The Psychology

•';

r-/
t

Choice

.M)HN^L. HOLLAND
 JOHN L. HOLLAND

The
Psychology

Vocational Choice

A THEORY OF PERSONALITY TYPES

AND MODEL ENVIRONMENTS

BLAISDELL PUBLISHING COMPANY

A DIVISION OF GINN AND COMPANY
Waltham, Massachusetts •
Toronto London
 DESIGNED BY
Larry Kamp and Barbara Liman

Copyright © 1966 by Blaisdell Publishing Company,

A Division of Ginn and Company.
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-1 i46o
Printed in the United States of America.
 Foreword

A successful educational program must necessarily be based

solidly on an understanding of die psychology of the learner and
the learning process. And the application of psychological prin-
ciples and theory to the educative process may well represent the
major point of impact of psychological science upon society. But
psychology is a complex discipline, made up of a variety of sub-
disciplines and characterized by a diversity of viewpoints. Many
of the subdisciplines— the psychology of learning, developmental
psychologv, social psychology, clinical psychology— have much to
offer the educator, but the avenues through which their contribu-
tions may be brought to a focus on education are often obscure.
Oftentimes it is an instructor to find a standard text
difficult for
that is suitable for the course he wishes to teach. Although he
may well be aware of the diversity of material available, he often
lacks a ready means of giving students access to authoritative
specialized summaries interpreted for educational practice. Paper-
back volumes, each dealing with a limited topic and available
at low per unit cost, permit the instructor to supplement his
"standard" text at points where he wishes greater emphasis or
strength, or to select coordinated paperback volumes to constitute
the "text" with the particular emphasis he desires.
The books to be published in this series will, of course, deal
mainly with the standard areas of educational psychology-
human development, learning, adjustment, and statistics and
Vi FOREWORD
measurement. Where special and different viewpoints exist in
particular areas, different types of books will be made available.
However, the series is planned as an open-ended publishing
venture. As occasion arises, books will be presented dealing with
special problems (for example, school integration, vocational
choice) with which educators must be concerned and to the
solution ofwhich psychologists can contribute. The series is also
viewed as an appropriate vehicle by means of which a psychol-
ogist in any area of specialization may address himself to edu-
cators, and as a means by which directors of major research
programs may summarize and interpret their findings for educa-
tional applications. When utilized for this purpose, a series of
this kind may hopefully reduce "cultural lag," making results of
research programs or theoretical developments more readily and
quickly a part of the instructional material in educational psy-
chology. In such instances the significance of the material and the
relevance of the topic to education will be the main consideration
in the decision to publish rather than possible use as text material.
In total, a paperback series represents an extremely flexible
means of meeting varied instructional purposes. The books in
this series are written to serve the needs of both preservice
teachers and in-service teachers, but in abroad sense are ad-
dressed to the professional education community. The range of
titles now in preparation are listed elsewhere in this volume.

Raymond G. Kuhlen
 Preface

I have written this short book to present a theory of vocational

behavior, a theory I have found useful. I hope practitioners, re-
searchers, and students will also find it useful. And although I

have written primarily for a student and professional audience,

I have tried to write so that an intelligent person can, without

much difficulty, find the principal ideas clear and helpful.

The theory was developed to integrate the burgeoning lit-

erature of vocational choice, vocational stability, and vocational

achievement; to suggest new research; some of
and to outline
the practical applications of our current knowledge. Most of the
evidence that supports the theory has been reported earlier in
journals and monographs. The major findings in these studies
have been summarized here, along with some new research and
relevant vocational literature. However, because I am primarily
interested in presenting a theory, not in citing the supporting
evidence, the reader should consult textbooks and other reviews
of the literature for more complete accounts.
The impetus for my work came partly from my dissatisfaction
with current thinking about vocational behavior. To put it
bluntly, theoretical formulations about vocational behavior have
usually been truisms concerning personal development and vo-
cations. These cliches can be applied to all behavior; they lack
content and so cannot be subjected to scientific examination: for
example, "Vocational choice is developmental." So, one might

vn
Viii PREFACE
add, is the choice of a wife or a dog. Again: "Vocational choice
is the implementation of a self-concept." But which self-concepts
lead to which choices? In short, typical theoretical statements
about vocational choice have been unspecific and devoid of defini-
tions and psychological content.
I also saw that the need for a way to synthesize our vocational

knowledge is acute and growing. Although the empirical re-

search of the past has provided useful knowledge, that knowledge
consists largely of endless specific pieces of information obtained
from the use of aptitude tests and interest inventories that usually
lack an explicit rationale. Satisfactory integrative theories are not
available. These formless data must be interpreted and reinter-
preted—a formidable task—by every investigator, teacher, and
student. The advent of the computer has merely increased our
need for theory, because empiricism is now galloping rather than
plodding.
My biases about the role that theory plays in research are
several. First, I feel that we must make an effort to construct
theories of vocational behavior; otherwise, we will continue to
wander aimlessly through our data and the correlates of our
favorite tests. Because most workers have been intimidated by the
philosophers of science, we have made only limited attempts at
theorizing. And because in our attempts at constructing theories
we have felt it necessary to satisfy criteria so strict that they are
more appropriate to the next generation than to our own, we have
often failed tocome up with any theory at all. Second, I think
our emphasis upon the trappings of science— mathematics and
methods— has fostered the misconception that theories should be
proposed only after careful, extensive planning.
In reality, constructing a theory is an exciting, creative task;
it may or may not emerge from the application of a set of formal
rules or procedures. Unfortunately, many researchers are still

committed to the building-block tradition of science; they believe

that carefulness, gradualness, and sincerity make up for insight-
ful speculation.
I admit that I have frequently gone well beyond the data; how-
ever, I feel that there is as much risk in creeping empiricism as
 PREFACE IX

in idle speculation. Unfortunately, theories in social science are

often viewed as targets for criticism and researchmanship rather
than as intellectual tools that should be tried out for their use-
fulness in empirical work. We need, I think, to make greater use
of theory as a tool in our problem solving and to give theory
building a status equal to that of method and empiricism. In this
matter, Darwin's words seem especially appropriate: "Without
speculation, there is no good and original observation."
The present theory is only one attempt to organize and inter-
pret our knowledge of vocational behavior. I hope it will lead
to the creation of more useful theories. We need many more.
I am indebted to many friends and colleagues who have pro-

vided me with valuable counsel, criticism, and support. They in-

clude Alexander W. Astin, John O. Crites, Leonard D. Goodstein,
Sandra W. Lutz, Willis D. Poland, John M. Stalnaker, and Rich-
ard R. Stephenson. I am also grateful to the series editor, Ray-
mond Kuhlen, for his encouragement and skillful shaping of my
work. Finally, I am especially indebted to Laura Kent for her
ability to recast my writing into plain English. Although I can
no longer accurately discriminate their ideas from my own or
always remember their special contributions, I am in their debt
for much of what is useful in the book. On the other hand, they
are not responsible for my errors or my inability to use their
insights.
John L. Holland
Iowa City, Iowa
 Contents

i. Introduction to the Theory 1

2. The Personality Types 15

3. Personality Types and Expected Performance 42

4. The Environmental Models 52

5. Environmental Models and Expected Influences 63

6. People in Environments 72

7. Life Histories 79

8. Research and Practical Applications 89

REFERENCES 97

APPENDIX A. A CLASSIFICATION SCHEME FOR DETERMINING

A PERSONS RESEMRLANCE TO THE MODEL TYPES IO9

APPENDIX H. THE PERSONAL SURVEY 125

INDEX 131
 CHAPTER ONE

Introduction to the Theory

All of us are confronted with vocational decisions throughout

our lives. We
can escape such problems for brief periods, but
they are rarely resolved once and for all. At each stage of life, we
must cope with vocational questions What do I want to be when
:

I grow up? Should I become an engineer or an artist? Should I

become an airline hostess or a secretary? I'm a good research

engineer, but should I accept a supervisory job? I'm a good
teacher, but would I be a good superintendent? Would I like it?
Should I get out of teaching and sell textbooks? I have never
been a good salesman; have I missed the boat somewhere? Can
I adjust to being retired?

These and similar questions are what this book is about. It

summarizes what we know about the choice of a vocation, and
it presents a special way of organizing this knowledge for easier
comprehension and use— in short, a theory.
The theory is primarily concerned with explaining how people
make vocational choices, what leads them to change jobs or voca-
tion, and what personal and environmental factors are conducive
to vocational achievement. To a lesser degree, the theory is also
concerned with personal development and personality.
Because the theory grows mainly out of the problems and con-
cepts suggested by our current knowledge of vocational and
nonvocational life, a discussion of certain background concepts
will help the reader to understand the theory. This section de-
2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
scribes our current knowledge, outlines some problems arising
from the lack of organization of this knowledge, and explains the
ideas and concepts that form the intellectual foundation of the
theory. This section is followed by a summary of the theory itself.

