Career Decision Making - Rationality and Non-Conscious Processes (Krieshok Et Al, 2009)

Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Vocational Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb
Career decision making: The limits of rationality and the abundance

of non-conscious processes
Thomas S. Krieshok a,*, Michael D. Black b, Robyn A. McKay c
a
b
c
Psychology & Research in Education, University of Kansas, 1122 West Campus Road, Room 621, Lawrence, KS 66045-3101, USA
Dwight D. Eisenhower Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 4101 S. 47th St. Trafcway, Leavenworth, KS 66048, USA
Arizona State University-Polytechnic, 7017 E. Tiburon, #4 Mesa, AZ 85212, USA
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 September 2008
Available online 6 May 2009
Keywords:
Decision making
Career choice
Career counseling
Unconscious
Intuition
Secondary school students
College students
Worker attitudes
a b s t r a c t
The terms of work have changed, with multiple transitions now characterizing the arc of a
typical career. This article examines an ongoing shift in the area of vocational decision
making, as it moves from a place where its all about the match to one closer to its
all about adapting to change. We review literatures on judgment and decision making,
2-system models of decisional thought, the neuroanatomy of decision making, and the role
of non-conscious processes in decision making. Acknowledging the limits of rationality,
and the abundance of non-conscious processes in decision making, obliges us to act in
ways that mitigate the inherent difculties to which those processes make us vulnerable.
We conclude that both rational and intuitive processes seem dialectically intertwined in
effective decision making, and we offer a trilateral model of career decision making that
includes rational and intuitive mechanisms, both of which are funded and kept in check
by occupational engagement.
2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
. . .the readiness is all Shakespeares Hamlet

In the global economy, the terms of work have changed. The contemporary perspective on career is characterized by a
state of affairs in which unpredictability is the norm and job security is history (Savickas, 2000, p. 56). Multiple transitions
now characterize the arc of a typical career. The hierarchical structures that epitomized 20th century organizations, in which
entry-level employees could systematically ascend and attain increasingly greater responsibility, prestige, and income, have
given way to structures that do not readily grant ascending career paths. As a result, the contemporary worker is responsible
for personally generating transferable skills and adaptive strengths (Drucker, 1994; Savickas, 2000). The impact of this shift
on vocational psychology and career counseling is signicant and invites us to reconsider both theory and practice.
In this article, we examine an ongoing shift in the area of vocational decision making, as it moves from a place where its
all about the match to one closer to its all about adapting to change. That shift in emphasis is borne out not only by our
evolving theory and research, but by the experience of multitudes of workers. At the same time, a review of literatures outside of vocational psychology leads us to question a bedrock assumption of career decision making, namely Parsons notion
of true reasoning. As we examine ndings on judgment and decision making, 2-system models of decisional thought, and
* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 785 864 3820.

E-mail address: tkrieshok@ku.edu (T.S. Krieshok).
0001-8791/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2009.04.006
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T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290
the neuroanatomy of decision making, we conclude that both rational and intuitive processes are dialectically intertwined in
effective decision making, with each system subject to its own set of limitations. Furthermore, psychologys growing understanding of the role of non-conscious processes in decision making requires us to reexamine vocational theories and the
interventions they inform, and integrate that understanding where necessary. We discuss several recent efforts in the eld
to move in that direction, and we offer our own trilateral model of adaptive career decision making. The model is trilateral in
that it includes rational and intuitive mechanisms, both of which are kept in check by engagement, our term for those behaviors we employ to fund both rational and intuitive processes we utilize when facing a transition (when we call it exploration)
and perhaps more critically when no transition is imminent (when we call it enrichment). And we refer to the model as adaptive to emphasize the critical nature of consistently re-visiting any personenvironment matching solution. We end by spelling out several propositions and ndings from our early attempts to measure and intervene with the occupational
engagement construct in a number of diverse populations. To be clear, the model presented here can be understood as a response to the empirical evidence on the dialectical interplay of rational and intuitive systems in decision making. As such, it
can also be understood as a prescriptive model of adaptive career decision making that addresses concerns which have informed contextualist positions in which rational prescriptive models are legitimately questioned (Phillips, 1997).
2. Its all about the match
Industrialization, immigration, and urbanization propelled the development of vocational psychology in early 20th century America. Of the early theoretical approaches to vocational psychology, Parsons (1909) systematic conceptual framework for career guidance is one of the few that has endured. Parsons asserted that the decisional process applies reason
to the relationship between knowledge of self and knowledge of the conditions of success in different lines of work. The
implications of this model have informed vocational psychology ever since, especially the concept that individuals can be
successfully matched with occupations, eventually known as trait-factor theory. Trait-factor theory has inspired the more
contemporary theory of personenvironment correspondence (Lofquist & Dawis, 1991), the central tenet being that occupational selection is best accomplished by matching individual traits to work requirements. An effective personenvironment
t is hypothesized to yield both vocational satisfaction (as experienced by the worker) as well as vocational satisfactoriness
(of the workeras experienced by the employer).
The concept of personenvironment t girds Hollands (1997) typological theory of vocational personalities and work
environments, the most extensively employed assessment approach in vocational psychology. A typical career counseling
experience involves deriving an individuals Holland code, usually via the Strong Interest Inventory (Donnay, Morris, Schaubhut, & Thompson, 2005) or the Self-Directed Search (Holland, Powell, & Fritzsche, 1994). The entire process hinges on Parsons (1909) century old condence in ones ability to apply reason to the relationship between knowledge of self and
knowledge of occupations in the service of a career decision. This matching person-to-position paradigm has served
20th century organizations and individuals well, states Savickas (2000), but it relies on stable occupations and predictable
career paths (p. 56), both of which are in short supply in the contemporary era.
Nevertheless, the belief that there is one right career for me is a most common belief among American workers and
those preparing to enter the workforce (Krumboltz, 1991), and the belief that there is one right career for you seems all
too often lodged in the minds of many career counselors. Fascination with ever more sophisticated psychometrics led to
widespread use of assessment devices such as the Strong Interest Inventory (Donnay et al., 2005). This modern-era dedication to empirically-based instruments has supported the conclusion that vocational success is all about the match, that
match being the one occupation or career that best suits my particular combination of interests, skills, and personality.
3. Its all about adapting to change
Vocational adaptability has its antecedents in Supers (1955) construct of career maturity, which described ones readiness to make educational and vocational choices. Super included an impetus toward career planning and exploration, as well
as knowledge about occupations and career decision making. However, career maturity implies an eventual end to a process.
Recognizing that in the transition from adolescence to adulthood the psychosocial impetus shifts to coping with changes in
work and working conditions, Super and Knasel (1981) generated the concept of career adaptability. This is consistent with
Supers instruction in functionalism, with its concentration on individual adaptation. According to Super and Knasel, career
adaptability concerns the relationship between the individual and his or her environment and is characterized by the motivation to strike a balance between pressures issuing from the world of work (in the form of changes in work and working
conditions) and the desire to have an inuence on it through the implementation of ones vocational self-concept. More specically, Super and Knasel considered career adaptability to be a function of ve dimensions: (a) planfulness, or the importance of preparation in respect to life events, (b) exploration, or the act of deriving relevant career information, (c)
information and skills, or the ability to use information in the interest of career adaptability, (d) decision making, or awareness of career decision-making principles, and (e) reality orientation, or knowledge of self and situations as they relate to
coping with the tasks of career development (Cairo, Kritis, & Myers, 1996).
Since its origin, the construct of career adaptability has been advanced as an organizing principle by which counselors
might help individuals understand and cope with the vicissitudes of work (Goodman, 1994; Isaacson & Brown, 1993;
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Savickas, 1997). Some researchers have expanded the denition and others have formulated similar constructs. Herr, Cramer,
and Niles (2004) outline a rubric of adaptive skills necessary for personal exibility in a global economy, including the ability
to recognize and dene problems, analyze evidence, implement solutions, and cope with change. They also incorporate
entrepreneurial sensibilities and aspects of emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey & Mayer, 1990), including accurate perception and appraisal of emotions, effective regulation of emotion, and the adaptive use of emotions in the
service of cognitive functioning. Goodman elucidates similarities between adaptability and career resilience, a concept
coined by London and Stumpf (1986) to describe exibility, tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, and a capacity to reframe ideas in response to career obstacles and frustrations. Drucker (1994) refers to generalists, or workers who have
learned to rapidly acquire special capabilities to transition effectively between jobs.
Further explication of the construct of adaptability as it was conceived by Super and Knasel (1981) has been undertaken
by Savickas (1997), who dened it as the readiness to cope with the unpredictable tasks of preparing for and participating in
the work role and with the unpredictable adjustments prompted by changes in work and working conditions (p. 254). He
indicates that the utility of the construct resides in its emphasis on a continual need to respond to new circumstances and
novel situations, rather than to master a predictable linear continuum of developmental tasks (p. 254). He also amplies the
importance of Supers emphasis on planfulness as an aspect of adaptability, stating that once poised toward the future, the
individual can make tomorrow real by exploration that densely populates the future with anticipated events and by decision
making that connects these events to present choices, whether through rational logarithms or intuitive dreams (p. 256).
Blustein (1997) incorporated the construct of career adaptability into a context-rich perspective of career exploration.
From this perspective, career exploration is not exclusive to the work role. Rather, it can be inuenced by factors from other
domains of life. As it relates to career adaptability, Blustein maintains that developing exploratory skills and attitudes ultimately builds ones capability to resourcefully cope with unexpected career changes. Using a grounded theory approach, Blustein, Phillips, Jobin-Davis, Finkelberg, and Roarke (1997) determined several skills and attitudes that constitute an adaptive
transition. Qualitative analysis of interviews with individuals who had experienced the school-to-work transition revealed
that those who joined in activities that afforded exposure to work environments and sought consultation from others about
their vocational options were more satised with their eventual vocational choices. Those who joined in such activities also
exhibited signicantly higher levels of congruence (t between vocational personality and work environment; Holland,
1997), which correlated with a more exible approach to the process of deciding on a vocation. Given these results, Blustein
et al. proposed that a purposeful approach to vocational decision-making tasks, self-exploration, understanding vocational
contexts, and seeking consultation from others are relevant to an adaptive school-to-work transition. Moreover, they proposed that those who pursue further skill development in their work lives are well positioned to maximize their current
opportunities and subsequent career transitions (p. 393).
Extending the context-rich idea of career exploration, Flum and Blustein (2000) have argued for an enhanced conceptualization of exploration, incorporating a longitudinal perspective that transcends our established understanding of exploration as stage in career decision making. They posit that career exploration be construed as a lifelong, adaptive process that is
as unplanned and fortuitous as it is planned and systematic. Moreover, they maintain that the exploratory process provides
the individual with both cognitive and affective feedback that can be instrumental in the appraisal of an experience. Central
to this enhanced conceptualization of exploration is an attitudinal component, characterized by openness to the natural
vicissitudes of life experiences (p. 382), facilitating adaptation to shifting environmental demands. Flum and Blustein contrast this with an avoidant approach to exploration, characterized by intolerance for ambiguity and decisional foreclosure.
Among the outcomes imagined by Flum and Blustein is self-construction, or the development of a coherent and meaningful
identity implemented within a life-plan and also re-construed and reconstructed via ongoing exploration and adaptation
throughout the life-span.
Finally, in response to Heppners (1998) observation that the psychological resources necessary for an adaptive career
transition have not been sufciently researched, Ebberwein, Krieshok, Ulven, and Prosser (2004) interviewed adults undergoing career transitions as a result of layoff to clarify adaptability in relation to adult career transitions. Qualitative analysis
revealed that the planful and reality-oriented individuals in this study were, prior to being laid off, already behaving in ways
that optimized their adaptation to transitions that, while not unlikely, were usually unanticipated.
4. True reasoning vs. the actual mechanics of adaptive decision making

