By: Jeff Landine and John Stewart

It is generally accepted that a stable identity is an important precursor to effective career decision-making.  The importance of self-knowledge to the career decision-making process has been recognized since Frank Parson’s 1909 statement, and forms a key foundational element in just about every model of career development and/or choice being used today. In the next few weeks we will address the role of identity and how it impacts career development and/or decision-making for young Canadian adults.

Identity can be viewed as developing and existing in different domains within the self-system.  Current notions suggest that the different dimensions of human development including physical, cognitive, social/emotional, moral, spiritual and vocational, all play some part in identity formation.  Skorikov and Vondracek (1998) expanded on the distinct role that vocational identity plays in the overall development of self-system.  Despite the possibility that different domains of identity exist, there are commonalities in the dynamics by which identity forms.  Grotevant, Thorbecke and Meyer (1982) point to the importance of exploration, making commitments, crises in interpersonal relationships, and interactions in social and work-related realms as key factors in identity formation.

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