This is our last blog in the series of helping to understand the sources of factors that help us to understand the phenomenon of reality shock. In the first three blogs, we introduced the concept of reality shock, outlined a theory to help explain the sources of oversight that lead to dissatisfaction, and identified three such sources. In this blog, we deal with the last of these sources that of the cognitive processes used to make the “fit” between what the individual brings and what the occupational environment requires. 

One of these processes involves the cognitive processes of assimilation and differentiation of occupational information.  For example, individuals, who have interests and abilities that orient them to choose work in the helping professions may neglect to consider the implication of their lack of control over the outcomes of their care. In health institutions, individuals admitted to health care facilities usually have relatively short stays, or they may experience death while there. Individuals, who work in these institutions, may find that the intrinsic reinforcement that comes from seeing their inputs leading to successful outcomes may experience dissatisfaction when working in such health care environments. Due to the patterns of care, health professionals often do not see patients throughout their illness, and do not know their recovery patterns. This lack of knowledge may lead to a source of dissatisfaction, because they may not receive the rewards of knowing that their inputs have led to successful outcomes. This source of dissatisfaction brings into focus the need for individuals to assimilate and differentiate the information used to make occupational decisions and the activities that provide them with intrinsic rewards. 

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The following mottos were included as part of the automatic signatures on emails sent to me in the past few weeks:

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.” – Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”    ~ Maria Robinson

Bloom where you are planted!

John and I have been talking about the development of identity and the relevance of this development to vocational decision-making.  I have been referring fairly often to a recent book by Mark Savickas entitled Career Counselling and in it he describes, at length, a narrative approach to the recognition of vocational identity.  Mottos are often adopted as a form of identity crystallization providing advice to one self about who I am and who I want to be.  When I got a new cell phone, setting it up for the first time, the phone offered me the opportunity to add a “Greeting message” which would become visible on the screen every time I started the phone.  Now when I start my phone I am reminded to “Persist”.  Persistence is a characteristic that I value, and it is one that I believe has helped me greatly in my academic and professional life.

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Jeff and I continue to highlight approaches to understanding identity formation and how this formation impacts vocational decision-making. In this blog we focus on Erikson’s psychosocial approach.  Erikson proposed eight psychosocial stages that outline significant developmental activities that individuals accomplish at certain times during their lifespan.  The first stage that deals with identity takes place during the adolescent period and is referred to as the identity versus role confusion stage.  Erikson described identity as a personal sense of “self-sameness” that continues over time. In this blog we want to focus on some of the cognitive dynamics that take place during this stage and how these dynamics may impact vocational decision-making.

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In our last blog, Jeff described how Mark Savickas explains identity from a constructivist perspective, within which the individual uses their cognitive linguistic abilities together with information from the societal/cultural context to arrive at a constructed vocational identity. Adherents to this approach suggest that the connections between internal psychological dynamics and the messages and demands of society interact to give rise to identity.  In this blog, I (John) will briefly discuss another approach to identity formation known as the structural stage approach and point out components of this perspective that contribute to vocational identity formation.

The structural stage approach focuses on intrapsychic configurations that change over time.  At each particular stage of development, this configuration (typically the ego) enables the individual to interpret and make sense of their social/cultural world.  Structural development follows a particular and sequential pattern over time. Each successive configuration helps the person to have an increasingly complex way of making sense of their experiences.   To describe this process of change, the structural stage approach uses Piaget’s idea of accommodation. When new information can no longer be integrated into existing structures or cognitive schemas, the schema are changed. 

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In our last blog we spoke about taking risks. We will continue on this theme as we expand on the processes at work in the occupational decision-making of adolescents and young adults.  In our last entry we differentiated between indecision and indecisiveness.  One of the consequences of indecision can be the delaying or postponement of a decision until the decision has to be considered in earnest.  This is readily evident in the resistance some students express towards efforts to facilitate self and occupational awareness. The fear of committing to a course of action that may later turn out to be incorrect can paralyze a student, causing him or her to avoid the decision altogether.  This paralysis became quite evident to me as I moderated a focus group with first year university students last week.

The students I met with, all in their first year of university and all living away from home for the first time, spoke at length about the processes involved in making the decision to attend the university at which I work.  For me, the most telling aspects of their stories were their almost universal admittance that they made the decision when the application deadline was almost upon them, that they were concerned about the possibility of making the “wrong” decision, and that many used intuition and experience in making the decision, even after employing very rational approaches to narrow the possibilities.

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We have been speaking at length about vocational identity and the various processes that contribute to its development.  Last time John pointed out that in the development of concepts related to self and occupations, there are two processes that are essential: integration and differentiation. Through the process of integration a person learns to put concepts about the world of work together, like using tools and building things, to build a more complex unit such as carpenter.  In this example subordinate concepts are integrated into a superordinate concept. With differentiation, the second process, the person separates general (superordinate) concepts into specific meaning (subordinate concepts), such as the difference between a general contractor and a cabinetmaker. Such differentiation allows people to experience one situation or occupation as different from another.