So how do humans adapt to the ever changing world of work? It would seem to require an ability to scan and monitor the
environment while using well-developed and optimally functioning data analysis and decision-making faculties. Knowledge
of these processes, including how we employ them well and how we are likely to stumble, should form the basis for our
interventions. These are processes that have been studied for some time in basic areas of psychology, with conclusions that
often do not t most traditional vocational psychology models. According to Bloch (2005), classical and prevailing theories of
career development are generally consistent with scientic reductionism, inspired by the belief that isolating all the parts
will lead to the total or sum knowledge about a phenomenon or organism, yielding reliable predictions and replicable interventions (p. 195). To be sure, vocational theorists have historically emphasized rational processing (Parsons, 1909) and
unbiased hypothesis testing (Jordaan, 1963; Osipow, 1983) in career decision making, advancing a vision of the decision-maker as scientic, methodical, unfettered by distortions and emotional distractions, and committed to the maximization of
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personal gain (Phillips, 1997). In fact, the representation of vocational introspection as a conscious and willful process remains the dominant paradigm (Krieshok, 2001).
However, upon review of the social and cognitive psychology literature on decision making, Krieshok (1998) called into
question this emphasis on reason, suggesting those literatures conclude that most processing performed by the human
mind for decision making and behavior initiation is not performed at the conscious level (p. 217). Specically, empirical
evidence from social and cognitive psychology as well as from neuroscience suggests that introspective access to cognitive
processes is limited (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977); that our cognitive processes are often confounded by biases and heuristics
(Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Simon, 1955; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, 1974, 1982; Wason, 1960); and that an intuitive mode of processing parallels the rational one and is active and inuential in decision making (Epstein, 1994; Kahneman,
2003; Lieberman, 2003). To be sure, it is likely more accurate to consider the matter in dialectical terms, with rational and
intuitive processes mutually informing career decision making and, ultimately, career adaptability.
We next review the research on these two decisional systems, followed by a brief look at the brain physiology that supports a two-system model. We then take up the large role that unconscious processes play in decisions, before we return to
research in vocational psychology that has integrated some of these ndings, both in theoretical and applied work.
5. The rational-intuitive dialectic
Judgment and decision-making research was drawn into sharp relief in 2002 when Kahneman was granted a Nobel Prize
for his work with Tversky on mapping the parameters of bounded rationality originally detected by Simon (1955), himself a
1978 Nobel Laureate. While Simon studied the limits of rational decision making, Tversky and Kahneman (1973, 1974, 1982)
concerned themselves with cognitive heuristics and biases that confound intuitive judgments. According to Kahneman
(2003), we held a two-system view, which distinguished intuition from reason (p. 698). Employing terms coined by Stanovich and West (2000), Kahneman referred to the intuitive mode of processing as System 1 and the rational mode as System 2.
System 1 operations are typically habitual, implicit, associative, heuristic, and often emotionally charged. System 2 operations are typically deliberate, explicit, deterministic, systematic, and not generally subject to emotion. Kahnemans research
has demonstrated System 1 to be more susceptible to biases and heuristics in decision making.
Kahneman (2003) noted that other researchers had described similar distinctions between the intuitive and rational
modes of processing. Epsteins (1994) cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is particularly noteworthy. CEST involves
two interacting systems of information processing; an experiential system (analogous to System 1) and a rational system
(analogous to System 2). According to Epstein, the experiential system encodes information in the form of images, metaphors, and narratives, and processes it unconsciously, resulting in categorical, stereotypical, and self-evident conclusions.
In contrast, the rational system encodes information in the form of abstract symbols, words, and numbers, and processes
it consciously, resulting in exible, idiographic, and evidentiary conclusions. Concepts about self and world manifest as beliefs in the rational system and as schemata in the experiential system. Derived from emotionally signicant experiences,
schemata are automatically invoked cognitive structures that organize and interpret information and facilitate inferences,
promoting adaptive behavior including, arguably, adaptive career behavior. That schemata are derived from emotionally signicant experiences is consistent with a fundamental supposition of CEST, which is that the experiential system is emotionally driven, while the rational system is logically driven.
Interestingly, Holland (1997) has referred to schemata in vocational terms, suggesting that within vocational daydreams
individuals develop informal knowledge of given occupations accompanied by impressions of how they might t within
those occupations. This speaks to the relevance of self-schemata (Markus, 1977) in the career decision-making process.
Markus dened self-schemata as experientially derived generalizations about the self that are used to efciently guide
the selection, organization, and processing of self-related information; information that is ultimately referenced in
judgments, decisions, and inferences about the self. As self-relevant information accumulates, self-schemata grow more
complete and resistant to counter-schematic information. However, lack of experience may result in relatively weak selfschemata for particular traits. Moreover, Markus posits that in some instances endorsement of a trait as indicative of oneself
may be a reection of the desirability of the trait, rather than a function of a well-articulated self-schema.
Lieberman (2003) advances another model of intuitive and rational processing, involving interactive reexive and reective systems. The reexive, or x-system, operates in a manner analogous to System 1 and the experiential system, relating
affect and meaning to stimuli via automatic, implicit processing. The reective, or c-system, operates in a manner analogous
to System 2 and the rational system, managing exceptions to implicit expectations via controlled, explicit processing. Lieberman argues that the relationship of each system to separate cortical structures results in a difference in the underlying symbolic representations of information. The x-system is governed by the functions of the amygdala, basal ganglia, and the
lateral temporal cortex; structures implicated in automatic mental processes that typically lack effort, intention, and
awareness, tend not to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as perceptions or feelings (p. 44). In contrast,
the c-system is governed by the functions of the anterior cingulate, prefrontal cortex, and the medial temporal lobe; structures implicated in controlled mental processes that typically involve some combination of effort, intention, or awareness,
tend to interfere with one another, and are usually experienced as self-generated thoughts (p. 44).
Imaging research generally supports Liebermans model. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Lieberman,
Jarcho, and Satpute (2004) determined that when participants verbally reported on their selfknowledge in relationship to
subject domains in which they were considered experienced, structures within the x-system were activated. Conversely,
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when reporting on their selfknowledge in relationship to subject domains in which they were considered inexperienced,
structures within the c-system were activated. Lieberman and his colleagues also observed that participants reporting on
their selfknowledge in relationship to subject domains in which they were experienced exhibited signicantly greater
activity in areas of the brain associated with semantic memory than in areas associated with episodic memory, suggesting
that they were relying more on intuition-based selfknowledge, or self-schemas.
In a similar vein, Levine et al. (2004), using fMRI, found different areas of the brain responsible for factual autobiographical memory (I walk the dog every day at 5:00) and episodic autobiographical memory (two weeks ago when I was walking
the dog I saw a squirrel jump over the neighbors fence). While both types of memory are autobiographical, they serve different purposes, with factual memory grounding us in time, and episodic memory allowing us to emotionally relive past
