A little look at Holland

Research and experience as a vocational counsellor in educational, military and clinical settings led to John Holland to conclude that people could be categorised by a mix of six main personality characteristics, or vocational types. The types begin with heredity, but are shaped by our activities, our interests, the competencies we develop, which then leads - via our home, school, Whanau and friends giving us opportunities and encouragement aligning with the dominant environmental types - to our "disposition". Our disposition is our self-concept, our individual view of ourselves and the world around us, our values, and how attuned we are to our environmental influences, and our personality traits (Holland, 1973).

The traits are: Realistic; Investigative; Artistic; Social; Enterprising; and Conventional - more commonly known as RIASEC (Holland, 1973). Early on in this process, Holland developed a hexagon model showing the relationship between types. Types closer to each other on the hexagon are more closely related than the types which are further away (Holland, 1973, p. 23). After completing an inventory, people can be classified by their vocational type by a three-letter code,  representing the individual’s dominant three vocational types (Holland, 1997). For example, someone who is highly Social, Realistic and Investigative is given the code SRI. 

The research, and the model has provided a useful person-job fit assessment for use in the US. Further, over time, Holland - in conjunction with Gary Gottfredson - developed a classification system, the Occupations Finder (Nauta, 2010), utilised to match individual  RIASEC types to current occupations. The occupations finder underpins O*Net, the US Department of Labour tool.

Researchers have tested Holland’s RIASEC model fairly rigorously during the past four decades. Much of Holland’s research findings - including via meta-analyses - are supported, including: support for type in secondary school settings (Sung et al., 2015); individuals in RIASEC matched jobs and environments tend to perform better and have higher job satisfaction (Nye et al., 2012); RIASEC types are stable over time (Low et al., 2005); and adjacent hexagon types are more strongly related than non-adjacent types (Armstrong et al., 2003).

Many of Holland’s assessments - including the self directed search, occupational finder, career key and strong interest inventory - have been altered and translated so that they can be understood and administered to different national and ethnic populations. Care is taken so that concepts are not ‘lost in translation’ and local perceptions of prestige and commonness of occupations are reflected in the altered version, hence cross-cultural equivalence is achieved. High scores for internal validity and consistency are evidence of valid Holland assessments for that particular population. Cross cultural studies on a range populations show construct validity, concurrent validity, internal validity and consistency of 'localised' Holland assessments, including: Singaporean Chinese (Soh & Leong, 2001); Croatian adolescents (Sverko & Babarovic, 2004, cited in Watson et al., 2005); Chinese, Japanese, Hong Kong, Spanish speakers and American Latinos/Latinas (Bullock et al., 2009; Hansen, 2013; Nauta, 2020; Tang, 2018).

However research about the relationships between positions on the hexagon shape/circular order theory has revealed inconsistencies across cultures. The research supports the structural validity for populations in Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong (Bullock et al., 2009) but it is not always supported in South African populations (Watson et al., 2005) and residents of Asian countries and Asian Americans (Nauta, 2020). In fact, it seems that the circular order theory fits well only in countries with higher economic development (Nauta, 2020).

Research also indicates that RIASEC scores appear to be gendered (Nauta, 2020). In general, women outscore men on the social, artistic, and conventional types, and men outscore women on the realistic and investigative types. This may reflect gender socialisation (i.e. women are societally 'expected' to have social, artistic and conventional role experiences and opportunities). Gender socialisation is supported by gender differences with some RIASEC types decreasing since the mid‐2000s (Nauta, 2020).

In summary, experts agree that the empirical research widely supports Holland's major propositions relating to the RIASEC typology and congruence theories, but that care should be taken when applying the interrelationship among the types across cultures (Bullock et al., 2009; Nauta, 2020; Tang, 2018).

Teresa

References:

Armstrong, P., Hubert, L., & Rounds, J. (2003). Circular unidimensional scaling: A new look at group differences in interest structure. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 50(3), 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.50.3.297

Bullock, E. E., Andrews, L., Braud, J., & Reardon, R. C. (2009). Holland’s Theory in an International Context: Applicability of RIASEC Structure and Assessments Technical (No. 50). Florida State University.

Holland, J. H. (1973). Making vocational choices: a theory of careers. Prentice-Hall.

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

Holland, J. L., Shears, M., & Harvey-Beavis, A. (2001). Self-Directed Search (2nd Australian ed.).  Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd.

Low, K. S. D., Yoon, M., Roberts, B. W., & Rounds, J. (2005). The stability of vocational interests from early adolescence to middle adulthood: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 131(5), 713–737. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.5.713

Nauta, M. M. (2010). The Development, Evolution, and Status of Holland’s Theory of Vocational Personalities: Reflections and Future Directions for Counseling Psychology. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018213

Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2012). Vocational Interests and Performance: A Quantitative Summary of Over 60 Years of Research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 384–483. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612449021

Tang, M. (2019). Career Development and Counselling: Theory and practice in a multicultural world. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Watson, M., Duarte, M. E., & Glavin, K. (2005). Cross-cultural perspectives on career assessment. The Career Development Quarterly, 54(1), 29-35. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.2005.tb00138.x

* Teresa Winstone has kindly prepared most of the material for this post