BACKGROUND CONCEPTS
Our knowledge of the personal characteristics and situational
forces related to the choice of a vocation has increased enor-
mously in recent years. We
have learned much about people by
the use of vocational interest inventories and of inventories and
devices for describing personality. At present, we know that a
and preferences are associated with
person's vocational interests
a great range of personal and background information. This
knowledge has led to several concepts and assumptions that
underlie the theory.
The choice of a vocation is an expression of personality. For
many years, it was popular to interpret a person's scores on voca-
tional interest inventories and his choice of vocation as a function
of his "vocational interests," as if these interests were different
from or independent of personality. A long history of adherence
to this concept produced an independent literature known as
"interest measurement." The work of Berdie [13], Strong [121],
Darley and Hagenah [27], and Super and Crites [124] epitomizes
the view that interest inventories measure interests, vocational
choices, and vocational preferences.
Growing knowledge about the personal and environmental
factors associated with a person's vocational choice made explicit
the need for a broader conception. This need became clearer
when we learned that vocational preferences are sometimes mod-
erately correlated with personality and originality scales [68],
self-ratings on various personality traits, daydreams about future
accomplishment, responses to certain projective devices, values
and goals, attitudes of parents, and many other personal and
need for a more
situational forces. Various writers suggested the
comprehensive view of vocational preferences and interests, al-
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY 3
though their statements were often tentative and limited: "interest
inventon- scores are measures of self-concept" [16]. "vocational
interest measurement is a special case in personality theory" [27],
"vocational choice is the implementation of a self-concept" [125],
and "vocational choice is developmental" [125]. Such statements
imply that a person's vocational choice is the outcome of his life

history and not a decision independent of his past life [106, 17].
If vocational preference is construed as an expression of per-
sonality, then "vocational interests" represent the expression of
personality in work, hobbies, recreational activities, and prefer-
ences. In short, what we have called "vocational interests" are
simply another aspect of personality. Just as we have developed
theories of personality from our knowledge of sex, parental re-
lationships,and behavior, so we can construct theories of per-
sonality from our knowledge of vocational life and reinterpret
as an expression of personality what we have called "vocational
interests."
Perhaps some examples will serve to make clear the meaning
of this reinterpretation. If we think of vocational interests and
personality as independent domains, we will regard "I like to
use tools to build things" as an expression of interest but "I like
to hit people with tools" as an expression of personality. Yet both
statements tell us how the subject uses tools— constructively or
destructively. To ignore the constructive use of tools and similar
activities asan index of personality is to ignore about half of
man's conscious life. To take another example, a "Yes" response
to the item "I would like to be a women's clothing designer" is
regarded as an interest item, but even a naive person would
regard "I like to wear women's clothes" (if answered "Yes" by
a man ) as an important sign of personal aberration, although the
content of both items is similar.
Interest inventories are personality inventories. If vocational
interests are an expression of personality, then it follows that
interest inventories are personality inventories. Forer [40] was
probably the first to develop an inventory to assess personality
from interests and activities and to illustrate how a subject's re-
sponses to apparently neutral content (vocational interests and
 4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
activities) could be interpreted as expressions of various dimen-
sions of personality. Unfortunately, Forer did not put his ideas
to a direct scientific test. He did, however, show that we can
distinguish a great variety of psychiatric and medical groups by
their scoreson various scales of an interest inventory, the Kuder
Preference Record [41].
Forer's theorizing led in part to the construction of Holland's
Vocational Preference Inventory [63], a personality inventory
composed entirely of occupational titles. Generally, scales were
developed by hypothesizing that preferences for occupations are
expressions of personality. The rationale for the development of
the inventory contains a more complete statement of this hy-
pothesis:

The choice of an occupation an expressive act which reflects

is

the person's motivation, knowledge, personality, and ability. Oc-

cupations represent a way of life, an environment rather than a
set of isolated work functions or skills. To work as a carpenter
means not only to use tools but also to have a certain status,
community role, and a special pattern of living. In this sense, the
choice of an occupational title represents several kinds of infor-
mation: the S's motivation, his knowledge of the occupation in
question, his insight and understanding of himself, and his abili-
ties. In short, item responses may be thought of as limited but
useful expressive or projective protocols.

The individual scales for the fifth revision of the VPI have use-
ful reliability and validity. And more important, the development
and validation of the VPI make it clear that vocational preferences
are indeed signs of various personality traits. Similar support for
the concept has been provided by Garman [47], who used re-
sponses to the Strong Vocational Interest Blank to develop and
validate a scale measuring anxiety.
To summarize, we have clear evidence that it is useful to
interpret or construe what have been called vocational interest
inventories as personality inventories. Moreover, the content of
vocational interest inventories provides scales whose reliabilities
and validities approximate those obtained for other methods.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY 5
Vocational stereotypes have reliable and important psycholog-
icaland sociological meanings. In the same way that we judge
people bv their friends, dress, and actions, so we judge them by
their vocations. Our everyday experience has generated a some-
times inaccurate but apparently useful knowledge of what people
in various occupations are like. Thus we believe that plumbers
are handy, lawyers aggressive, actors self-centered, salesmen per-
suasive, accountants precise, scientists unsociable, and the like.

In earlier years, social scientists were skeptical of the accuracy

of this amorphous folklore of vocational stereotypes (many still
are! ), but recent work makes it clear that many vocational stereo-
types have some validity. Not only do people agree upon the
stereotypes for a given vocation, but also scientific evidence gives
support to some aspects of the stereotypes: lawyers are aggres-
sive and scientists are unsociable [11, 56, 69, 105, 123].
The assumption that vocational stereotypes have reliable psy-
chological and sociological meanings is important, because most
interest inventories rest heavily on its validity. If vocational
stereotypes were unreliable and inaccurate, the validity of inter-
est inventories would be seriously reduced. In the case of the
present theory, the validity of this assumption lends credence to
the assumption— vocational choice is an expression of per-
first

sonality—and to several subsequent assumptions.

The members of a vocation have similar personalities and sim-
ilar histories of personal development. If a person enters a given

vocation because of his particular personality and history, it

follows that each vocation attracts and retains people with similar
personalities. Laurent's study of engineers, physicians, and law-
yers [85] documents the similarities in life history for the mem-
bers of a vocation. Other studies— by Galinsky [46], Nachmann
[97], Roe [105], and Segal [111], for example— lend support to
this assumption. And, if we form classes made up of vocations
demanding similar personalities, we should get groups of people
who are alike. For example, groups of scientists such as physicists,
chemists, and mathematicians should be grossly similar, because
the evidence indicates that physical scientists have something in
common.
 :

6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

Because people in a vocational group have similar personalities,
they ivill respond to many situations and problems in similar
ways, and they will create characteristic interpersonal environ-
ments. Although we cannot test this assumption directly, we do
have some indirect evidence. For example, Astin and Holland
[9] were able to predict what college students would say about
their college and fellow students. The method entails a simple
census of the number of students in each of six curricular groups
Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventional, Enterprising, and
Artistic.The percentage of students in each curricular group at
a given college becomes the profile of that college. In several
studies [8, 9], it was found, for example, that the percentage of
students in the Realistic group was correlated with a student's
description of the college and its students as pragmatic rather
than humanistic. It is possible then to describe a college by a
simple census of members, if one has a way to interpret the
its

meaning of membership in various curricula.

Vocational satisfaction, stability, and achievement depend on
the congruency between one's personality and the environment
(composed largely of other people) in which one works. Just as
we are more comfortable among friends whose tastes, talents,
and values are similar to ours, so we are more likely to perform
well at a vocation in which we "fit" psychologically. The Strong
and other generally accepted vocational inventories are based in
part on this assumption. Moreover, the vocational literature is
with evidence that supports the assumption, although that
filled

evidence is not usually interpreted as relating to the interaction

between a particular personality and a particular environment.
Our knowledge of vocational life is disorganized and often
isolated from the main body of psychological and sociological
knowledge. At the present time we have a sizable storehouse of
vocational knowledge, and like many storehouses, it is a dis-
organized clutter. We have no comprehensive organizational plans
or theories to order this information.
There are hundreds of studies that report on such
literally
matters as the personal attributes of Coca-Cola bottle workers
and the interests of door-to-door salesmen, the vocational inclina-
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY J
tions of engineering freshmen, the traits of embalming trainees,
and the parental attitudes of scientists. Unfortunately, these
studies are only loosely tied together. Generally, there are no
maps to help either the professional or the uninitiated. Even with
an experienced guide, finding one's way through this jungle is
slow and difficult. The area of "vocational interests" is a kind of
no man's land in the more settled regions of psychology and
sociology.
The comes mostly from
origin of our organizational difficulties
our neglect of conceptual definitions. Because of our repeated
failure to define interests conceptually, they have come to mean
no more than the scales of the Kuder Preference Record and the
Strong Vocational Interest Blank. That is, we have accepted
methods of assessment in place of definitions. Our reliance on
empirical definitions has cost us much. First, it has led to a
vocational interest literature that has only tentative and am-
biguous relationships with the mainstreams of social psychology
and the psychology of personality. Our studies suggest that in-
terests are related chiefly to other interests or to other interest
inventories. And because have lacked "surplus"
interest scales
meaning, these studies fail to indicate that "interests" are an ex-
pression of personality and personal development. The accumula-
tion of many such studies has led to a relatively independent
literature known as "interest measurement." And, although it has
become fashionable in recent years to say that interests are an
expression of personality, just saying it doesn't solve the problem,
for we have spent more than twenty years acting as if interests
and personality were unrelated. Darley and Hagenah [27] rec-
ognized the problem when they wrote: "We may have attempted
to isolate the individual's occupational life from his total life and
life style. We may have given inadequate operational definitions

to our terms and concepts. . We have been too concerned

. .

with the empiric aspects of our problem."