events. This could be a crucial distinction in applied work that queries decision makers about their relative strengths or skills
(e.g., I am good at writing) versus asking them to reactivate memories of specic instances when they demonstrated that
skill, as in Bolles (2008) work with accomplishment stories.
6. The neuroanatomy of decision making
By grounding his model to specic cerebral structures, Lieberman (2003) prompts consideration of the functional neuroanatomy of decision making. As it happens, neuroscience research reveals a state of affairs that is generally consistent with
the dialectical models proposed by Kahneman (2003), Epstein (1994), and Lieberman (2003).
Virtually all sensory data are coordinated by the thalamus and gauged by the amygdala, which is stimulated by emotionally signicant information. In turn, the thalamus and amygdala inform the hypothalamus, which regulates a variety of somatic functions, such as the physical experience of emotion. The hypothalamus is also implicated in the operations of several
neural systems, including the expectancy system (Buck, 1999). The expectancy system, which is composed of the medial
forebrain bundle (MFB) and the periventricular system (PVS), courses through the hypothalamus, terminating in the forebrain. The MFB is made up of dopamine and norepinephrine pathways and can be construed as a reward system that gives
rise to pleasurable affects. Conversely, the PVS is made up of serotonin and norepinephrine pathways and can be construed
as a punishment system that gives rise to aversive affects (Buck). Both the MFB and the PVS run parallel to the ascending
reticular activating system (ARAS), which issues from the reticular formation in the brainstem and also terminates in the
forebrain, mediating attention and arousal. The MFB and ARAS interact to motivate behavior (Gray, 1977) while the PVS
and ARAS interact to inhibit it (Gray, 1982).
According to Buck (1999), the reward functions of the MFB and the punishment functions of the PVS are accessible to the
individual in the form of cognitive affects, or emotions that we consciously recognize and label. Furthermore, states Buck,
. . .affects involving expectancy compose the biological basis of exploratory cognitive affects, such as interest, boredom,
curiosity, and surprise (p. 325). He adds, The ultimate function of the cognitive affects is education, the drive to explore
and learn more about ones raw experience (p. 326).
The recognition and labeling of emotions to which Buck (1999) refers takes place in the orbitofrontal cortex, also identied as the ventromedial frontal cortex (VMFC). Situated behind and just above the eyes, the VMFC occupies the ventral
region and lower aspects of the medial region of the frontal lobe. Functionally, the VMFC marks the conuence of thinking
and feeling, fact and emotion (Siegel, 1999). In addition to receiving input from the limbic cortex via the expectancy system,
it also receives input from the dorsolateral section of the frontal cortex (DLFC) and the anterior cingulate (AC). The DLFC
orchestrates working memory. In the case of self-relevant judgments, such as appraising oneself vis--vis a particular trait,
working memory coordinates autobiographical information elicited from semantic memory (Klein, Loftus, & Khilstrom,
1996) in the form of schematic summaries of ones past, and from episodic memory (Craik et al., 1999) in the form of specic
events that constitute ones past. Although the schematic summary is more readily accessible, the contents of episodic memory tend to constrain it, making it more accurate (Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, & Chance, 2002). A paucity of relevant experiences
and memories could leave one positioned to endorse a trait, or not, on insufcient premises.
As for the anterior cingulate, it directs attention, bringing working memory online in the interest of consciously processing information and deliberately selecting a response (Pliszka, 2004). Among other functions, the AC is sensitive to cognitive
errors (Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000) and tasks that involve overriding habitual responses (Barch, Braver, Sabb, & Noll, 2000;
Carter et al., 2000). As such, it is critical to the mediation of response exibility (Siegel, 1999) in the ventromedial frontal
cortex, allowing one to reect on shifting contexts, rather than reacting automatically. Anxiety, prompted by high-stakes
decisions involving considerable amounts of information (as in career-decisions) can blunt functioning of the AC. In such
instances, control defaults to the amygdala and basal ganglia, resulting in purely reexive, automatic responses (Lieberman,
2003; Siegel, 1999).
Structurally, the ventromedial frontal cortex is one synapse away from each of the major regions of the brain (Siegel,
1999) and receives input, either directly or indirectly, from all sensory modalities (Bechara, Tranel, & Damasio, 2000). When
confronted with a novel experience, the VMFC integrates the facts and emotions associated with it, creating a learned factualemotional set (Bechara, Damasio, & Damasio, 2000, p. 297), of which one may be conscious or not. When confronted
with a decision, ones history of relevant experiences is recruited into working memory from semantic and episodic memory.
Simultaneously, within the VMFC, emotions associated with those experiences are rekindled, signaling the amygdala and, in
turn, the hypothalamus, producing affect that can be sensed in the body, or at least simulated in the somatosensory cortices
of the neocortex. In either event, these reconstituted feelings, of which one may be conscious or not, inuence the decision as
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much as the facts do. Known as the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994), the process expedites adaptive decision making by exploiting the generally benecial dimensions of automaticity (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999), or the relegation of behavioral control to processes that do not require or draw on conscious thought. Extensive research involving neuropsychological
testing of patients with damage to the VMFC has consistently revealed signicant decision-making decits (e.g., Bechara,
Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Lee, 1999), lending support to the somatic marker
hypothesis.
Buck (1999) denes affect as the direct knowledge-by-acquaintance of feelings and desires, based on readouts of speciable neurochemical systems (p. 304), in which knowledge-by-acquaintance is simply a matter of raw awareness of a neurochemically-induced sensation. Buck distinguishes between biological and cognitive affects, positing that biological affects
constitute the basis for higher order cognitive ones. Moreover, Buck describes biological affective processes as constant,
although usually unconscious, unless intensied by circumstances. When amplied, affect becomes subject to greater
awareness and knowledge-by-description, or the restructuring of raw perceptual data into an internal representation of reality (p. 304). Unconscious emotional processes are entirely consistent with the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1994),
which involves bioregulatory processes operating at varying degrees of awareness.
Inuenced by Zajoncs (1980) famous maxim Preferences need no inferences (p. 298), Berridge (1999; Berridge &
Winkielman, 2003) has examined unconscious emotion and its relationship to motivation, developing the concept of incentive salience (Berridge & Robinson, 1998). According to Berridge, incentive salience is a largely implicit learning phenomenon
in which the mental representation of a stimulus is assigned a valence based on its perceived hedonic impact, or the extent
to which it is emotionally gratifying to the organism. Neuroanatomically, it is the nucleus accumbens that governs this process. The nucleus accumbens lies within the ventral striatum, an area within the basal ganglia that is implicated in the experience of reward and the initiation of adaptive behaviors. The ventral striatum is itself informed by the limbic cortex.
Perceptual data about a stimulus are diverted by the thalamus to the limbic cortex where they are shared with the ventral
striatum and expressed via the release of varying amounts of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Incentive salience subsequently enables the attributed stimulus to become the target of desire and goal-directed strategies (Berridge, 1999, p.
542). Berridge adds that these core processes can occur independently of consciousness. In other words, our preferences
and desires, as well as our pursuit of that which we prefer and desire, are not necessarily dependent on conscious awareness.
It is implicit learning, according to Berridge, that makes this possible.
It is worth adding that Lieberman (2003) has described how implicit learning accounts for intuition and that the process
is governed by the functions of the basal ganglia, specically the caudate. Mechanically similar to Berridges explanation of
the relationship between incentive salience and the nucleus accumbens, Lieberman holds that intuition involves the formation of unconscious representations in the basal ganglia that are automatically activated in the service of decision making.
