Belief and decision-making: key terms

Taxonomy of career decision barriers
(Gati et al., 1996, p. 520)

I have really been enjoying putting together definitions of key terms lately for my career development students, so I thought I would share my latest crop with you all.

This time I have some definitions around career beliefs and career decision-making, as follows:

Career indecision: the "inability to specify an educational or occupational choice and can include focal problems, such as lack of information, or a combination of problems, such as choice anxiety and trait indecision" (Psychology, 2020b).

Beliefs: the "positive and negative thoughts or assumptions people hold about themselves, occupations, and the career development process" (Roll & Arthur, 2002, p. 2).

Correlates of Career Indecision: These are barriers to decision-making which may include "anxiety, lack of self-knowledge, lack of structure, personal conflict, perfectionism, fear of commitment, and perceived occupational" blocks (Osborn & Zunker, 2016, p. 132).

Negative Beliefs: these "affect clients’ perceptions of themselves and the world of work, increase clients’ level of negative emotions associated with making a career decision, and immobilize clients’ action toward their career goals", and "can influence clients’ actions at any stage of career counselling" (Roll & Arthur, 2002, p. 2).

Self-Talk: self-report inventories can "be a form of self-talk" as while they may be reporting "what they believe is true about their situations [, what they report] are perceptions and may not be reality". We can delude ourselves due to our internal narrative. However, perception becomes the individual's reality, as "regardless of how real the barrier is, people's self-talk can have a dramatic impact on how they view themselves, as well as on their options and how they make career decisions" (Osborn & Zunker, 2016, p. 133).

Career Decision-Making Difficulties: these "decision-theory-based systematic framework for characterizing an individual’s career decision-making difficulties. It comprises three major categories of difficulties, which are further divided into 10 specific difficulty categories. Lack of Readiness includes three categories that precede the actual engagement in making a specific career decision: lack of motivation to engage in the career decision-making process, general indecisiveness concerning all types of decisions, and dysfunctional beliefs about career decision making. The other two major categories focus on difficulties that may arise during the engagement in the process. Lack of Information includes lack of knowledge about the steps involved in the process of making a career decision, lack of information about the self, lack of information about the various occupations, and lack of information about the ways of obtaining additional information. Inconsistent Information includes three categories of difficulties in using the information: unreliable information, internal conflict within the individual (such as contradictory preferences), and external conflicts, involving disagreements with significant others" (Psychology, 2020a).

Dysfunctional Career Thinking: this type of thinking tends to be is absolutist, full of "all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralizations or language peppered with “should’s, must’s and ought’s", and is "a primary influencer of the other elements essential to making an effective career decision (i.e., knowledge about self, knowledge about options and the decision-making process as a whole)". At some point, "the client has had an experience that suggested that belief. Over time and in different situations, that belief has been reinforced and may have been integrated into [the client's] core" understanding of themselves. (Osborn, 2019).

I hope you found these useful!


Sam

References:

• Gati, I., Krausz, M., & Osipow, S. H. (1996). A taxonomy of difficulties in career decision making. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43(4), 510-526. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.43.4.510
  
• Osborn, D. S. (2019). Dysfunctional career thoughts: Are they really a big deal? https://careerwise.ceric.ca/2019/06/07/dysfunctional-career-thoughts-are-they-really-a-big-deal/
• Osborn, D. S., & Zunker, V. G. (2016). Using Assessment Results for Career Development (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.
• Psychology (2020a). Definition of Career Decision Making Difficulties. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/counseling-psychology/career-assessment/career-decision-making-difficulties-questionnaire/
• Psychology (2020b). Definition of Career Indecision. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/counseling-psychology/career-counseling/career-indecision/
• Roll, T., & Arthur, N. (2002). Beliefs in Career Counselling. https://contactpoint.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pdf-02-03.pdf