8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

A SUMMARY OF THE THEORY

By regarding and vocational preferences as expressions

interests
of personality and personal development, we have then a poten-
tially useful model for understanding vocational behavior. The

present theory is both a theory of vocational life and a theory

of personality. Although concerned principally with explain-
it is

ing vocational choice, changes in choice, and vocational achieve-

ment, the theory is, to a lesser degree, also concerned with
emotional stability, creative performance, and personal develop-
ment. The construction of a theory of personality from our
knowledge of vocational life seems promising, because most
vocational behavior is socially valuable and accessible to public
examination. In contrast, theories of personality based on sex and
family relationships must rely on information that is often private
and sensitive to distortion.
The present theory is the outgrowth of a series of empirical
and theoretical reports that began with the development of an
inventory to measure personality from scales composed of oc-
cupational titles [63]. This inventory was followed by "A Theory
of Vocational Choice" [64], "A Classification for Occupations in
Terms of Personality and Intelligence" [65], and a number of
other papers and monographs [8, 9, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 110,
118, 35, 43]. All of these studies indicated that it might be useful
not only to regard the theory of vocational choice as a theory
of personality but also to develop a comprehensive and systematic
theory. From this point of view, vocational choice is only one
of many expressions of personality. And the way of life associated
with a particular occupational class can be regarded as a human
environment of which the obvious work activities are only a
small part.
The first statement of the theory
perhaps best described as
is

a heuristic theory of personality types and environmental situa-

tions [64]. By heuristic theory is meant a theory that stimulates
research and investigation by its suggestive character rather than
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY t)

by its logical or systematic structure. The present statement of

the theory makes it more systematic. The theory was written
to
organize what we know about vocational behavior and to suggest
some ways for investigating vocational problems and acquiring
new knowledge. Some working definitions have been provided
to facilitate understanding, research, and practical application.
Briefly, the theorv consists of several simple ideas and their
more complex elaborations. First, we assume that we can char-
acterize people by their resemblance to one or more personality
tvpes. The closer a person's resemblance to a particular type, the
more likelv it is he will exhibit the personal traits and behaviors
associated with that type. Second, we assume that the environ-
ments in which people live can be characterized by their resem-
blance to one or more model environments. Finallv, we assume
that the pairing of persons and environments leads to several
outcomes that we can predict and understand from our knowl-
edge of the personality types and the environmental models.
These outcomes include vocational choice, vocational stability
and achievement, personal stability, creative performance, and
susceptibilitv to influence.
The following statements summarize our major assumptions;
the remaining chapters elaborate these same ideas and indicate
some of the evidence for their validitv. These working assump-
tions constitute the heart of the theory. Thev indicate the nature
of the personality tvpes, the principles of their determination, and
their relation to various outcomes— achievement, creative perform-
ance, and vocational choice.
In our culture, most persons can be categorized as one of six
types— Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventional, Enterprising,
and Artistic.The description of each type (see Chapter Two) is

both a summary what we know about people in a given oc-

of
cupational group and a special way of comprehending this
information: a theoretical type. A "type" is a model against
which we can measure the real person. Each type is the product
of a characteristic interaction between a particular heredity and
a variety of cultural and personal forces, including peers, parents,
other significant adults, social class, culture, and the physical
10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
environment. Out of his experience, a person develops habitual
ways of coping with the tasks presented by his psychological,
social, and physical environment, including vocational situations.
His biological and social heredity, coupled with his personal his-
tory, creates a characteristic set of abilities, perceptual skills and
outlook, life goals, values, self-concepts (his image and evalua-
tion of himself), and coping behavior (his typical methods of
dealing with the problems of living). A type is then a complex
cluster of personal attributes.
This characteristic cluster creates a number of special pre-
dispositions,such as preferences for a particular class of vocations,
potentials for various special achievements, and aspirations. For
example, if a person resembles the Social type, he would be ex-
pected to seek out Social occupations, such as teaching, social
work, or the ministry; he would be expected to have socially
oriented achievements, such as being elected to school and com-
munity positions of leadership; and he would be expected to
have socially oriented goals and values— helping others, valuing
religion, serving his community.
The present types are analogous in some ways to the types
proposed earlier by Adler [1], Fromm [45], Jung [74], Sheldon
[112, 113], Spranger [114], and others [34, 80]. They differ from
these earlier typologies in their origin— which is largely our voca-
tional literature— and in their definitions ( see Chapter Two ) The .

six major factors identified in Guilford's [57] comprehensive fac-

tor analysis of human interest— mechanical, scientific, social wel-

fare, clerical, business, and esthetic— approximate the present
types. To the best of my knowledge, Guilford's factor analysis is

the most explicit forerunner of the present typology.

By comparing a person's attributes with those of each of the
model types, we can determine which type he resembles most.
That model becomes his "personality type." A person's resem-
blance to each of the six types yields a pattern of similarity and
dissimilarity, the person's personality pattern. Thus, we can ob-
tain a "profile" of resemblances. This method allows for the
complexity of personality, thus avoiding some of the problems
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THKOKY 11

inherent in categorizing a person as a single type. A six-category

scheme assumes that there are only six kinds of people in the
world— an unacceptable assumption, even for someone interested
in scientific simplicity or numerology. But a six-category scheme
that allows a simple ordering of a person's resemblance to each
of the six models provides the 720 different per-
possibility of
sonalitv patterns. If instead of a simple ordering of resemblances
we use actual measures of resemblance, then the number of
possible personality patterns we can assess becomes much greater
still. Consequently, it is possible to use only a few models and yet
allow for the complexity of personality. Whether or not such a
scheme is an empirical matter.
also useful is

To obtain a person's profile, we can use his scores on selected

scales from "interest" and personality inventories, his self-descrip-
tions, his choice of vocation or field of training, his life history,

or combinations of these data. For example, certain scales of the

Vocational Preference Inventory, the Strong Vocational Interest
Blank, and the Kuder Preference Record have been designated
as estimates of the types. The person's profile can then be inter-
preted by applying the descriptions of the types.
There are kinds of environments: Realistic, Intellectual,
six
Social, Converitional, Enterprising, and Artistic. Each environment
is dominated by a given type of personality, and each environ-
ment is typified by physical settings posing special problems and
stresses. For example, Realistic environments are "dominated" by
Realistic types of people: that is, the largest percentage of the
population in the environment resembles the Realistic type. An
Intellectual environment is dominated by Intellectual types; a
Social environment by Social types. Where people congregate,
they create an environment that reflects the types they are. Thus,
the environment can be assessed in the same terms as we assess
people individually.
People search for environments and vocations that will permit
them to exercise their skills and abilities, to express their attitudes
and values, to take on agreeable problems and roles, and to avoid
disagreeable ones. Consequently, Realistic types seek Realistic
12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
environments, Intellectual types seek Intellectual environments,
and so forth. To a lesser degree, environments also search for
people through recruiting practices. The person's search for en-
vironments is carried on in many ways, at several levels of
consciousness, and over a long period of time. The personality
types epitomize some common ways in which people develop
in our culture. They also illustrate how one's personal develop-
ment channels one's goals, vocational choices, mobility, and
achievement.
Although there have been few studies of the actual process of
seeking suitable environments, the study of the antecedents and
correlates of vocational choice yields a useful account of the
personal and impersonal forces that determine this process. To
summarize, as a child grows up, he learns through his parents,
and community what he does well, what he
social class, schools,
does poorly, and what he likes to do. He also acquires some useful
though not always accurate vocational images. (It should be
pointed out that this knowledge about himself and about dif-
ferent occupations is frequently unconscious.) When he grad-
uates from school and takes his first job, his choice is a resolution
of a complex set of forces that include his hierarchy of choices
(an outcome of his personality development represented by his
personality pattern or "profile"), the range of job opportunities
available to him, the influence of parents and friends, and various
chance factors. In the present theory, a person's first and subse-
quent decisions are explained in terms of personality pattern and
environmental model only. A more complete theory would in-
corporate economic and sociological influence.
A persons behavior can be explained by the interaction of his
personality pattern and his environment. Put another way, if we
know a person's personality pattern and the pattern of his en-
vironment, we can, in principle, use our knowledge of personality
types and environmental models to forecast some of the outcomes
of such a pairing. Such outcomes include choice of training and
vocation, level of achievement, creative behavior, personal stabil-
ity, reaction to stress, sensitivity to particular stresses or threats,
occupational mobility, and outstanding accomplishments.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY 13

APTITUDE, INTELLIGENCE, AND SEX

Unfortunately most of our empirical knowledge about person-
ality and \oeational behayior has been obtained in studies of men.
Consequently, it is difficult to construct a theory of personality
that applies equally to men and to women. The present theory
is no exception: based chiefly on studies of men and is prob-
it is

ably less useful for understanding the behayior of women. A

special but closely related theory for women is desirable, but at
this point I have none to offer.
In the present formulations, we have assumed that aptitude
and intelligence are less important than personality and interests
in determining vocational choice. Further, we have assumed that
intelligence and aptitudes are moderately correlated with the
various personality types: for example, a person who resembles
the Intellectual type is usually intelligent and skilled at abstract
reasoning; similarly, people who resemble the Realistic type have
mechanical and motor skills. Thus, it seems unnecessary to spell
out a series of hypotheses about the role of aptitude and intel-
ligence. A recent studv bv Mierzwa [95] supports this assumption.
In comparing four systems of information for the prediction of
vocational choice— interest, environment, temperament, and abil-
ity— Mierzwa found that the interest variables proved to be the
most accurate predictive system; although other systems added
to the predictive accuracy, the gains were small or negligible.
The importance of vocational measures has also been doc-
umented bv Clark [19]. After several empirical comparisons of
the relative efficiency of aptitude and interest inventories, Clark
comes to a similar conclusion: ". when the problem is one of
. .

prediction of occupational choice, or occupational classification,

the use of interest measures should receive more consideration
than the use of aptitude measures."
14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

SUMMARY

The present chapter outlines the theory of how people make

vocational choices. The following chapters are simply a more
complete exposition. Chapter Two, "The Personality Types," pro-
vides detailed descriptions of the six theoretical types. Chapter
Three, "Personality Types and Expected Performance," isan
account of some of the ways in which the typology can be used
for research and for understanding others. Chapters Four and
Five specify "The Environmental Models" and "Environmental
Models and Expected Influences," respectively. Chapter Six,
"People in Environments," outlines some of the outcomes of the
pairing of people and environments. Chapter Seven, "Life His-
tories," extends the environmental outcomes mentioned in Chap-
ter Six to successive person-environment interactions over long
periods of time— the life history. Chapter Eight, "Research and
Practical Applications," suggests some of the research problems
and the potential applications of the theory.
 CHAPTER TWO

Tfre Personality Types

The formulations grew out of my experience as

for the types
a vocational counselor and a clinician and out of my construction
of a personality inventory from interest materials. After reviewing
the vocational literature— especially factor analytic studies of per-
sonality and vocational interests— I concluded that it might be
useful to categorize people into six types: Realistic, Intellectual,
Social, Conventional, Enterprising, and Artistic.
This clinical interpretation of the interest and personality lit-

erature and annual revisions were developed over a ten-year

its

period. Primarily, it was a persistent attempt to find a way to

summarize and comprehend the vast array of evidence about the
nature of personality and interest. The idea for a typology re-
sulted from my frequent observation that several broad classes
account for most so-called "independent" human interests, traits,
and behavior. Later as I began to organize the literature into
categories, bits and pieces of the evidence for a major category
suggested fragmentary stereotypes. A now obscure article by
Darley [26] in 1938 had suggested the potential value of organiz-
ing our knowledge in terms of occupational stereotypes. The
typologies based on physique, temperament, and personality re-
inforced my interest in this orientation. Continued review and
collection of new evidence strengthened my belief in the validity
of these ideas and in the value of an explicit and thorough
typology.