Taken together, the two suggest a potential neural explanation for the intuitively derived preferences and selfknowledge of
the career decision-maker, in which associated structures of the basal ganglia (the nucleus accumbens and caudate) are informed by implicit learning from experience, giving rise to representations that constitute feelings about what they like and
who they are, vocationally speaking.
7. Problems arising from the rational-intuitive dialectic
Extrapolating from his work on incentive salience, Berridge (Berridge, 2002; Winkielman & Berridge, 2003) describes how
it is possible to make a rational choice that leads to a disappointing outcome. Borrowing terminology from Kahneman
(1999), Berridge notes that stimuli with high incentive salience can be expected to be high in predicted utility. Predicted utility is essentially ones theory about the hedonic value of an outcome and is based on previous experiences of its hedonic
impact, or experienced utility. Given a stimulus with a potent experienced utility (and therefore high incentive salience), predicted utility will be similarly potent and translate into decision utility, or the manifestation of a choice to pursue that stimulus. Experienced, predicted, and decision utility typically covary. However, Berridge acknowledges the problem of
miswanting (Gilbert & Wilson, 2000), in which one selects and pursues outcomes that prove dissatisfying. Berridge attributes
this to distortions of predicted utility.
Gilbert (2005) attributes miswanting to three separate mental mistakes we make. The rst is that the Reality Movie that
our brain generates is in fact just a movie about reality, not reality itself. Some of the things it includes are not present in
reality, and conversely some of the things actually present in reality do not show up in our perception of it. When we imagine our future for example, we leave out important things, many of them inconvenient truths such as how much we can actually accomplish in a given period of time. The second mistake we make occurs when we estimate how happy a particular
event will make us by imagining that scenario and basing our future feelings on how we feel during that imagining. But current feelings can be biased by all sorts of conditions (e.g., hunger, a recent experience) that have little or nothing to do with
the future scenario. Finally, Gilbert argues that we have a hard time estimating how well we will deal with difcult situations, thus we go out of our way to avoid things that, in reality, might have proven to be much less difcult for us than we
imagined they would be.
One of the most provocative areas of research related to 2-system models was stimulated by advent of the cerebral commissurotomy, a surgical procedure in which the corpus collusum is sectioned to prevent the inter-hemispheric spread of
electrical activity (Gazzaniga, Bogen, & Sperry, 1962). In addition to diminishing seizure activity in patients with severe epilepsy, sectioning the corpus callosum reveals the operational differences between the cerebral hemispheres. In the most
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general sense the left hemisphere is concerned with linear processing while the right is concerned with holistic processing
(Pliszka, 2004). One of the more reliable distinctions between the hemispheres is that the left is responsible for language
operations and the right is responsible for visualspatial ones. As such, the functions of the left hemisphere are subject to
linguistic representation while those of the right are not, leaving it essentially mute. Nevertheless, in a case study of a patient
with a sectioned corpus callosum, LeDoux, Wilson, and Gazzaniga (1977) were able to elicit communications from the right
hemisphere.
As mentioned, sectioning of the corpus callosum prevents inter-hemispheric transfer of information. As a result, the two
hemispheres become functionally independent. Capitalizing on the fact that visual stimuli presented to the right half of the
right eye is relayed to the right hemisphere and, in a parallel manner, visual stimuli presented to the left half of the left eye is
relayed to the left hemisphere, LeDoux et al. (1977) were able to pose questions to either hemisphere. Naturally, in the absence of any inter-hemispheric transfer of information, the other hemisphere remained unaware that a question was being
posed to its counterpart. Presentation of the questions involved sitting the patient approximately one meter in front of a
screen and instructing him to xate on a dot at its center. Using a slide projector, the questions were projected onto the
screen briey (100150 ms) in the selected visual eld. Those questions presented to the left hemisphere were answered
verbally. Those presented to the right were answered by having the patient spell his response, using his left hand, with
Scrabble letters. In this manner he was able to provide accurate responses from the right hemisphere to numerous questions
about himself posed to the right hemisphere, suggesting a greater degree of consciousness at work on the right side than
previously imagined.
The relevance of this case study to the neuroanatomy of decision making, and career decision making in particular, lies in
the patients response to a question about what job he would like to do for a living. When the question was posed to the left
hemisphere, he replied draftsman. In stark contrast, when the same question was posed to the right hemisphere, he spelled
the words automobile race. Given a voice, the right half of the patients mind was revealed to be at odds with the left, as if
engaged in a dialectical process involving implicit and explicit preferences. Gazzaniga (1985) found this phenomenon much
more widespread than expected, and eventually concluded that even in intact brains, the left hemispheres function of fabricating reasons for ones behavior was accomplished largely with no actual reference to the right hemispheres experience.
He refers to this left hemispheric function as the interpreter module, that takes it upon itself to provide a running commentary on behaviors engaged in, with no real access to actual motives behind those behaviors. When one is asked a question about why a particular behavior was engaged in, the interpreter module does not (cannot) answer that question from a
valid standpoint, but instead answers the related question, Why would someone like me engage in this behavior under
these circumstances?
Haidt (2006) develops this conscious/unconscious dialectic into a metaphor of an elephant (representing our several million year old brain components that have been proven to help us survive) and a rider atop the elephant (representing the
much newer conscious thought mechanism). While the rider believes s/he is in control of behavioral choices, the much larger
elephant most often gets his way, with only minimal opportunities for control by the much smaller (in inuence) rider. But it
is the rider (the interpreter module), with its access to language, that we inevitably communicate with when we use spoken
or written language.
8. Is rationality or intuition superior?
The models of rational and intuitive processing advanced by Kahneman (2003), Epstein (1994), and Lieberman (2003) regard rational processing as the superior function. Kahneman asserts that System 2 continuously monitors the activities of
System 1 and acknowledges that his research has been guided by the idea that intuitive judgments occupy a positionperhaps corresponding to evolutionary historybetween the automatic operations of perception and the deliberate operations
of reasoning (p. 697). Epstein argues for a supraordinate division of rational and experiential processing (p. 714). Accordingly, the experiential system that evolved to organize experience and direct behavior on the basis of learning is subordinate
to the more recently evolved rational system that is capable of abstraction.
This supraordinate division has been observed in research using the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI, Epstein, Pacini,
Denes-Raj, & Heier, 1996; Pacini & Epstein, 1999), an objective measure of individual differences in rational and experiential
(or intuitive) thinking styles. In a ratio-bias experiment, Pacini and Epstein found that low Rational Scale scores predicted
heuristic decision making under high-incentive conditions in which a correct response was required. Under the same conditions, elevated Rational Scale scores predicted optimal responses. This is consistent with Kahnemans (2003) observation
that an intuitive judgment will be modied if System 2 identies it as specious. Finally, Lieberman (2003) indicates that the
structures of the x-system actually receive incoming perceptual data before those of the c-system, suggesting its evolutionary primacy. As a result, the x-system handles most of the judgment load. According to Lieberman, the c-system is recruited
to deal with circumstances that are exceptions to our implicit expectations (p. 47).
The primacy of rational processing notwithstanding, it appears that automatic cognitive processes do indeed carry out the
