Developmental+Theories

=__**Developmental Theories**__=
 * These theories focus on the following areas that influence career and life decisions
 * Biological
 * Psychological
 * Sociological
 * Cultural
 * These theories also focus on stages of development based on age
 * Inclusive in constructs
 * Longitudinal expressions of career behavior
 * Inclined to highlight importance of self-concept
 * Process-oriented in their conceptions of how career behavior develops and changes over time

1) Super’s Life Span, Life Space Theory

 * Super built his model to be integrative of various areas of psychology and sociology
 * 14 propositions are the basis of this theory:
 * 1) People differ in their abilities, values, needs, personalities, traits and self-concepts
 * 2) People are qualified for a number of occupations
 * 3) Each occupation requires various needs and skills with tolerances wide enough to allow both a variety of occupations for each person and a variety of people for each occupation
 * 4) Job choices, skills, living situations change, and self-concepts change over time although self-concepts are generally stable from late adolescence onward
 * 5) These stages can be summed up into what Super referred to as a //maxicycle//: growth, exploratory, establishment, maintenance, and decline (more details below)
 * 6) The nature of the career pattern (i.e., occupational level attained, duration of jobs) is determined by the individual's parental SES level, mental ability, education, skills, personality characteristics and career maturity and by the opportunities to which he or she is exposed.
 * 7) Success in coping with the demands of the environment or any life stage depends upon the person's career maturity
 * Career Maturity - a group of physical, psychological and social characteristics that represent the individuals readiness and ability to face and deal with developmental problems and challenges (see number 8)(Brown,2016, p.74).
 * career maturity __>__ problem = resolution w/ minimal difficulty
 * 1) Career maturity is only a hypothetical construct
 * 2) Development through life stages is guided partly by facilitating the maturing of abilities and interests and partly by aiding in reality testing and the development of self-concepts
 * 3) by helping client identify/develop interests and abilities
 * 4) by helping client realize their strengths and weaknesses so they can make satisfying life choices (Brown, 2016, p.74)
 * 5) Career development is essentially the development and implementation of occupational self-concepts
 * 6) There is a process of compromise between individual and social factors, between self-concepts and reality and it is one of role-playing and learning from feedback
 * 7) Work and life satisfaction depend on the extent to which when people find work that stimulates their interests, abilities, needs, values, and self-concepts
 * 8) The degree of satisfaction attained from work is proportional to the degree that a person has been able to implement their self-concept
 * 9) Work provides a focus for personality organization and growth in most people, although for some people, this focus is not as important. For such people, leisure activities may be central.

Super's 5 Maxicycles

 * 1) Growth--physical and psychological growth during which an individual develops attitudes and behavioral mechanisms that develop into components of the self concept
 * 2) Exploration--the individual becomes aware that career is an aspect of life, initially through fantasies such as those seen in childhood, but then the individual focuses on a few possibilities that are more realistic and available
 * 3) These stages in turn may be subdivided into the fantasy, tentative and realistic phases (taken from Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, and Herma Theory)
 * 4) Fantasy: job choices are frequently unrealistic and closely related to "play life" of an individual
 * 5) Tentative: individual narrows work choices to a few possibilities
 * 6) Realistic/Final phase: the list is narrowed down even further to what the individual deems is within reach and offers valuable opportunities
 * 7) Establishment (subdivided into trial and stable phases)--the individual determines whether the career decisions made during the exploration stage are well-founded and gains experience needed for stability, incorporating aspects of the occupation into the self-concept
 * 8) Maintenance--an on-going process of change and adjustment as the individual continues or improves the occupational situation in an attempt to sustain satisfying aspects of the occupation and amend less favorable aspects of the work situation
 * 9) Decline--the individual focuses on keeping the position rather than revising the position as the individual prepares for retirement
 * A small minicycle takes place in transitions from one stage to the next

