr, E. L., & Cramer, S. H. (1996). Career guidance and counseling through the life span: Systematic approaches (5th ed.). New York: HarperCollins.

Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Johnson, S. K., & Whitfield, E. A. (Eds.). (1991). Evaluating guidance programs: A practitioner's guide. Iowa City, IA: ACT and The National Consortium of State Career Guidance Supervisors.

Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a vocation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Peterson, G. W., Sampson, J. P., & Reardon, R. C. (1991). Career development and services: A cognitive approach. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Peterson, G. W., Sampson, J. P., & Reardon, R. C., & Lenz, J. G. (1996). Cognitive information processing approach to career problem solving and decision making. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.), Career choice and development (3rd ed.) (pp. 423-476). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Seligman, L. (1994). Developmental career counseling and assessment (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Spokane, A. R. (1991). Career intervention. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Stokes, G. S., Mumford, M. D., & Owens, W. A. (Eds.) (1994). Biodata handbook: Theory, research, and use of biographical information in selection and performance prediction. Palo Alto, CA: CPP Books.

1.6 Author Note This paper is based on a response to a query by Cynthia Dowdy on the listserve of the National Career Development Association (NCDA) during the period 1999-2001. The author is grateful to comments from Cynthia Dowdy and Michael Hall to that original version of the present work.