preponderance of decision making (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). In fact, Nisbett and Wilson (1977) argue that direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes is limited and that when individuals attempt to access them, their resulting
judgments correspond more to implicit causal theories rather than to reality. These conclusions challenge exclusively rational approaches to judgment and decision making, including most career decision-making models. Nevertheless, they
are generally consistent with conclusions drawn by Simon (1955) in his Nobel Prize winning research. Simon observed that
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our capacity for rationality is constrained, and proposed the concept of bounded rationality to explain those constraints.
According to Simon, we rarely have all of the information we need to make a consummate rational choice and even if we
did, we do not individually possess the cognitive capacity to use it optimally. Instead, we engage in satiscing, a relatively
crude application of reason in which we settle for an adequate selection, as opposed to the optimal one.
An extensive body of qualitative research by Klein (1998) also supports the function of intuition in decision making. Klein
studied a variety of experienced decision-makers operating in naturalistic settings involving ambiguity and shifting conditions. He hypothesized that decision making under such circumstances would involve comparing an intuitively derived
choice to an alternative, resulting in the subsequent rejection of the alternative. However, he found no evidence for comparative evaluation, leading him to postulate a singular evaluation approach to decision making, in which an option is evaluated
on its own merits rather than via comparison to other options. As in the practice of satiscing, one selects the rst option that
works. Klein makes the case that singular evaluation is an intuitive process and that judgments stemming from it do not lend
themselves to rational explication. Furthermore, rather than attributing decision-making errors to biases and heuristics,
Klein contends that they stem primarily from a lack of experience and information, as well as a tendency to dismiss potential
problems when mentally simulating the implementation of a decision.
A series of experiments by Bechara and others (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997; Bechara et al., 1994) revealed
a tendency on the part of control subjects to make increasingly optimal decisions on a gambling task before consciously realizing an optimal strategy, leading them to perform signicantly better than patients with damage to the VMFC. Unlike the
patients, the control subjects generated anticipatory skin conductance responses prior to consciously realizing an optimal
strategy, prompting the conclusion that they had access to somatic feedback that the patients did not. Their decisions were
enhanced by feelings that preceded the formation of rational strategies.
Clearly, there are many conditions under which conscious processing can lead to poor choices. Introspection about ones
choices reduced the likelihood that jam tasters opinions would agree with those of expert judges (Wilson & Schooler, 1991).
Similarly, when given the choice between two free posters, those asked to reason aloud through their choice were less satised than those not asked to do so (Wilson et al., 1993). In that instance, the authors argued that those who had to reason
aloud ascribed too much importance to the criteria they were able to articulate, even though their real desires might have
led them to a different conclusion. Consciousness may often prove a poor decision maker because it is so dependent on
language.
Dijkersthuis and Nordgren (2006) go even further and propose a model that considers unconscious thought to have analytical capabilities far surpassing those of conscious processing, but only for complex data-rich tasks. Unconscious Thought
Theory (UTT) shares many of the same assumptions made by other dual-processing systems, but unlike those models, UTT
claims that both conscious and non-conscious systems are deliberative (Evans, 2008). While consciousness handles smaller
discreet data analysis problems more effectively (like which pair of socks to purchase), unconscious processes handle complex tasks more effectively (like which stock to invest in or which apartment to rent). A typical experiment presents participants with a complex set of data with which to solve a concrete problem (e.g., which apartment would be better to rent).
After they are presented with the data, the participants are occupied in a distracter task, something that engages their conscious processor so it cannot get involved in the concrete problem solution. After a period of time, participants are asked to
make their best guess of the correct answer. Those who have been given no time to work on the problem do least well, but
counterintuitively, those who have been allowed to work on the problem consciously perform less well on the task than
those who have been given time, but had their conscious processor distracted. These non-conscious processes have been
dubbed the deliberation-without-attention effect (Dijkersthuis, Bos, Nordgren, & van Baaren, 2006, p. 1005).
Betsch, Plessner, Schwieren, and Gutig (2001) admit the unconscious cannot count like consciousness does, but instead
uses a form of fuzzy logic to slowly absorb large amounts of positive and negative information, yielding an unbiased case that
eventually tips one way or another. This lack of bias comes about in part because of the unconscious ability to assign natural weights to decisional attributes, weights that can apply to personal and cultural idiosyncrasies.
Finally, Norretranders (1997) described a dual-processing model that bears resemblance to Unconscious Thought Theory.
He named the two systems of his theory the I (the conscious system) and the Me (the non-conscious system). Though Wilson
(2002) describes that second system as the adaptive unconscious, and Bargh and Barndollar (1996) call it the wise unconscious, it is important for our consideration of rational and intuitive contributions to decision making that we recognize the
limits of both, and not ask the I questions we intend for the Me. Referring back to Haidts (2006) metaphor, we should be
careful not to ask the rider questions only the elephant can answer. And we should not be surprised when we dont get accurate answers, or when the rider insists that he can answer for the elephant.
9. Vocational judgment and decision-making research
There have been several writers in vocational psychology who have worked to integrate ndings on the relative inuence
of reason and intuition, along with the many other decisional problems described above. Gati (1986) asserted, vocational
choice may be regarded as a particular case of decision making under uncertainty when the aim is to reach an optimal choice
among alternatives (p. 408). Despite, or perhaps because of, the apparently contradictory ndings regarding reason and
intuition in the decision-making literature, the position presented here is that both modes of processing are essential to
vocational decision making. In fact, a review of empirical research on career decision making reveals that it clearly is not
an exclusively rational process. In a study involving college students trained in a ve-step rational decision-making strategy,
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Soelberg (1967) was able to predict their post-graduate job choices in 87% of the cases. Although the students claimed to rely
on the rational decision-making methods they had been taught, they typically opted for their initial, intuitively derived
choices. Soelberg concluded that the students were in fact applying systematic methods, but not in the interest of making
rationally informed decisions. Rather, he hypothesized that they were rationally constructing justications for their intuitively derived choices.
These results can be interpreted in light of Gazzanigas interpreter module, which would nd the rational mind making up
reasons for choices one is attracted to on the intuitive side. Similarly, Blustein and Strohmer (1987) discovered a robust tendency for students to use biased strategies in testing vocational hypotheses. Participants evaluating occupations germane to
their own career aims emphasized personal attributes that would make them suitable for the job, while participants evaluating occupations extraneous to their own career aims emphasized personal attributes that would make them unsuitable
for the job. Not even objective occupational information could moderate this tendency. Blustein and Strohmer speculated
that biased hypothesis testing on the part of the undecided career decision-maker could hamper exploration, resulting in
premature foreclosure and early crystallization.
Gati and Tikotzki (1989) also challenged the emphasis on rational processes in career decision making. They determined
that career decision-makers explored occupational information according to the sequential elimination model (Gati, 1986),
rather than the eminently rational expected utility model (Pitz & Harren, 1980). Adapted from Tverskys (1972) theory of