Super's Life-Career Rainbow

 * Emphasizes the different roles individuals play in the above stages.
 * Typical roles include child, student, citizen, worker, spouse, homemaker, parent, and pensioner.
 * Roles emphasize the lifelong aspect of career development


 * **Use of Super’s model**


 * Career Development, Assessment and Counseling (C-DAC) is Super's career counseling model based on his theories
 * Conducted in four stages: preview, depth view, data assessment and counseling
 * Primarily focused on people in the exploration phase
 * Tasks to be accomplished in this phase include enhancing self and occupational awareness, crystallizing potential choices, in-depth exploration of career options, exploration of education and training options and ultimately choosing and implementing the choices.
 * Hartung (2013) suggested an assessment battery with modifications (as cited in Brown, 2016)
 * 1) The Salience Inventory measures the extent to which clients engage in and are committed to various life roles
 * 2) The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; Super, Thompson & Lindeman, 1988) yields scores on four scales and twelve subscales related to stages of career development and mastery of developmental tasks within those stages
 * Yields scores in two general areas: career orientation and knowledge of preferred occupation
 * (CP) Career planning: Career planning scale shows how a person perceives self in relation to planning process (Example: How would you rate your ability to make future plans on a scale of 1-10? How far along are you in the planning for your career? Do you live in the past, focus on the present or plan for the future? Why did you rate yourself as you did?)
 * (CE) Career exploration: this scale is combined with the CP scale to produce a career development attitude scale (CPA) which indicates the willingness of the clients to engage in exploring careers and using materials for this research (Example: Estimate how many times you have sought information about careers by 1) talking to people, 2) reading occupational information, 3) using online sources of information about jobs, or 4) consulting other sources of information about jobs.)
 * (DM) Decision Making: Mature individuals know how to make decisions and have confidence in their ability to do so (Example: Rate your ability to make a wise occupational choice on a scale of 1 to 10. Describe the process you followed when you last made a major decision.)
 * (WWI) World-of-work Information: Utilized to have accurate information about work
 * (PO) Knowledge of Preferred Occupation: People select 20 occupations, answer questions about the job and qualifications needed to obtain occupation. WWI and PO are combined in the CDI to produce a career development knowledge and skill score (CDK). (Example: How much information do you have about your current occupational choice? What are the charact3eristics ne3eded by successful workers in this occupation, and how do these match your own characteristics?)
 * (COT) Career Orientation: The total score on the CDI with the exception of the PO. This can be considered the global measure of career maturity.
 * Hartung also suggests the use of an interest inventory such as the Strong Interest Inventory and the Values Scale
 * Hartung's approach to assessment, though true to Super's model, is impossible to apply in most settings and, in addition, the reliability and validity of some of the instruments raises a whole host of ethical issues as well


 * Has a number of applications, such as the framework for career development programs for children and adolescents.
 * Considered a "white bread" theory because much of the research was based on research with white subjects
 * It has been noted that this theory may not be appropriate for use with people that have a non-Western worldview, such as people who hold a dependent career making style. One of the goals implicit in this process is the stimulation of an independent decision-making style. (Brown, 2016, p. 79)

2. Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, Herma (1951)

 * Early work, established the gross phases of vocational choice
 * Based on 4 factors: reality, influence of educational process, emotional factors, individual values
 * Fantasy Phase (Birth-11) pursue any occupation they want
 * Children believe that they can do anything; no realization of the training, education, economy or skill set needed for most careers
 * Mostly play
 * Near the age of 11, interests and activities are better identified that can help contribute to career choice
 * Tentative Phase (11-17) involving interest, capacity, value and transition (below are the four sub-stages from Ireh, 1999)
 * Interest--where children learn likes and dislikes
 * Capacity--where the child learns how much his/her abilities align with her interests
 * Value--sees the child at 15 become aware of how work may fulfill her values
 * Transition--begins when the individual assumes responsibility for his/her own actions
 * Helps adolescents further identify their interests, skills, abilities, and talents that can contribute to career choice
 * Better understanding of the preparation and training for certain careers
 * Realistic (17- early 20s) involving exploration, crystallization and specifications( below are the three sub stages from Ireh, 1999)
 * Exploration--attainment of the experiences and education the individual needs to resolve occupational choice.
 * Crystallization--ability to synthesize the many forces, internal and external, that have relevance for one's decision.
 * Specification--specialization and planning within one's area of choice.