15
 ,

l6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE TYPES

The types are assumed to represent common outcomes of grow-

ing up in our culture. Each type is described in terms of a theoreti-
cal model called the model orientation. The model orientation is a
cluster of characteristic adaptive behaviors ( coping mechanisms )
psychological needs and motives, self-concepts, life history, voca-
tional and educational goals, preferred occupational roles, apti-
tudes, and intelligence. A person's resemblance to each of the six
model orientations is called his personality pattern. The single
model that the person most closely resembles is his personality
type.

Table i

The Personality Types and the Vocational Preferences

Defining Each Type

Realistic. The model type is masculine, physically strong, unso-

ciable, aggressive; has good motor coordination and skill; lacks
verbal and interpersonal skills; prefers concrete to abstract problems;
conceives of himself as being aggressive and masculine and as having
conventional political and economic values. Persons who choose or
prefer the following occupations resemble this type: airplane me-
chanic, construction inspector, electrician, filling station attendant,
fish and wildlife specialist, locomotive engineer, master plumber,
photoengraver, power shovel operator, power station operator, radio
operator, surveyor, tree surgeon, tool designer.

Intellectual. The model type is task-oriented, intraceptive, asocial;

prefers to think through rather than act out problems; needs to
understand; enjoys ambiguous work tasks; has unconventional values
and attitudes; is anal as opposed to oral. Vocational preferences
include aeronautical design engineer, anthropologist, astronomer,
biologist, botanist, chemist, editor of a scientific journal, geologist,
independent research scientist, meteorologist, physicist, scientific
research worker, writer of scientific or technical articles, zoologist.

Social. The model type is sociable, responsible, feminine, humanistic,

religious; needs attention; has verbal and interpersonal skills; avoids
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 1J
Table i— Continued
intellectual problem solving, physical activity, and highly ordered ac-
tivities; prefers to solve problems through feelings and interpersonal

manipulations of others; is orally dependent. Vocational preferences

include assistant city school superintendent, clinical psychologist,
director of welfare agency, foreign missionary, high school teacher,
juvenile delinquency expert, marriage counselor, personal counselor,
physical education teacher, playground director, psychiatric case
worker, social science teacher, speech therapist, vocational counselor.
Conventional. The model type prefers structured verbal and nu-
merical activities and subordinate roles;
conforming (extraceptive);
is

avoids ambiguous situations and problems involving interpersonal

relationships and physical skills; is effective at well-structured tasks;
identifies with power; values material possessions and status. Voca-
tional preferences include: bank examiner, bank teller, bookkeeper,
budget reviewer, cost estimator, court stenographer, financial analyst,
IBM equipment operator, inventory controller, payroll clerk, quality
control expert, statistician, tax expert, traffic manager.

Enterprising. The model type has verbal skills for selling, dominat-
ing, leading; conceives of himself as a strong, masculine leader;
avoids well-defined language or work situations requiring long periods
of intellectual effort; is extraceptive; differs from the Conventional
type in that he prefers ambiguous social tasks and has a greater
concern with power, status, and leadership; is orally aggressive.
Vocational preferences include business executive, buyer, hotel man-
ager, industrial relations consultant, manufacturer's representative,
master of ceremonies, political campaign manager, real-estate sales-
man, restaurant worker, speculator, sports promoter, stock and bond
salesman, television producer, traveling salesman.
Artistic. The model type is problems that are highly
asocial; avoids
structured or require gross physical skills; resembles the Intellectual
type in being intraceptive and asocial; but differs from that type in
that he has a need for individualistic expression, has less ego strength,
is more feminine, and suffers more frequently from emotional dis-

turbances; prefers dealing with environmental problems through

self-expression in artistic media. Vocational preferences include art
dealer, author, cartoonist, commercial artist, composer, concert
singer, dramatic coach, free-lance writer, musical arranger, musician,
playwright, poet, stage director, symphony conductor.
l8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
The description of each type consists of an empirical summary
and a theoretical formulation. The empirical summaries were
derived by using lists of occupational titles (see Table 1). In-
formation about persons employed in or having preferences for, or
"interests" in, different occupations was categorized by these
criteria. In this way, a large portion of the voluminous vocational

literature was sorted into six conceptual bins so that it could be

comprehended with greater ease. Thus it was possible to check
for empirical consistencies or inconsistencies as well as to test the
theoretical value of such a classification.
The information for the empirical summaries comes from di-
verse sources: several reports on the vocational choices of high-
aptitude students [67, 68, 69, 72], a summary of the relationships
between "vocational interests" and personality variables ab-
stracted from fifteen correlational studies [65], a reorganization
of the empirical information in the book Ten Thousand Careers
[128], to name a few.* All findings reported in the empirical
summaries are statistically significant.
Such a classification introduces error, because we have inte-
grated information obtained from groups of students and adults
who differ in age, education, and aptitude. To reduce error, the
empirical model incorporates only those results that are found in
at least two different studies. (Because it is based on a very large
sample, the information from Ten Thousand Careers is an excep-
tion to this rule. ) In addition, only those personal attributes that
discriminate most efficiently across the six types are retained. For
a more explicit account of these discriminations the reader should
consult the full reports cited earlier.
The preparation of the empirical summaries provided a means
for looking at some of our knowledge about vocational behavior
and personality in a special way— a typology of six model per-
sonalities. The empirical portions of the summaries that follow
are consistent with the literature of vocational behavior. In fact,

* For other sources see references numbered 15, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 41,
44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 57, 60, 71, 79, 82, 97, 98, 101, 103, 105, 107,
111, 116, 123, 130, 131, and 140.
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES It)

at the time these studies were done, all the information available
on the same variable for each of the six types was used. Obviously,
information about people of one or two types is of little value,
because it does not tell us how the assessed types compare with
the excluded types. Additional empirical study is required before
we will be able to rely on the specific validity of each item in
these empirical summaries;* however, our practice was to derive
what meaning we could from such information by assuming its
validity; had we assumed that this method of classification simply
confounded error, any interpretation would have been meaning-
less.

The assumed to be
theoretical formulations for each type are
consistent with their empirical summaries, but they were arrived
at by a subjective process. They should be regarded as potentially
useful speculations rather than as substantive accounts of our
knowledge.
The description of each type is organized as follows conceptual
:

and empirical definitions, personality (empirical summary), per-

sonality (theoretical formulation). Criteria for distinguishing be-
tween models having common characteristics are also included.

The Realistic Model

Conceptual Definition. The Realistic person copes with his

physical and social environment by selecting goals, values, and
tasks that entail the objective, concrete valuation and manipula-
tion of things, tools, animals, and machines; and by avoiding
goals, values, and tasks that require subjectivity, intellectualism,
artistic expression, and social sensitivity and skill. The Realistic
type is masculine, unsociable, emotionally stable, materialistic,
genuine, concretistic, and oriented to the present.

° For an exhaustive review of the vocational literature it is necessary to

consult many textbooks, review articles, and journals. Such a review will
turn up some evidence that contradicts the summaries for each type, but
these contradictions do not, I think, seriously impair the main findings in
the present empirical summaries.
20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
Empirical Definition. The Realistic person prefers, is training
for, or works at such occupations as the following:

Master plumber Weather observer

Photographer Radio operator
Machinist Electronic technician
Hunter-trapper Electrician
Power station operator House painter
Aviator Crane operator
Construction inspector Photoengraver
Army officer Locomotive engineer
Surveyor Tree surgeon
Tool designer Carpenter
Fish and wildlife specialist Filling station attendant
Truck driver Ranch hand (cowboy)
Automobile mechanic Draftsman
Forest ranger Airplane mechanic
Power shovel operator

Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-

acterize the Realistic person in terms of the evidence from the
research literature.
Goals and Values: Prefers agricultural, technical, skilled trade,
and engineering vocations. Has conventional values, especially
economic values. Holds that esthetic values are of little impor-
tance.
Identifications and Preferred Roles Admires Admiral Byrd and
:

Thomas Edison; likes athletic, masculine, unsociable, natural

member or participant roles; avoids supervisory and leadership
roles.
Preferred Activities: Likes activities that involve motor skills,

things, realism, structure. Such activities include athletics, scout-

ing, crafts, science projects, collecting, mechanical drawing, shop-
work, mechanics, marksmanship, racing, gardening.
Aversions: Avoids social situations requiring independent self-

expression (personalized and artistic roles), where he would be

the center of attention; avoids intellectualand verbal tasks that
require abstract thinking and reading; avoids work situations that
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 21

emphasize proper dress, conventional manners and speech, and

socially acceptable personality traits.
Self-Concept: Sees himself as mature, masculine, practical,
conventional, persistent, unsociable, abasing, submissive, natural
(not exhibitionistic ) , favorable to change, and having a narrow
range of interests. Rates himself low in self-confidence, writing,
speaking, originality, and leadership.
Achievement and Originality: Achieves primarily in technical
and athletic areas; tends to do poorly in academic, social, and
artistic areas. The Realistic type is one of two least original of the

six tvpes: he rarely performs creatively.