elimination by aspects, the sequential elimination model involves identication and ranking of select occupational aspects
(e.g., salary range, prestige) followed by the elimination of occupational alternatives that violate those aspects. As opposed to
the expected utility model, in which the probable utility of each vocational option is computed and weighted, this strategy
allows one to economically reduce the potentially bewildering multitude of vocational options to a manageable number.
Moreover, it is consistent with Simons (1955) conclusion that we rarely have all of the relevant information we need to
make a rational decision, let alone the cognitive capacity to use it optimally. Gatis method might offer one strategy for
reducing the complexity of the data analysis problem facing the human decision maker, though it still relies heavily on
the accuracy of the aspects fed into the model.
10. Post-rational perspectives on career decision making
According to Phillips (1997), Those who have considered what actually happens in the decision-making process have
offered the nearly unanimous conclusion that rational decision making simply does not reect the deciders reality (p.
278). In response to the body of evidence challenging the emphasis on rational processes in career decision making, many
researchers have proposed alternative models (Hartung & Blustein, 2002). Gelatts (1989) positive uncertainty incorporates
acceptance of uncertainty, tolerance for ambiguity, and an emphasis on intuition in career decision making. Gelatt makes the
case that inhabiting the framework of positive uncertainty allows one to act even in the absence of clearly dened objectives.
Acting in the absence of clearly dened objectives is also compatible with the planned happenstance model (Mitchell,
Levin, & Krumboltz, 1999). Implementing planned happenstance involves teaching individuals to engage in exploratory
activities that increase the probability that they will be exposed to unexpected opportunities (p. 118). Furthermore, the
activities should be undertaken with a sense of curiosity, persistence, exibility, and optimism, as well as a willingness to
take action in the face of uncertain outcomes.
Depth oriented values extraction (DOVE; Colozzi, 2003) represents yet another counterpoint to the rational paradigm.
Colozzi posits two distinct values systems that mutually inuence cognitive and affective appraisals of options in the career
decision-making process. Expressed work values are manifest, reexive, and generally derived via introjections from sources
of authority. In contrast, implied work values are latent, reective, and tend to be more authentic. According to Colozzi,
incongruence between these systems can precipitate defaulting to expressed values and abandoning ones authentic values,
resulting in dissatisfaction in multiple life-space roles. DOVE involves a sequence of interventions designed to extract implied work values. The latent is made manifest, allowing one to base decisions on authentic values.
Invoking the language of chaos theory, Bloch (2005) offers perhaps the most sweeping departure from the rational paradigm, hypothesizing a model of career as a complex adaptive entity. Like other complex adaptive entities, careers periodically involve reinvention in a manner consistent with the principle of autopiesis or self-regeneration. Likewise, careers are
sustained via open exchange of energy vis--vis the individual and the environment. This exchange facilitates participation
in networks that vary in range from the level of individuals to that of the global economy. A career is a fractal of ones existence, which is to say that it is a reection of ones life and reveals the dynamics inuencing that life. Careers are marked by
phase transitions between order and chaos, comparable, for example, to the transitions of water between the states of solid,
liquid, and gas. Bloch maintains that career-related distress is symptomatic of a phase transition. The chaos of phase transitions prompts quests for tness peaks in which the individual seeks maximal adaptability. Careers are also subject to nonlinear dynamics, such that the career development of a given individual may defy linear progression to the extent that it can
only be understood in terms of that individual. Random and apparently inconsequential events can result in signicant career shifts in a manner consistent with the principle of sensitive dependence (or the buttery effect, in which the motion of a
butterys wings might impact global weather patterns). Attractors might also affect careers. Specically, Bloch cites point,
pendulum, and torus attractors, which restrict an entitys development despite phase transitions, and strange attractors, which
actually prompt transformation. Theoretically, point, pendulum, and torus attractors would inhibit career adaptability, while
strange attractors would facilitate it, promoting the emergence of new forms. According to Bloch, emergence is present to
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the extent that the individual continues to learntherefore, emergecreating a sense of satisfaction, ow, and even joy (p.
200).
11. The case for occupational engagement
Despite their diminished emphasis on rational methods, the anti-introspectivist view of career decision making
(Krieshok, 1998), positive uncertainty (Gelatt, 1989), planned happenstance (Mitchell et al., 1999), depth oriented values
extraction (Colozzi, 2003), nonlinear orientations (Bloch, 2005), and even the popular applied work of Bolles (2008), can
be construed as approaches to the development of adaptive rationality (March, 1978). Adaptive rationality emphasizes experiential learning in the interest of engendering a state of affairs in which decision making is optimal as a result of the accumulation of experience and information. This is consistent with Kleins (1998) assertion that we tend to rely on both
experiential and rational sources when making decisions, deriving manageable representations of situations via experiential
sources and rening them, if necessary, via reason. Likewise, the concept of adaptive rationality is consistent with adaptive
career decision making, offered here as a trilateral model (Fig. 1). Theoretically, a career decision-maker who recognizes the
limits of rational and intuitive processing can arrive at, and even sustain, a relatively optimal quality of decision making as a
result of ongoing focused contact with the people and the world around them. We term this occupational engagement, and
dene it as taking part in behaviors that contribute to the career decision-makers fund of information and experience of the
larger world, not just the world as processed when a career decision is imminent. Through occupational engagement, vocational and self-schemas evolve and vocational judgments and decisions are more informed, as are judgments about the larger host
of life matters. Adaptive career decision making, in which decision making is enhanced through the accumulation of information and experience, becomes possible as a result of occupational engagement.
Kleins (1998, 2003) studies of experts identify experience as the basis for recognizing key patterns that indicate the
dynamics of a situation. In a sense, engagement yields the conditions to become an expert in ones own life. Expert decision
makers can see patterns that others cannot, because they have the capacity to use past choices and outcomes as quick
(unconscious) points of reference based on limited information which likely holds key patterns that they have experienced
or seen before. As regards career decision making, engagement activities fund the bank of information that the individual can
draw upon when a time to decide is at hand.
While it is clear that both reason and intuition play critical roles in career decision making, they depend on occupational
engagement as the behavioral tool leading to their full development and optimal tuning. While the eld can certainly provide some guidance on ways to think smarter (both rationally and intuitively), when the moment of decision making is upon
us (what we refer to as the grunt moment), occupational engagement is the ongoing assignment we can never go wrong
prescribing, thus it has become for us the focus of most of our assessment and intervention efforts to date.
11.1. Occupational engagement via exploration and enrichment
In making the case for occupational engagement as a mechanism of adaptive career decision making, it is helpful to distinguish it from Supers (Super & Knasel, 1981) concept of exploration. Recall that Super dened exploration as the act of
deriving relevant information in the interest of making an adaptive career decision. That denition implies a reduction of
options, culminating in an endpoint. While occupational engagement includes such exploration behaviors, our model adds
a similar set of behaviors we refer to as enrichment. By contrast, enrichment implies a process of increasing awareness via
experiential activities that increase the decision-makers fund of information about his or her self in the world.
Intuition
Reason
System I
System II
Unconscious
Conscious
Engagement (Enrichment + Exploration)

