Abstract
Although different studies have investigated career choices as cognitive acts of decision-making, non-cognitive components also play an important role. The study tries to develop an empirically based model of career decision-making process linking cognitive (search for work self-efficacy - SWSE) and non-cognitive (psychological well-being - PWB) components. In particular, the study investigates, among 148 never-employed Italian young adults, to what extent the relationship between SWSE and career indecision in terms of lack of readiness (LoR) can be explained by their common relationship with PWB. Results highlighted that SWSE is negatively associated with LoR when considered in absence of PWB. However, when PWB was included in one comprehensive model, it was positively associated with SWSE and negatively related to LoR. Moreover, the presence of PWB nullified the negative association between SWSE and LoR, meaning that PWB shares a large extent of variance with these variables. Implications are discussed in the light of theoretical expectations and limitations.
Highlights
Different studies have investigated career choices as cognitive acts of decision-making, non-cognitive components play an important role
The general purpose of this study was to expand the knowledge about the factors that contribute to promote the beginning of the process of career decision-making among young never-employed adults still not involved in career pathways
This study investigated the relationships between career choice difficulties (LoR) and simultaneously cognitive (SWSE) and non-cognitive (PWB) dimensions associated with the career decision process
Summary
Different studies have investigated career choices as cognitive acts of decision-making, non-cognitive components play an important role. The study investigates, among young adults at the beginning of the career decision-making process, to what extent the relationship between the search for work self-efficacy and career indecision can be explained by their common relationship with psychological wellbeing. The reason for this choice is that such relationships have not already been adequately and simultaneously taken into account by the prior research, as well as by the models of career development, the association between these concepts seems to be self-evident. Our study is framed on an advancement of Gati’s model of career indecision (Gati et al, 1996) through acknowledging the importance of non-cognitive aspects in the career decision making process (Gati et al, 2011; Gati & Tal, 2008) and referring to the positive psychology framework, in which the eudaimonic well-being plays a central role in career development (Di Fabio, 2014; Ryff 1995, 2014)
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