Outlook and Perception: Has simple rather than complex out-

look; is dependent upon others rather than independent in judg-
ment; on objective tests, his perceptual skills show a constrictive
quality and an inability to integrate diverse stimuli.
Aptitudes and Special Abilities: Has more mathematical than
verbal aptitude; his mechanical and psychomotor skills exceed
his numerical, verbal, and perceptual aptitudes.
Personality (Theoretical Formulation). The Realistic person as-
serts himselfby developing athletic and motor skills, by identify-
ing with physical heroes and practical men, and by acquiring
material possessions. The operation of machines, tools, and ve-
hicles (especially large orpowerful ones) serves to increase his
sense of well-being and power.
He reduces stress by limiting his social relationships, by avoid-
ing intellectual or introverted tasks and activities, by avoiding
new tasks,and by playing masculine roles. He defends himself
in social relationships by playing a passive or submissive role,
by being self-abasing, and by developing his physical skills as
compensation for his lack of intellectual and social skills.
The Realistic person differs from the Intellectual person in that
the Realistic person is more practical (concerned with facts),
emotionally stable, masculine, and conventional (more concerned
about success, status, and leadership) than the Intellectual per-
son. The Realistic person is less scholarly (less apt to seek a
Ph.D. or daydream about achievement and learning), original,
22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
sociable, insightful about interpersonal relations, independent,
and self-confident than the Intellectual person. The Realistic
person from the Social and the Enterprising person pri-
differs
marily in social skills and interests. The Realistic person is more
masculine and less original than the Artistic person. The Realistic
person differs from the Conventional person primarily in that the
Realistic person is less responsible and sociable and more im-
pulsive, stable, masculine, submissive, and self-deprecatory.
Background and Personal Development. A particular type of
background and developmental history produces a particular type
of personality, although our evidence on exact relationships is
grossly incomplete. The mother and father of the Realistic type
tend to be poorly educated and are often foreign-born. The
facilities in his home— many tools but few books— provide a special

experience that is conducive to the outcome associated with this

type. The lower socioeconomic status of the family is consistent
with the self-abasement of the Realistic type. This abasement may
occur in part because of a failure to acquire a useful range of
social and personal competencies in the process of growing up,
because families of lower socioeconomic status are less able to
provide training, equipment, and personal time for such purposes.
Generally, the role of parental attitudes in vocational choice is

unclear. Although a few have occurred, the rela-

positive results
tionships between parental attitudes and vocational choices for
this type have been very small and often negligible [55, 67, 117,

1.331-

The Intellectual Model

Conceptual Definition. The Intellectual person copes with the
social and physical environment through the use of intelligence:
he solves problems primarily through the manipulation of ideas,
words, and symbols rather than through his physical and social
skills.

The Intellectual person is characterized by such adjectives as

analytical, rational, independent, radical, abstract, introverted,
anal, cognitive, critical, curious, and perceptive.
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 23
Empirical Definition. The Intellectual person prefers, is train-
ing for, or works in such occupations as the following:

Physicist Writer of scientific or technical

Surgeon articles
Scientific research worker Editor of scientific journal
Botanist Geologist
Experimental psychologist Veterinarian
Interplanetary scientist Architect
Astronomer Scientific authority
Inventor Archeologist
Aeronautical design engineer Science-fiction writer
Anthropologist Meteorologist
Zoologist Biologist
Atomic scientist Scientific theorist
Chemist Experimental laboratory
Independent research scientist engineer
Mathematician

Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-

acterize the Intellectual person in terms of the empirical evidence.
Goals and Values: Prefers scientific vocations; values theoret-
ical and, to a lesser degree, esthetic problems and tasks.
Identifications and Preferred Roles: Admires Curie, Darwin,
Russell, Oppenheimer, and Burbank; prefers the role of an in-
dependent worker, neither giving nor receiving any support;
prefers to be himself (not an actor).
Preferred Activities: Likes activities through which he can
express his asocial, analytic, imaginative orientation: reading,
scientific projects, collecting,photography, algebra,
scouting,
foreign languages, physics, trigonometry, and such creative ac-
tivities as art, music, and sculpture.
Aversions and Threats: Avoids situations requiring social skills

or aggressive and difficult social interactions.

Self-Concept: Sees himself as unsociable, masculine, persistent,
self-controlled, independent, scholarly, intellectual, introverted,
submissive, abasing, original, not exhibitionistic, not nurturant
or succorant, unpopular, and achieving.
Achievement and Originality: Achieves primarily in academic
24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
and Tends to do poorly as a leader. The Intel-
scientific areas.
lectual type is one of two most original of the six types. He
obtains high scores on originality scales and tends to win awards,
prizes, and recognition for creative accomplishments in science.
Outlook and Perception: Has a complex rather than simple
outlook, good spatial reorganizational abilities, and flexible read-
justment of adaptation level. Is relatively uninfluenced by tilted
frame ( tachistoscopic experiments). These qualities imply inde-
pendence and originality [25].
Aptitudes and Special Abilities Scores high in both verbal and
:

mathematical aptitudes.
Personal Development: Our knowledge of the family back-
ground is limited. Father and mother tend to be well educated,
relative to parents of other types. Fathers express approval of
son's curiositv and mothers appear to have permissive attitudes
about child training.
Personality (Theoretical Formulations). The Intellectual person
asserts himself by gaining power through knowledge and intel-
lectual achievement. This maneuver frequently leads to extensive
though indirect control over other persons. His intellectuality is
probably in part a compensation for lack of social and motor
skills; it may be the result of the direct approval of his intelligence

and its potential by his well-educated parents.

He reduces stresses by avoiding others (insularity), projecting
(defensive hostility), rationalizing ( intellectualization ) , and ob-
taining safety through knowledge (perfectionism, unassailability).
Similarly, he defends himself in social situations by being sub-
missive, self-abasing, and, when pressed, negative. His self-abase-
ment may have its origin in the discrepancy between his idealized
image of what he should be and the reality of what he is. (In
contrast, the Realistic person's abasement is probably the result
of inadequate training because of his low socioeconomic origins.)
The differences between the Intellectual person and the Real-
istic person were summarized previously (see definition of the

Realistic person ) The Intellectual person differs from the Artistic

.

person in that the Artistic person is more feminine, impulsive,

irresponsible, and unstable, and makes greater use of his feelings
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 25
and problem solving and creating works
intuitions as guides to
of art. The Intellectual person is less sociable and conventional
than the Social, Conventional, and Enterprising persons.

The Social Model

Conceptual Definition. The Social person copes with his en-
vironment by selecting goals, values, and tasks in which he can
use his skills with an interest in other persons in order to train
or change their behavior. The Social person is typified by his
social skills and his need for social interaction; his characteristics
include sociability, nurturance, social presence, capacity for sta-
tus, dominance, and psychological-mindedness. He is concerned
with the welfare of dependent persons: the poor, uneducated,
sick, unstable, young, and aged. In problem solving, he relies on

his emotions and feelings rather than on his intellectual resources.

Empirical Definition. The Social person prefers, is training for,
or works at such occupations as the following:

World peace organizer Elementary-school teacher

Psychiatric case worker YMCA secretary
Personal counselor Truant officer (education)
Assistant city school Clinical psychologist
superintendent Playground director
Conciliator (employer- School principal
employee) Physical education teacher
Judge Marriage counselor
Psychiatrist Speech therapist
Juvenile delinquency expert Director of welfare agency
High school teacher Public health officer
Foreign missionary Pediatrician
Employment interviewer Public relations man
Bov scout official Social worker
Social science teacher Vocational counselor

Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-

acterize the Social person in terms of the empirical evidence.
Goals and Values: Prefers educational, therapeutic, and reli-
 . )

26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

gious vocations. Values social, ethical, and religious activities and
problems.
Identifications and Preferred Roles: Prefers activities involving
religious, social, and esthetic expression, including church, student
government, community services, music, reading, sports, writing,
dramatics, public speaking, foreign languages, history, arranging
entertainment, journalism, and creative hobbies in art, music,
and literature.
Aversions and Threats: Avoids masculine roles that require
motor skills, use of tools and machines, or physical danger. Such
activities include shopwork, horsemanship, racing, auto repair,
model building.
Self -Concept: Sees himself as sociable, nurturant, cheerful, ad-
venturous, effeminate, conservative, dependent, dominant, not
scholarly, responsible ( superego ) psychological-minded,
,
intellec-
tually efficient, achieving, self -accepting, impulsive, not succorant.
Rates himself high on leadership, speaking skills, popularity,
originality, drive to achieve, dependability, scholarship, aggres-
siveness, self-control, conservatism, practical-mindedness, ex-
pressiveness, self-understanding, perseverance. Has a positive
self-image.
Achievement and Originality: Of the six types, he ranks about
third on potential for original behavior. His achievements tend
to be in the areas of leadership, art, and scholarship (good
grades )
Outlook and Perception: On objective (mostly tachistoscopic
measurements or tests, he has flexible readjustment of adapta-
tion level (associated with originality), is influenced by tilted
frame (associated with dependence and identification with
others), is not affected by "position influence" (associated with
lack of constriction), and has poor reorganizational abilities

[25]-
Aptitudes and Special Abilities: Tends to have high verbal
but low mathematical aptitude.
Personal Development: The comes from
Social type frequently
a rural area. Adolescents with rural backgrounds appear to be
more responsible, less antagonistic toward parents and other
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 7TJ

authorities,and more perfectionistic and paranoid than are ad-

olescents from urban backgrounds. These adolescent character-
istics are consonant with the attributes of the adult Social type
[60].
Father and mother are well educated relative to other types:
they tend to have many books in the home. Fathers seem to place
a high value on self-control and a low value on curiosity; this
finding is consistent with the Social person's problem -solving
stvle.

