Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties in college students, and uncovered the mediating roles of core self-evaluation and career calling. A total of 1,127 undergraduates were recruited to complete the questionnaires about parenting styles, core self-evaluation, career calling, and career decision-making difficulties. The results showed that: (1) Positive and negative parenting styles could positively predict career decision-making difficulties in college students. (2) Core self-evaluation and career calling mediated the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties. Sequential dual mediators only found in which positive paternal and maternal parenting styles predict career decision-making difficulties through core self-evaluation and career calling. (3) Further analysis revealed gender difference in the relationship between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties. The relation between paternal positive parenting style and career decision-making difficulties was significant in male students, but absent in female students; the relation between maternal positive parenting and career decision-making difficulties and the relation between paternal negative parenting and career calling were significant in female students, but absent in male students; and the relation between career calling and career decision-making difficulties was greater in male than in female. The current study expanded and deepened those existing understandings about the relationship between parenting styles and adolescents’ career decisions, so as to further reveal its internal mechanism and provide more reasonable suggestions and targeted guidance for career counseling.
Highlights
The employment pressure is increasingly severe under the situation of saturated job market (Wang, 2013)
It shows a general pattern of relatedness among the variables except that the career decisionmaking difficulties are uncorrelated with paternal negative parenting style and maternal negative parenting style
In order to explore whether gender moderated the links between parenting styles and career decision-making difficulties, independent sample T-test and Pearson correlation analysis was conducted on the variables in male and female samples, respectively
Summary
The employment pressure is increasingly severe under the situation of saturated job market (Wang, 2013). Career decisionmaking difficulties refer to the difficulty an individual faces in making a final decision during the process of career choice (entry stage or career change). It denotes individuals’ difficulty of choosing one of several careers or knowing what occupation to pursue (Long and Peng, 2000). If they can solve many difficulties of career decision making during university stage successfully, they will choose a suitable career for themselves and enter job market successfully with individuals’ rational career decisions. It has great practical significance to study the career decision-making difficulties of college students
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