 * Revised a number of times from 1951-1984
 * Each step in the process [of career development] has a meaningful relation to those which precede and follow it (1951, p, 185)
 * Was the first developmental theory but was overshadowed by other developmental theories such as Super's. (Brown, 2012 p, 43)

3. Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise (2002)

 * This theory focuses on how career aspirations are developed
 * 4 basic assumptions:
 * 1) Career development process begins in childhood
 * 2) Career aspirations are an attempt to implement one’s self-concept
 * 3) Career satisfaction depends on the degree that the career is congruent with one’s self-perceptions
 * 4) People develop cognitive maps of occupations that are organized along 3 dimensions:
 * masculinity / femininity of the job
 * prestige of the job
 * field of work (interest)


 * Most important concerns in making career decision: First preserving self-perception regarding masculinity or femininity, then protecting social standing, and lastly interests and personality (Brown, 2016)
 * __Circumscription__ -- when children begin to narrow their range of occupations based on their estimates of compatibility (sex type, prestige and interests) and accessibility
 * When people begin to __compromise__, they use the three dimensions listed above to initially evaluate the feasibility of the career


 * ===Gottfredson’s Developmental Stages===
 * Age 3-5: orientation to size and power
 * Children begin to understand sex-type work through various types of play and social interactions. They begin to look to their same-sex parent for cues about adult activities.
 * Age 6-8: orientation to sex role
 * Children can’t yet understand social class, but they begin to understand what is acceptable for men and women
 * Age 9-13: orientation to social valuation
 * Children begin to understand sex-roles and their place in the world. They begin to use the circumscription process to eliminate jobs that don’t fit their understanding of sex-roles and jobs that aren't compatible with them. Once a job is eliminated, it is unlikely they will consider it again without intervention (p. 51).
 * Age 14+: choices explored
 * They begin to explore their occupational options and make compromises with job choices. They reject choices that are deemed to hard, too inaccessible, or too far beyond the boundaries of their acceptable sex-type job mindset

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 * ===Use of Gottfredson’s model===
 * Can be used for career program development design as well as career counseling
 * Stimulates a need for more research focusing on the influence of gender and status on occupational choice. Career development programs should be designed to break down sex-role stereotypes and limitations in occupational choice based on social status
 * addresses that men and women differ in occupational choices
 * The second major model of her theory involves diagnosing developmental problems. To this end, she lists five problems that should be assessed, which were slightly altered by Brown (2016) to make them more useful with racial minorities and persons with sexual orientations other than heterosexual.
 * Because this theory is based on the idea that clients will be the decision makers, the application to clients who //**do not have**// independent social values is problematic.
 * ===Limitations of Gottfredson's Model===
 * For this model to work properly, it should be implemented during early elementary school years and continued through high school.
 * Clients must be given information about all occupations in order to properly circumscribe.
 * Career counselors must be willing to explain the limitations that their client is faced due to their socioeconomic status, gender, and abilities.
 * Application to clients without independent social value can be problematic.


 * ===Article focused on this theory:===
 * Ivers, N., Milsom, A., & Newsome, D. (2012). Using Gottfredson's Theory of Circumscription and Compromise to Improve Latino Students' School Success. The Career Development Quarterly, 60, 231-242. : This article includes a fictional case study that provides a good overview of how this theory could be used with high school students.

References: Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc. Ireh, M. (1999). Career development theories and their implications for high school career guidance and counseling. High School Journal, 83(2),28-40