Personality (Theoretical Formulation). The Social person as-

serts and enhances himself by helping dependent persons (the
weak, voung, and sick) and by concerning himself with human
welfare. In this way he gains love, recognition, and status, both
social and vocational. His need for cordial personal relationships
are conscious, but his needs for dependency, admiration, power,
and prestige are usually unconscious.
The Social person diminishes stress and anxiety by repression
and denial, and by choosing vocations where the social roles are
well-defined: doctor-patient, teacher-student, supervisor-subor-
dinate, minister-congregation. He also deals with stress and
anxietv bv playing a dependent, ingratiating role with others,
by not deferring gratification of bodily urges (food and sex), by
controlling others, and by moving toward other persons.
The Social person differs from the Enterprising person in being
more feminine, introverted, helpful, intellectual, insightful, co-
operative, friendly, (having religious and social
responsible
values), and less energetic, aggressive, dominant, sociable, ad-
venturous, cynical, and enthusiastic. The Social person differs
from the Conventional person in that the latter is more self-
controlled, hard-headed, masculine, and submissive. The Social
person is more sociable, dependent, and conventional than the
Artistic person.

The Conventional Model

Conceptual Definition. The Conventional person copes with

his physical and social environment by selecting goals, tasks, and
28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
values that are sanctioned by custom and society. Accordingly,

his approach to problems is stereotyped, practical, correct; it

lacks spontaneity and originality. His personal traits are consistent

with this orientation. He is well-controlled, neat, sociable, and
creates a good impression. He is somewhat inflexible, conserva-
tive, and persevering.
Empirical Definition. The Conventional person prefers, is train-

ing for, or works at such occupations as the following:

Bank teller Efficiency expert

Court stenographer Insurance clerk
IBM equipment operator Budget reviewer
Tax expert Quality control expert
Cashier Bookkeeper
Administrative secretary Certified public accountant
Statistician Bank examiner
Payroll clerk Records supervisor
Real-estate appraiser Cost estimator
Post office clerk Shipping and receiving clerk
Financial analyst Banker
Inventory controller Office manager
Traffic manager Administrative assistant
Credit investigator Chief clerk

Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-

acterize the Conventional person in terms of the empirical ev-
idence.
Goals and Values: Prefers clerical and computational tasks;
places a high value on economic matters and a low value on
esthetic and religious matters.
Identifications and Preferred Roles: Identifies with business-
men, especially financial giants: Baruch, Ford, Morgan, Wana-
maker, His role preferences are unclear. Some evidence
etc.
suggests both a preference for subordinate supervisory roles and
a desire to act as expert or consultant.
Preferred Activities: His likes suggest a desire for passive and
often structured activity: dramatics, music, school journalism,
collecting, economics, arithmetic, spelling, typing.
Aversions: Avoids or dislikes common aggressive, masculine
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 29
outlets or tasks that require spontaneous, original, integrative
functioning. Such activities include shopwork and mechanical
drawing, auto repair, diving, marksmanship, sailing, racing, box-
ing, football, writing technical reports, essays, or poems.
Self-Concept: Sees himself as masculine (a defense?), shrewd,
conservative, dominant, playful (not deferring gratification),
subject to parental press for achievement, conscientious, sociable,
underachieving (academically), controlled, rigid, dependent, in-
tellectually inefficient,making a good impression, stable, self-ac-
cepting. Rates himself low as a leader but high on dependability,
scholarship, neatness, conservatism, practical-mindedness, cheer-
fulness, and perseverance. Rated low by others on speaking skills

and leadership.
Achievement and Originality: Relative to the other types, the
Conventional person is one of the two types with the least po-
tential for creative performance. This outcome is extremely con-
sistent with our current knowledge of creativity and of this type

[92,93]-
Outlook and Perception: On tachistoscopic tests, he is inflexible
in readjustment of adaptation level (stereotyped and unoriginal),
subject to position influence (constricted), and unable to re-
organize well. Originality scales imply that he has a simple rather
than a complex outlook and that he is dependent upon others in
his judgments [25].
Aptitudes and Special Abilities: Has more mathematical than
verbal aptitude.
Personal Development: The correlation between family back-
ground and adult personality is closer for the Conventional type
than for any of the other types. The father places a low value
on being curious and independent. The mother, who tends to be
a somewhat isolated person, expresses restrictive attitudes about
child training; she suppresses sexand aggression. She encourages
action rather than reading or intellectual concerns. Although this
evidence comes from a grossly atypical sample, it seems clearly
and psychologically consistent with the passive, unoriginal, con-
stricted attributes of the Conventional person.
Personality (Theoretical Formulation). The Conventional per-
30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
son enhances himself by identifying with great financial and
business leaders, by acquiring possessions, and by playing the
role of the good subordinate. He denies his dependency and
emphasizes the importance of perfection, prestige, and ambition.
Through this coping behavior he gains social and vocational
status.
The Conventional person lessens stress and anxiety by con-
forming to cultural norms and values and by identifying himself
with them. Likewise, he attains comfort by ingratiating himself
with others and by limiting his social relationships to people he
knows well. By avoiding persuasive and expressive activities, he
avoids dealing with his own and other people's feelings— phenom-
ena he cannot cope with easily because of his repressive early
training. Similarly, he defends himself by maintaining self-control,
being dependent, dealing with externals, repressing and denying,
rigidly restricting his life within narrow boundaries, and limiting
his involvement with his work and with other people. His choice
of rule-oriented vocations, with their explicit standards of right
and wrong, expresses his life style succinctly.
The Conventional person is most closely related to the Enter-
prising and the Social person. He differs from the Enterprising
person in being less sociable, aggressive, dominant, original,
enthusiastic (surgent), impulsive, self-confident, and adventur-
ous. He is also more responsible, dependent, and conservative
than the Enterprising person. The Conventional person differs
from the Social person in that he possesses greater self-control,
is more hard-headed, and is less dominant and nurturant.

The Enterprising Model

Conceptual Definition. The Enterprising person copes with

his world by selecting goals, values, and tasks through which he
can express his adventurous, dominant, enthusiastic, energetic,
and impulsive qualities. The Enterprising person is characterized
also by his persuasive, verbal, extroverted, self-accepting, self-
confident, oral aggressive, exhibitionistic attributes.
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 31

Empirical Definition. The Enterprising person prefers, is train-

ing for, or works at such occupations as the following:

Car salesman Restaurant manager

Personnel manager President of manufacturing
Liquor salesman company
Congressional lobbyist Business executive
Buyer Television producer
Manufacturer's representative Industrial relations man
Sales engineer Business promoter
Amusement park manager Speculator
Real-estate salesman Life insurance salesman
Sales manager Route salesman
Traveling salesman Radio program director
Auctioneer Stock and bond salesman
Master of ceremonies Political campaign manager
Politician Travel consultant
Hotel manager Sports promoter
Insurance manager

Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-

acterize the Enterprising person in terms of the empirical ev-
idence.
Goals and Values: Prefers sales, supervisory, and leadership
vocations; places a high value on political and economic matters
and a low value on theoretical and esthetic matters.
Identifications and Preferred Roles: Admires Carnegie, Church-
ill, Ford, Wanamaker; likes masculine, powerful, leadership roles,
usually in an expensive setting.
Preferred Activities: Prefers social roles and activities in which
he can gratify his needs for dominance, artistic and verbal ex-
pression, and recognition, and inwhich he can play masculine,
persuasive, or powerful roles. Such activities include athletics,
dramatics, writing, economics, English, foreign language, music,
public speaking, baseball, boxing, rowing, tennis, racing, swim-
ming, selling, writing technical reports, arranging entertainment,
writing essays or poems, interviewing, soliciting for charity,
 ,

32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

journalism, amateur motion pictures. The Enterprising type en-
gages in more activities than any other type.
Aversions: Dislikes confining, manual, nonsocial activities— for
example, crafts,shopwork, and auto mechanics— or academic ac-
tivities requiring persistence and extended concentration.
Self-Concept: Sees himself as dominant, sociable, cheerful,
adventurous, conservative, impulsive, not scholarly, playful ( does
not defer gratification frequently), subject to parental controls,
not intellectual, self-accepting (high positive self -evaluation )

stable, and desiring high status. Rates himself high on speaking

skills and leadership, emotional stability, popularity, athletic

ability, aggressiveness, practical-mindedness, cheerfulness, and

self-confidence.
Achievement and Originality: Achieves in athletics and in
persuasive (leadership) and, to a lesser extent, artistic areas.
Relative to other types, his potential for original behavior is about
average.
Outlook and Perception: On tachistoscopic tasks the Enter-
prising person has poor reorganizational ability. His outlook is
colored by intense political convictions and status-oriented values.
Personal Development: The Enterprising person comes from
an urban rather than a rural area. His parents have a high socio-
economic status and are well educated; they have many books in
the home. His mother has pushed his development and sup-
pressed his interest in sex: these attitudes are conducive to some
of his adult attributes. His father wants him to be popular rather
than curious.
This background appears to reinforce the Enterprising person's
needs for recognition, love, and material rewards, which he seeks
in vocations providing similar gratifications. Such a background
helps to explain why the Enterprising person avoids academic
and intellectual vocations and moves toward people.
Personality (Theoretical Formulation). The Enterprising person
asserts and enhances himself by struggling for power and control,
by developing his athletic abilities, by acquiring possessions, and
by exploiting others. Some of these activities lead to the ac-
quisition of social and vocational status.
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 33
He and anxiety through hyperactivity, drinking
lessens stress
and eating, sexual expression, wit and humor, and repression and
denial. His defenses include oral aggression, dependence on
others, narcissism, regression, self-aggrandizement, identification
with strong leaders, and rationalization.
The Enterprising person differs from the Artistic person in that
the latter is more introverted, feminine, self-deprecating, creative,
unstable, independent, unconventional, and unsociable.