Fig. 1. Trilateral model of adaptive career decision-making.
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It is also instructive to distinguish enrichment from the enhanced conceptualization of exploration (Flum & Blustein, 2000) discussed earlier. While enrichment resembles the enhanced part of Flum and Blusteins re-conceptualization of exploration, it has nothing to do with what has historically been construed as career exploration. Factor
analyses of various iterations of measures of engagement (Black, 2006; McKay, 2008; Noble, 2008; Scott, 2006) support a distinction between classical exploration behaviors and enrichment. Given this, it is reasonable to subsume the
two under the more comprehensive rubric of engagement. Thus, it can be said that one is, to varying degrees, engaged in exploration and/or enrichment, wherein the aim of exploration is a career decision, while the aim of enrichment is experientially informed decision making at many and various points in the future. There is thus a difference in
respect to implementation. Super and Knasel construed exploration as a cyclical behavior. In contrast, enrichment is a
relatively constant pursuit. That is, exploration is state activity, while enrichment might be thought of more like a
trait activity.
To be sure, both exploration and enrichment add to the fund of information from which career decisions issue. However,
in the rapid ux of the global economy, this information has an increasingly limited half-life. Enrichment mitigates that decay via behaviors which ensure that ones fund of information is as relevant and serviceable as possible at any given decision
point, anticipated or not. This model reects the realization that career decision making is not an exclusively rational practice and posits that reason, intuition, and occupational engagement contribute mutually to adaptive career decision making.
As for the basic mechanism by which rationality and intuition become richer, it is experience acquired via engagement. As
we consider intervening in this system, the model suggests we would do well to teach people to think and feel about experiential information in a more intentional way. While the bank inevitably becomes richer passively, it becomes much richer
via intentionality.
Ultimately, adaptive individuals think about and plan for their futures, even when they are not faced with imminent transitions. By behaving in ways that optimize their adaptation to unexpected transitions, they are engaged in a process of enrichment that can be understood as a subtle, but adaptive preparation for the likelihood of career transition. This occupational
engagement process forms the foundation of the model of adaptive career decision making that we propose. It denes not
only the scanning mentioned earlier, but its results provide for the development and optimal tuning (feeding) of the mental
processes at work in decision making.
11.2. Propositions drawn from the trilateral model
In the course of conceptualizing our trilateral model, we offer a set of propositions that describe the adaptive career decision-maker, which could be used to organize occupational engagement behavior and inform research. In our estimation, the
adaptive career decision-maker: (a) is persistently engaged, accepting that career decision making is an enduring process
and that vocational security is illusory, (b) does not rely exclusively on innate talents, but rather seeks to compensate for
decits to become a competent generalist, (c) is wary of specialization and how it can narrow vocational options, (d) is a
life-long learner and integrates new knowledge with what he or she already knows, (e) cultivates a sense of foresight in respect to trends in the eld as a result of persistent occupational engagement, learning, and the integration of new knowledge,
(f) is never completely foreclosed, (g) is exible and willing to act despite fears, (h) regularly questions his or her perceptions
of the vocational reality with which he or she is faced, (i) is aware of the limits of reason and intuition and seeks to manage
biases and heuristics, and (j) has an existential/zen outlook that affords numerous advantages, including an essential trust in
the universe that allows him or her to see beyond appearances and transform seemingly threatening problems into
opportunities.
Our work to validate the model began with occupational engagement, in part because of its pivotal role in prescribing
activities that stand to inform both rational as well as intuitive processes. Our initial efforts have yielded two iterations
of an instrument to measure occupational engagement in high school and college students as well as in working adults. Initial results for both lines of research are presented briey below, but the instruments should still be considered in the research and development stage, not yet ready for use in counseling practice.
11.3. Occupational engagement in students
Our early efforts to measure occupational engagement were with high school and college student populations. Our research team (the Adaptability Team, or A-Team), which varied over the past several years from 3 to 12 members, spent many
hours working to dene the construct and later to develop items for use in a self-report measure of the construct. Our work
across several projects and several iterations of instrumentation suggested (Black, 2006) occupational engagement correlated positively with Holland, Daiger, and Powers (1980) Vocational Identity scale (r = .22), and correlated positively with
the Rational scale (r = .24), but not with the Experiential scale of the REI (Epstein et al., 1996; Pacini & Epstein, 1999). The
Vocational Identity scale measures a robust construct (Holland, Johnston, & Asama, 1993) that correlates positively with several favorable career-related factors and negatively with an array of unfavorable ones (Holland, 1997). As such we felt it constituted something of a litmus test for an emerging vocational construct.
McKay, Kerr, Hansen, and Krieshok (2008) and McKay (2008) found that occupational engagement correlated positively
with Openness to Experience (.27), Extraversion (.24), and Conscientiousness (.25) from the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (Costa & McCrae, 1992) in a sample of creatively gifted high school students.
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Finally, Cox (2008) addressed whether occupational engagement in college students correlated with various indices of
well being and achievement. The Estimates of Gains scales from the College Student Experience Questionnaire Fourth Edition
(CSEQ; Gonyea, Kish, Kuh, Muthiah, & Thomas, 2003) were used as the principal outcome measures, along with the Vocational Identity scale. Even after controlling for covariates, occupational engagement accounted for signicant variance in
all ve of the Estimates of Gains subscales, and related signicantly to several measures of being better-off in domains such
as college GPA (R2 = .20), personal development (R2 = .19), and Vocational Identity (R2 = .14), supporting the argument that
occupational engagement is important to college student success.
11.4. Occupational engagement in working adults
Applying the trilateral model to the concerns of adult workers, Scott (2006) developed an occupational engagement scale
for employed adults. His ndings argue for two faces of occupational engagement in that population, one he labeled Job
Involvement, which focused on jumping in and being involved with ones current position. The other, labeled Job Curiosity,
related to keeping an eye on what is out there, beyond the current position, sometimes as a hedge against suddenly being
thrust out there, but also as a way of staying up with the latest in the larger marketplace.
Noble (2008) extended the work of Scott (2006) to nd that Job Involvement related positively to age (.21), education
(.25), earnings (.21) and job satisfaction (.36); while Job Curiosity related negatively to age ( .21) and job satisfaction
( .29). Noble also collected data on Holland code type for each participant and found no differences across types on Job Curiosity. She did, however, nd that Conventional types scored lower on Job Involvement than did any of the other ve Holland
types. Finally, she examined relationships between scores on the NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the subscales of occupational engagement, and found signicant positive correlations between Job Involvement and Extroversion (.31), Openness
(.25), Agreeableness (.15), and Conscientiousness (.22), and a negative correlation with Neuroticism ( .30). In addition, Job
Curiosity had a signicant positive correlation with Openness (.18) but a signicant negative correlation with Agreeableness
( .18).
11.5. Assessing and intervening with occupational engagement
Our efforts thus far have yielded two measures that seem to be capturing much of what we have come to understand as
occupational engagement. The OES-Student (see Table 1) is a single 14-item scale that correlates with many variables seen as
desirable in college students. Among working adults, a different picture is emerging, with the OES-Worker (see Table 2) consisting of two clearly differentiated factors, one measuring occupational engagement within ones current position (Job
Involvement) and the other focused more on opportunities and happenings beyond ones position (Job Curiosity). That factor
structure has held up over two studies, with additional ndings related to personality, Holland type, and career stage, generally tting theoretical propositions. Ironically, Ito and Brotheridge (2005) observed that adaptability was predicted by both
an emotional connection to ones current job, while simultaneously maintaining an openness to eventually resigning from it.
