Some Factors Which Influence the Child's Choice of Occupation

Abstract

The factors which influence a child's vocational ambition are numerous and subtle. Doubtless the child himself is frequently unaware of the reason why he chooses a particular occupation. The psychoanalytic school has clearly established the fact that the individual's motives are often subtly concealed. Gates states: . human behavior is initiated and directed by motives that are subtly concealed. This, I believe, is the substance of the Freudian contribution. It is a very important contribution.' The writers realize that the motives and directing forces of human conduct are difficult to identify and are often obscured by apparent, but relatively unimportant, overt indicators. They have attempted, however, to determine the extent of the influence of certain obvious conditioners of vocational and occupational choice. To study some of the motives which underlie the child's choice of occupation, the writers administered Lehman's Vocational Attitude Quiz to a large number of school children in Topeka, Kansas, and in Kansas City, Missouri. Lehman's Vocational Attitude Quiz consists in a comprehensive and catholic list of two hundred occupations. First, the children are asked to check only those occupations in which they are willing to engage as life-work. They are then asked to indicate: (i) the three occupations which they would like best to follow, (2) the one occupation which they most likely will follow, (3) the three occupations which they think are the best money-makers, (4) the three occupations which they believe are most respected, and (5) the three occupations which they believe will require the least amount of work.