The Artistic Model

Conceptual Definition. The Artistic person copes with his
physical and social environment by using his feelings, emotions,
intuitions, and imagination to create art forms or products. For
the Artistic person, problem solving involves expressing his im-
agination and taste through the conception and execution of his
art.

Similarly, he relies principally on his subjective impressions

and fantasies for interpretations of and solutions to environmental
problems. The Artistic person is characterized further by his
complexity of outlook, independence of judgment, introversion,
and originality.
Empirical Definition. The Artistic person prefers, is training
for, or works at such occupations as the following:

Furniture designer Musical arranger

Translator Art dealer
Humorist Window decorator
Art critic Newspaper reporter
Stage designer Sculptor
Poet Interior decorator
Novelist Music critic

Symphony conductor Clothing designer

Musician Composer
Dance band leader Stage director
Commercial artist Playwright
Actor Cartoonist
Free-lance writer Concert singer
Portrait artist Dramatic coach
34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
Personality (Empirical Summary). The following sections char-
acterize the Artistic person in terms of the empirical evidence.
Goals and Values: Prefers musical, artistic, literary, and dra-
matic vocations. Values esthetics, and places little importance on
political and economic matters.
Identifications and Preferred Roles: Identifies with famous
artists and intellectuals: Caruso, Picasso, Eliot, and Russell. Wants
to be an independent, creative artist. More typically, he tends
to become a teacher in his artistic specialty.
Preferred Activities: Prefers hobbies and activities of a some-
what creative character: debating, music, school journalism, stu-
dent government, community service, collecting, photography,
English, history, arranging entertainment, writing poems or
essays, painting, creative writing.
Aversions: Dislikes masculine activities and roles— auto repair,
athletics.
Self-Concept: Sees himself as unsociable, feminine, submis-
sive, introspective, depressive, abasing, sensitive (paranoid), in-
dependent, radical, impulsive, flexible, irresponsible, achieving,
unstable, naive, tense, and subject to parental press for achieve-
ment. Rates himself high on writing skills, originality, neatness,
independence, expressiveness, and self-confidence but low on
popularity.
Achievement and Originality: Achieves primarily in artistic-
fields. On originality measures, he generally has higher scores

than any other type. Creative performance in the arts exceeds

that of all other types.
Outlook and Perception: On objective tachistoscopic tests, he
is not influenced by tilted frame (independence). Has complex,
flexible, independent, unconventional outlook [25].
Aptitudes and Special Abilities: Verbal aptitudes usually
greatly exceed mathematical aptitudes. Has exceptional percep-
tual and motor skills that are conducive to excellence in the arts.
Personal Development: The relationship between the Artistic
person's family background and his adult characteristics is not
clear. His mother expresses equalitarian attitudes about child
training; his father hopes his children will be self-controlled and
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 35
is less concerned with their ability todefend themselves or their
dependability. The Artistic person comes from an above-average
socioeconomic group.
Personality (Theoretical Formulation). By expressing and de-
veloping his artistic talent, the Artistic person asserts himself in
a socially acceptable manner and thus gains approval and recog-
nition. Simultaneously, he has learned to relate to people through
the indirect medium of his art and thus to compensate for his
estrangement from others.
To find relief from anxiety and the stresses of interpersonal
relationships, he avoids numerous direct relationships with others.
His rejection of conventional values is a part of his movement
away from others. This rejectionadvantageous to him, because
is

by being included in but not intimately involved with the culture,

he is relatively free to think, imagine, and create new forms with-
out being as bound by cultural values as most people are.
His self-sufficiency also springs from his lack of attachment to
others. Likewise, his perfectionistic trends are in part attempts to
acquire an unassailability, although such trends are also the out-
growth of his having adopted strong ego ideals at an early age.
These high ideals may lead to abasement because of the disparity
between his ideals and his accomplishments. In their extreme
forms, his detachment, asociability, and rejection of cultural
values becomes negativism. The productive artist probably falls
between the extremes of unquestioning acceptance and total
rejection of the culture.
The Artistic person defends himself also by projection, a natural
outcome of his failure to maintain the corrective communication
that good interpersonal relationships provide. His lack of social-
ization permits him to use his primitive and childish impulses in
his particular medium. Unfortunately, this lack also makes him
more likely to develop regressive disorders.
36 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

ASSESSMENT OF TYPES

The empirical definitions of the types make it possible to ex-

amine the validity of the descriptions and to use the typology in
working with adolescents and adults. Several related methods
have been used to assess a person's resemblance to these types.
We can assess a person's personality type by qualitative meth-
ods a person may express vocational preferences and interests or
:

hold employment in an occupation that is characteristic of a type;

he may express preferences for or be engaged in educational train-
ing that is characteristic of a type. For example, he may want
to become a physicist, be employed as a physicist, plan to major
in physics, or be enrolled as a physics major; any one of these four
kinds of information results in his being classified as an Intel-
lectual type. This classification is accomplished by comparing
his educational or vocational interests with vocations assumed to
be typical of each personality type ( Table 1 contains these voca-
tional criteria). In the preceding example, "physicist" is one of
the occupations that define the Intellectual type. To take another
example, a teacher would be classified as a Social type, because
"teacher" one of the vocational criteria of this type. The use
is

of this simple qualitative procedure in research, although help-

ful, made clear the need for a more accurate method of assess-

ment.
Various quantitative methods have also been used to assess a
person's resemblance to the types. The Realistic, Intellectual,
Social, Conventional, Enterprising, and Artistic scales of the
Vocational Preference Inventory [62] provide a simple, brief
procedure for typing a person. First, the subject indicates the
vocations that appeal to him and those that do not from a list
of 84 occupational titles [14 occupations for each of the six
scales]. The six scales are scored and profiled. The higher a
person's score on a scale, the greater his resemblance to the
type that scale represents. His highest score represents his dom-
inant personality type; his profile of scores (obtained by ranking
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38 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
the scale scores from highest to lowest) represents his personality
pattern.
The Strong Vocational Blank [121] has also been used
Interest
to assess a person's resemblance to each type. For example, the
Aviator scale of the Strong was used to represent the Realistic
type, the Physicist scale to represent the Intellectual type, the
Social Science Teacher scale for the Social type, the Accountant
scale for the Conventional type, the Sales Manager scale for the
Enterprising type, and the Musician scale for the Artistic type.
In principle, the Kuder Preference Record [84] and other interest
inventories can also be used for this purpose.
The Personal Survey (see Appendix B), a brief experimental
inventory, was designed for the express purpose of defining a
person's type. To develop the inventory, items that best discrim-
inated among types were selected from several studies [67, 68,
69, 72]. They were chosen with the view of obtaining a compre-
hensive assessment of the subject's goals and values, self-concepts,
competencies, coping behavior, identifications, and interests. For
each kind of content, there are an equal number of items. The
survey includes, among other things, a list of self-descriptive
adjectives (for example, aloof, argumentative, introverted), self-
ratings of other traits and abilities (absent-mindedness, mechan-
ical ability, importance of
originality), ratings of the relative
various life goals, and ratings of famous people thought worthy
of emulation. The Personal Survey may in the future provide
more useful definitions and better predictions than the Vocational
Preference Inventory or the Strong Vocational Interest Blank.
Table 2 summarizes the qualitative and quantitative methods for
defining the types.
In short, we have defined a person's resemblance to each type
by his vocational interests as manifested in his vocational and
educational preferences, his current employment, or his scores
on certain interest scales. These definitions are "approximate,"
because they are working definitions whose simplicity lends it-
self to research and redefinition. At present, the Vocational Pref-

erence Inventory is probably the most satisfactory assessment

method for several reasons. First, the VPI scales have been
studied most extensively for this purpose. Second, these scales
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 39
are equal in length and have useful homogeneity, ranging from
.76 to .85 (K-R 20). Finally, because the scales are composed
only of occupational titles, they make it easy to coordinate
several similar definitions of each of the six types. That is, the
lists of occupations defining the types were used not only to
designate various educational and vocational choices as being
characteristic of a type but also to indicate the vocational inter-
est inventorv scales that should be used to assess resemblance
to a tvpe.For example, the Aviator scale of the Strong Vocational
Interest Blank was used as a measure of the Realistic type, be-
cause "aviator" is among the occupations comprising the list of
Realistic occupations. Similarly, the Scientific scale of the Kuder
Preference Record is assumed be a measure of a person's
to
Intellectual orientation, because the Intellectual list is comprised
of scientific vocations. In addition, academic major fields closely
associated with the occupations defining each type have been
classified accordingly.
The different definitions for a given type in Table 2 are as-
sumed to be positively intercorrelated and to be measures of the
same type. More research is needed before a "best" set of defini-
tions can be chosen. At this time, it is strategically more valuable
to explore several sets of definitions.

