The Association Between Self-Defeating Personality Characteristics, Career Indecision, and Vocational Identity

Abstract

Research on Schill's Self-Defeating Personality Scale (SDPS; Schill, 1990) has focused primarily on interpersonal relationships and less on self-defeating behavior in other contexts. The SDPS was correlated with the Career Decision Scale (CDS; Osipow, Carney, Winer, Yanico, & Koschier, 1976), My Vocational Situation (MVS; Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980), and the Career Factors Inventory (CFI; Chartrand, Robbins, Morrill, & Boggs, 1990). Participants with more self-defeating characteristics were more career indecisive, had less vocational identity, and were more indecisive in general. Women with higher scores on the Self-Defeating Personality Scale had significantly greater career choice anxiety and less need for self-knowledge, although men with higher scores did not. The effect of depression contributed substantially to the higher scores for career indecision and vocational identity among men with more self-defeating characteristics, and it accounted entirely for lack of desire for self-knowledge among women with more self-defeating characteristics. However, a general characteristic of indecisiveness in persons with more self-defeating characteristics was present and was independent of depressive affect. The differential effects among the CFI subscales support claims that the scale is factorally pure.