John also made reference to Erikson’s fifth stage of psychosocial development, the stage where identity is formalized.  Erikson came to see this stage as having two distinct steps.  The first step, usually typical of older adolescents and young teens, involves the development of identity by similarities.  The individual’s sense of identity at this step is based on how closely he or she fit or are similar to an identifiable group.  In the schoolyard this is evident when one sees groups of students dressed similarly, listening to the same music and expressing the same interests.  Identity is achieved by integrating one’s self with the group.

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In our last blog, we focused on the practice of exposing adolescents to work environments through the Take Our Kids to Work Day (TOKW) movement.  We highlighted the necessity of individuals linking occupational information with their perceived self-attributes, a process that promotes the development of a vocational identity.  The growth in self-understanding does not cease with the ending of the growth phase of career development. Moreover, we maintain that individuals who do not continue to link self-information and occupational information during the exploration phase will likely lack the meta-dimensions of clarity, certainty, and harmony as they understand the components of their self-concept system. We strongly support the TOKW initiative but suggest that the career practitioners involved need to go farther by preparing and processing the day with participants.  The focus of this blog is to suggest ways that practitioners can facilitate the linking of occupational information with self-precepts to enhance vocational identity formation by preparing and process the experience with their participants.   

First, often the focus of TOKW is on the provision of factual occupational information only.  While this provision is an important component, it is best experienced by encouraging adolescents to link this occupational information with their perceived self-attributes.   TOKW is an episode in the life of an adolescent. As such, it has a significant potential to enhance vocational identity either in helping the individual to make choices in favor of or against an occupation, or to lack overall relevance.  Episodes help to develop the self-concept and consequently ensuring the TOKW episode is appropriately prepared for and processed contributes to the elaboration of the self-concept and to vocational identity.  A critical component of any episode is the context in which it happens.  We think that helping adolescents to prepare for TOKW helps them to build a framework around what to anticipate during the episode.  Providing adolescents with questions to ask about the work environment (Holland’s work environments are helpful here) and about the psychological (aptitudes, skills, interests, values, personality traits) and social (occupational role, salary, educational requirements, occupational future) aspects of each occupation encountered helps them to develop appropriate concepts.  These concepts contribute to their understanding of the world of work, and to making the links between their perceived self-attributes and the occupational information learned during the episode.

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In our last blog, we focused on the need to develop character traits that have been found to enhance success at work during an individual’s development years.  In this presentation, we want to focus on the idea of developmental tasks and the role they play during the growth phase (childhood and early adolescence). We think that career practitioners, and more particularly career educators who focus on these tasks help provide individuals with the background and foundation to enter the exploration phase of vocational development and to be able to accomplish the dynamics inherent in this phase.

Theory suggests that young children, as a consequence of secure attachment develop an “internal working model” of human relationships, characterized by trust and confidence in others.  With the development of this model, the ground is established for future relationships with others generally, and fellow workers more particularly.  Additionally, the model promotes a sense of security as children explore and daydream about their place in the adult work world. We see secure attachment as a critical factor that enhances mastery of the developmental tasks during the growth period.

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In our last blog we indicated that we will be focusing on issues within the different career developmental phases. We begin this discussion with a focus on developmental tasks that individuals encounter during the Growth phase. Generally, this phase of career development is experienced from 4 to 13 years of age. We think it is important for career counsellors and career educators to be cognizant of how their clients resolved and learnt from a number of these tasks due to the assumption that mastering this learning lays the framework within which later concepts and behaviors are developed. In this presentation, we will focus on psychosocial development as it implicates some of the soft skills as defined, for example, in the Employability Skills 2000+ profile.

During the Growth phase, individuals encounter a number of psycho-social tasks.  This line of theorizing and research was developed by Erik Erikson and continues to explicate a significant aspect of human growth and development. Prior to the Growth phase, during the first three years of life individuals encounter the developmental tasks of trust versus mistrust, and autonomy versus shame and doubt. The next two stages, initiative versus guilt, and industry versus inferiority are encountered during the Growth period.

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In our previous entries, we focused on information and how it is stored in long-term memory. Briefly, we identified two types of memory: episodic and semantic. Episodic memory houses information based on personal experiences that gets abstracted into semantic memory. Based on repeated experiences, this information is the source from which individuals derive their self-concepts. Semantic information is typically learned from didactic, observational or vicarious learning experiences, and is objective and verifiable.  It too is stored in long-term memory and is the source of information that individuals have about the world of work.  In this entry, we want to focus on how counsellors can best help clients develop healthy career-related schemes that are characterized by clarity, realism, consistency, esteem and efficacy.

Theory and research recognize that individuals making vocational decisions use information about themselves and the world of work.  The self-information is stored in multiple self-concepts or schemes that comprise the self-concept system.  We think the information within these schemes needs to be characterized by high degrees of clarity, realism, esteem and efficacy and a high degree of consistency between the existing schemes in the self-concept system. If the information in and between the schemes lacks these qualities and fails to facilitate effective decision-making, we think clients need to change it by incorporating new information and perspectives into their schemes through a process of known as accommodation. 

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