While potentially troublesome for employers, considering ones next move appears benecial for workers today. The OESStudent includes several items that clearly resemble the Involvement Scale of the OES-Worker, a few items more closely
resembling Curiosity Scale items of the OES-Worker, and several that have no counterpart in the OES-Worker.
In terms of interventions, Cox et al. (2006) developed three 50-min interventions embedded within a university orientation course, and showed moderate success in increasing not only their occupational engagement, but their vocational identity and career decision self-efcacy as well. In high school student samples, Krieshok and Conrad (2005) showed signicant
gains in occupational engagement over an intensive two-week on-campus experience for at-risk high school students. And
among creatively gifted students, a population that often proves difcult to work with in strictly linear terms, CLEOS Project
interventions (Kerr, 2007; McKay et al., 2008) improved occupational engagement such that, compared to a wait-list control,
Table 1
Occupational Engagement Scale Student
1. I talk about my career choices with family or friends.
2. I am actively involved in groups or organizations.
3. I have contact with people working in elds I nd interesting.
4. I gain hands on experience that I might use in the future.
5. I volunteer in an area that I nd interesting.
6. I attend lectures, exhibits, and community events.
7. I take part in a variety of activities to see where my interests lie.
8. I ask people in social settings about what they do for a living or what they are interested in doing.
9. I visit places Im interested in working at so I can learn more about them.
10. I attend presentations or talks related to a career I might nd interesting.
11. I pursue opportunities in life because I just know they will come in handy.
12. I work with teachers or staff on activities other than coursework (committees, orientation, student life activities, etc.).
13. I do lots of things that are interesting to me.
14. I have meaningful conversations with students of a different ethnicity.
*How well does each statement describe you? From Not at all like me to Very much like me
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Table 2
Occupational Engagement Scale Worker
Scale 1 Job Curiosity
1. I have talked with others about what I want in my dream job.
2. I network with people working in jobs Im curious about.
3. I daydream about career possibilities.
4. I let friends know that Im open to exploring other jobs.
5. I imagine how another job might feel.
6. I look for ways my strengths might apply to different kinds of work.
7. I have talked to someone about the steps needed to pursue a job I might be interested in.
8. I push myself to nd jobs that pay more.
9. I picture the kind of life I might have with a different career.
10. I push myself to nd positions that are more satisfying.
Scale 2Job Involvement
11. I network with people in my eld.
12. I am a member of professional or work organizations.
13. I talk with colleagues or co-workers about current events in our eld.
14. I attend conferences, workshops, or trade shows related to my work.
15. I can describe my work skills in detail.
16. I talk with others about new developments in my eld.
17. I am involved in a work-related organization.
18. I am xed on my career path.
19. I maintain lots of contacts with people in my line of work.
20. I pursue training to become more effective in my job.
*How well does each statement describe you? From Not at all like me to Very much like me
participants became more attuned to their own needs, interests, and values, seeking to learn more about themselves and the
work in which they are interested, and actively engaging in activities that promote their career goals.
We are encouraged by our early efforts to measure occupational engagement and to increase it over the short term in high
school and college students. A signicant piece of our interventions to date has been psycho-educational in nature, helping
students understand the importance of occupational engagement and its place in informing rational and intuitive mechanisms of career decision making. While the concepts seem easy to grasp, we know from our own work with students seeking
help with career decisions that occupational engagement is not always an easy sell. Across students, those who are open to
experience, extroverted, and conscientious are more likely to hear our entreaties to get out and mix it up with the world.
While we have not yet examined the specic role of anxiety, occupational engagement has shown a negative correlation
with neuroticism in both students and working adults. A large part of our interventions may indeed focus on moving students (perhaps especially clients) to a willingness to sit with a certain amount of un-knowing about their exact path, and
instead embracing a exibility that allows them to capitalize on planned happenstance. Common practice (as well as naive
client perception) often carries the assumption that there is indeed a best match out there for each of us. An adaptable approach holds that there are a great many good matches, with no one being the right match, and to hold out such hopes prevents the acceptance of the reality that navigating the world of work is a difcult process for most. Efforts to escape from that
reality often lead to a great many problems down the road.
12. Conclusions
In practice, we often still think along matching model lines when we are meeting with clients, but there is a shift from
thinking in terms of the match (one time in nature, getting it right the rst time), to ongoing matching, with frequent scans to
see how well the current match is working in the evolving world of work and in ones own evolving set of strengths and
interests. For us, the shift has come in thinking about how that periodic judgment about quality of match is effected, and
that such periodic judgments must be made in the rst place. Those judgments are made through the engagement process,
engagement with the world of work, as well as engagement with self, honestly apprising shifts in passions or priorities.
As Savickas and Baker (2005) have pointed out, much of what we have studied in vocational psychology over the past
100 years has become rather stagnant, so our attempts to examine career decision making in light of ndings far aeld, from
literatures in economics, neuroscience, and experimental social psychology, may at least bring the vocabulary of those elds
into greater consideration within vocational psychology. Ultimately, our trilateral model of adaptive career decision making
represents a pronounced conceptual shift. Referring once more to Fig. 1, vocational psychologists have historically directed
their assessments and interventions at the rational aspects of decision making. However, as we have delineated, career decision making is not the exclusively rational practice once imagined. Direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes is limited at best. We rarely have all of the relevant information we need to make a rational decision. Yet even if we
did, we do not individually possess the cognitive capacity to use it. The matter is compounded by the fact that an extensive
body of research supports the function of intuition in decision making, and other research that suggests conscious rational
thought tends to over-reach its bounds to address problems for which it is less well suited, and to override non-conscious/
intuitive solutions with its own biased alternative solutions. Occupational engagement may represent a method by which the
rational and intuitive dialectic can be converted into a dynamic that serves adaptive career decision making.
288
If vocational psychologists have been complicit in the widespread belief that its all about the match, shifting primacy to
a belief that people must become adaptive in their relationship to work will require a major realignment in how we construct our interventions. Suggesting to both clients and counselors that all that is necessary is a one-time intervention (even
if over a few sessions) sounds a great deal more economical that suggesting to both audiences that what is required is a lifelong engagement with both internal and external worlds.
And while motivating present and future workers to invest in increasing their adaptive decision-making skills presents a
signicant challenge, perhaps the bigger challenge lies in convincing those in our own eld of the importance of shifting
from a gold-standard outcome of decidedness and commitment to an outcome of engagement and commitment within relativism. Should adaptive career decision making prove to be a function of occupational engagement, it should stimulate the
development of new interventions inspired by the propositions outlined herein, interventions that could have ramications
for career counseling, human resources, and, perhaps most signicantly, the individual in relationship to the world of work.
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Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Vocational Behavior

Career decision making: The limits of rationality and the abundance

. . .the readiness is all Shakespeares Hamlet

* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 785 864 3820.

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T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

4. True reasoning vs. the actual mechanics of adaptive decision making

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T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

Engagement (Enrichment + Exploration)

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T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

Gazzaniga, M. S. (1985). The social brain. New York: Basic Books.

T.S. Krieshok et al. / Journal of Vocational Behavior 75 (2009) 275290

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