By: Jeff Landine and John Stewart

As stated in our previous blog, one significant task of career counselling involves understanding and organizing clients’ self-attributes.  A taxonomy developed by Donald Super was articulated as a useful structure for understanding the various self-concepts and the self-concept system including the dimensions of esteem, clarity, consistency, realism, complexity and efficacy.

In the context of vocational self-concepts, clarity refers to the precision with which a particular self-concept is defined and consistency refers to the congruence that exists between self-concepts.  A clear self-concept would be one that is well defined and has clearly recognized attributes.  For example, a clear vocational self-concept such as punctual would be accompanied by the ability to define punctuality and supporting evidence of the possession of this characteristic.  A consistent self-concept would be one that fits easily and appropriately with other self-concepts in the system.  For example, it is easy to see oneself as both driven and conscientious with regard to work life but it would be much harder to see how one could be driven and laid back in their approach to work.

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