Implications for practice for the Selection of Interests, Essay in VocationalPsychology.com

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The Selection of Interests:
Part 5
by Andrew D. Carson, Ph.D.

Implications for Practice

It will be impossible to apply this theory to practice in the short-term because no specific gene-interest linkages have been identified. However, recent advances in research on the mapping of the human genome (see Bishop & Waldholz, 1990; Shapiro, 1991; Xu, Mural, & Uberbacher, 1995) suggest that such linkages may one day be discovered. Most of the following suggestions for practice are contingent on the establishment of linkages between genetic patterns, environmental factors, and interests.

Interest inventories. It is by no means clear whether genes would affect interests as pure interests, or interests as part of some larger, multiple domain pattern of traits (e.g., aptitudes, temperaments). Therefore, this theory has little to say on the issue of whether it is better to use a "pure" interest measure -- such as the Strong Interest Inventory (Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer, 1994) or the Vocational Preference Inventory (Holland, 1985b). -- or some amalgam of multiple traits -- such as the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1985c). Regardless of the type of measure used, I suggest that the theory suggests a preservation of the capacity of interest inventories to be sensitive to sex-related differences in interest patterns. Collaer and Hines (1995) reviewed the literature related to the likely influence of gonadal hormones on sex differences, and concluded that they do influence at least some of the behaviors that show sex differences, including early childhood play preferences. If sex-related hormones are likely to affect the development of interests, it would appear unwise to develop interest inventories that systematically attempt to remove all sex-related differences in test results at the scale and even, for some tests, at the item level. Such pruning efforts would appear to represent a psychometric procrustean bed of the worst sort. The items dropped may represent precisely those interest areas most directly affected by gonadal steroids or other hormones. The Strong Vocational Interest Blank once had a masculinity-femininity scale that capitalized on sex-related differences in item-response (see Campbell, 1971). Perhaps it is time to reconsider that scale's status and perhaps resurrect it from the limbo into which it was quietly placed.

Selection theory also has implications for issues related to controlling for sex-related differences in interests that arise through psychometric assessment. In the traditional psychometric assessment of interests, some theorists and test developers have urged that tests be corrected for sex-related differences, perhaps even at the level of items (e.g., Roe & Lunneborg, 1990). The possible existence of sex-related differences in a genetic array of interests, or in sex-differences in the the genetic coding of triggers for the selection of interests, raises questions about the appropriateness of removing sex-related differences from interest inventories at both the item and scale level. This would particularly be the case if the expression of some interest-related genetic coding is affected by the presence or absence of genes on the Y chromosome, as discussed previously.

Parenting and teaching. Given the large effect of genes on interests, it is important for parents and educators to understand that there are likely to be limitations in their ability to "shape" their child's or student's interests in particular directions. Also, optimal parenting and teaching styles may differ for children and adolescents with different selected interests or personal orientations, and, as Holland (1985a) predicts, there may be a differential reinforcement of those behaviors produced by the child when they are in accord with the interests or personality types of the parent. As Holland notes, however, children are active in their own development; likewise, the assumptions of the selection theory suggest that both adults and children have an array of potential interests and personal orientations to work with. A number of factors conspire to produce different types of strategies for parents, educators, and children as they "negotiate" the selection of the child's interests. A useful methodological approach to the study of these issues has been pioneered by Young (1994; Young & Friesen, 1990), who in particular have examined "what parents do to influence their children's lives" (Young & Friesen, p. 147).

Organizational interventions. Potential employees may one day face employers who seek (perhaps even surreptitiously) to run a genetic analysis on the applicant's DNA to learn if his or her potential interests would best fit him or her to the job. For example, proposals by the U.S. military to take genetic samples of all military personnel have fueled speculation in some quarters that such information might one day be used as a basis for employment-related decision-making, and some soldiers have successfully resisted military requirements for donating DNA samples, for reasons related to the potential misuse of that DNA. Also, the selection theory of interests predicts that adult employees who need to change jobs, occupations, or careers may face more adjustment problems than would be predicted by some other theories, e.g., Holland's (1985a). Holland predicts that if an individual enters a work environment which is even moderately similar to his own vocational personality type, then his type will (all things being equal) adjust to be more like that work environment over time (other possible outcomes, to some extent determined by the individual's personality characteristics, are that the individual may leave the environment or may attempt to change the environment to be more to his or her liking). The selection theory predicts that, in the short run, the worker may acquire a learned effortful set of false interests, but that, all things being equal, congruence will decrease back to its original level after the "honeymoon period" is over. Human resources professionals might anticipate such rough periods and provide interventions to "smooth out" the worker's experience, perhaps even incorporating reclassification options within organizations that are sufficiently large.

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