RELATIONSHIPS AMONG TYPES

The personality types, when assessed by the Vocational Prefer-

ence Inventory, are moderately intercorrelated with one another.
A knowledge of these intercorrelations serves a number of useful
purposes. First, they are a guide to the consistency of a person's
personality pattern. For example, types 3 and 5 (Social and
Enterprising) are moderately and positively correlated: when
these types constitute the first two peaks in a profile, they indicate
a sociable, dependent character. However, if one is high and
the other low in the profile, we cannot be as certain of the pres-
ence of these attributes. Similar interpretations can be made from
other patterns of intercorrelation shown in Table 3. Second, the
size of the intercorrelations are generally consistent with the
40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
formulations for the types. For example, the Intellectual type
differs greatly from the Enterprising type in skills, values, orienta-
tion toward people; these differences are reflected in the low
intercorrelation between measures of these types: r equals —.04
and .03 for boys and girls respectively.

SUBTYPES AND PERSONALITY PATTERNS

The use of an interest inventory profile enables us to classify

people according to their personality pattern, or their resemblance
to each of the six personality types. Thus, we can study the
various subtypes (that is, people classified by two- to six-digit
codes rather than by single digits) to arrive at a more complete
understanding of complex personality patterns. For example,
persons can be classified as Intellectual-Realistic, Intellectual-
Social, Intellectual-Conventional, Intellectual-Enterprising, or
Intellectual- Artistic subtypes and then compared for their achieve-
ments, goals, resistance to influence, and other behavior. Table

Table 3
The Relationships Among the Personality Types As
Estimated by Corresponding Scales of the
Vocational Preference Inventory

1 2 3 4 5 6
Real Int Soc Conv Ent Art

1 Realistic •49 .06 .21 .14 •17

2 Intellectual 42 .11 •13 •03 •19
3 Social 26 .22 •15 •36 .27
4 Conventional 35 .20 •25 •3i 09
5 Enterprising 17 .04 •44 •54 •34
6 Artistic 19 •29 .46 .07 •35

Note: Correlations boys (N = 307) are below the diagonal; those for
for
girls (N = 226) are above the diagonal. Both groups are National Merit
Finalists. Similar patterns of relationships can be observed in Strong's data
for the SVIB. See Table 29, pp. 136-137 of Vocational Interests of Men
and Women [121].
 THE PERSONALITY TYPES 41
Table 4
The Coding of Interest Inventory Scales for
the Study of Types and Subtypes

Type and Scale Names

:

Real Int Soc Conv Ent Art

Type and Scale Numbers

Subject 1 2 3 4 5 6 Code

A 10 20 70 60 90 5o 53
B 80 90 20 30 40 10 21
C 10 40 50 35 40 85 63

Note: The coding of profiles can be elaborated by coding all scalesand

by including signs to indicate the elevation of various scales. However,
these elaborationsrequire extremely large samples for empirical study.
For this example, we have coded each subject by the percentile rank of
his two highest scores.

4 illustrates the coding of interest inventory scales for the study

of single types and subtypes. For example, Subject A, whose
highest and next highest scores are Enterprising and Social, re-
spectively, has an Enterprising-Social pattern (which would be
coded 53). It seems obvious that the use of subtypes rather than
single types will lead to more efficient predictions and greater
understanding.
A classification of occupational subtypes and a method for de-
termining subtypes is also presented in Part II of Appendix A.
New research is needed to examine the value of these methods.

SUMMARY
The which probably represent common outcomes of
types,
growing up in our culture, have been described in terms of a
theoretical model and an empirical definition. The personality
types are models for organizing knowledge, stimulating research,
and conceptualizing personality.
 CHAPTER THREE

Personality Types

and Expected Performance

Assuming that the conceptual formulations in Chapter Two are

valid guesses about the nature of vocational life, what inferences
can we draw from them? A review of the formulations suggests a
series of hypotheses about several related performances important
to both the person and society: (1) vocational choice, job satis-
faction, stability, and achievement; (2) academic achievement;

(3) creative performance; and (4) personal development and

stability. The hypotheses that follow are based on the formula-
tions and are assumed to be consistent with them.

VOCATIONAL CHOICE, JOB SATISFACTION,

STABILITY, AND ACHIEVEMENT

A and achievement may

person's vocational choice, stability,
be conceived of as involving ( 1 ) his direction of choice ( meaning
his choice of a particular field or kind of work) and subsequent
changes in that direction, and (2) his level of vocational choice
and eventual vocational achievement.
Direction of Choice. A person's primary direction of choice may
be defined as his choice of one of the six groups of occupations
enumerated earlier: Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventional,

42
 PERSONALITY TYPES AND PERFORMANCE 43
Enterprising, and Artistic. The primary direction is a function
of the dominant characteristic (that is, the model type he most
resembles) of his personality pattern.
The secondary direction of vocational choice is a function of
the secondary characteristic of his personality pattern: that is,

the model type that the person resembles secondarily. This sec-
ondary direction determines his choice of role within the major
vocational class of his choice. For example, a prospective engineer
mav become a researcher, a supervisor, a teacher, or a consultant
in the field of engineering; his preference constitutes the second-
ary direction. The secondary direction represents a specification
—a narrowing or focusing— of choice; it is analogous to "the funnel
process" that Hahn and MacLean [59] ascribe to vocational expe-
rience. Studies of secondary direction and subsequent develop-
ment have been made for various vocational groups: engineers

[3 1 ' psychologists [81, 121], and physicians [49, 122].

33] >

Stability and fluctuation in vocational choice are functions of

both the dominant characteristics and the consistency of the
personality pattern. The choices of Realistic and Intellectual men
tend to be stable [67, 68], perhaps because of the nonsociability
and insensitivity of the Realistic type and the nonsociability and
independence of the Intellectual type. Social, Conventional, En-
terprising, and Artistic men are unstable: that is, they tend to
change their vocational choices. Possibly the orally dependent
and materialistic qualities of the Social, Conventional, and Enter-
prising types, and the personal instability of the Artistic type
foster change. In relation to these findings, it is interesting to
note that adolescent boys who report that their daydreams have
centered around the same kinds of vocations over a long period
of time tend to be Realistic and Intellectual types [69].
These results are corroborated by similar findings obtained in
longitudinal studies for the college years. In a study of suscepti-
bility to influence, King [78] finds that his high-persuasibility
group, which resembles the Social type, "tends to have a stronger
need maintain close, harmonious social relationships, lower
to
self-esteem, higher overt anxiety, and poorer health."
The consistency of the personality pattern is also positively
44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
correlated with stability of vocational choice [68]; that is, some
primary-secondary patterns are more conducive to stability than
others. People with consistent personality patterns tend to change
their direction of choice (move from one vocational class to
another ) relatively infrequently, whereas people with inconsistent
codes have vocational histories characterized by frequent changes.
Consistent codes (obtained from the interest profiles described
earlier in Table 4, page 41) include the following combinations:
12, 21, 14, 41, 26, 62, 36, 63, 45, 54, 56, 65, 53, 35, 34, and 43.
Inconsistent codes include 23, 32, 24, 42, 16, 61, 25, 52, 46, 64,
13, 31, 15, and 51. The consistency of the code is a function of
the similarities between the primary and secondary types. For
example, a 21 code (Intellectual-Realistic) is a consistent code,
because the model formulations and the empirical evidence in-
dicate that the Intellectual and the Realistic types have many
traits in common— unsociability,
an orientation toward things
rather than people, self-deprecation, and masculinity— although
they also have some contradictory attributes. Inconsistent codes
are assumed person has psychological at-
to indicate that the
tributes that are somewhat contradictory. For example, a 13
(Realistic-Social) code is an inconsistent code, because the
models for the Realistic and Social types contain such oppositions
as an orientation toward things versus an orientation toward
people, masculinity versus femininity, poor interpersonal skills
versus good interpersonal skills, motoric skills versus verbal skills.

The consistency hypothesis is related in many ways to Festinger's

concept of dissonance [38], Lecky's "self -consistency" [86], and
Vance and Volsky's "psychological discordance" [134].
Reaction to External Influences. The person whose first choice
of vocation is thwarted because of lack of training funds, rejec-
tion by his employer, lack of opportunity, or some other external
force will select other occupations or positions of the same type
if his personality pattern is he resembles the
consistent or if

Realistic or the Intellectual more than the other four types. For
the person with an inconsistent pattern, the direction of choice
will more frequently be determined by environmental contin-
 PERSONALITY TYPES AND PERFORMANCE 45
gencies, because his unstable pattern lessens his self -direction.
In general, resistance to external pressure probably depends
somewhat more on the consistency of the personality pattern
than on the dominant personality type. A person with a consistent
pattern (for instance, a Social-Enterprising type) is less likely
to be swayed by external forces than is a person with an incon-
sistent pattern (for instance, a Social-Intellectual type). Con-
sistent patternsshould probably be regarded as integrated pat-
terns—integrated in the sense that they represent similar or
complementary values, attitudes, and coping mechanisms. Crites'
finding [22] that "ego strength" is positively associated with the
presence of interest patterning on the Strong seems to illustrate
this phenomenon.
The potency that a particular environmental pressure will
exert on a person's direction of choice is a function of the dom-
inant type represented in the personality pattern, the degree to
which this type dominates the pattern, and the consistency of
the profile. For example, a consistent personality pattern repre-
sented by a profile peak on the Intellectual scale followed by a
much lower peak on the Realistic scale, and only negligible
elevations on the remaining scales, would be both more predict-
able and more sensitive to those influences which, according to
the hypothesis, most strongly affect the Intellectual type. In con-
trast, a person with an inconsistent personality pattern dominated
by peak on the Intellectual scale followed by a peak on
a profile
the Social scale would be less predictable and less sensitive to
the influences assumed to affect the Intellectual type. The en-
vironmental situations that are likely to be the most and the least
influential with each type are as follows.

1. The most susceptible to pragmatic, mascu-

Realistic type is

line, and nonsocial influences and least sensitive to social, femi-

nine, and intellectual influences.

2. The Intellectual type is most sensitive to abstract, theoreti-

cal, and analytic influences and least sensitive to materialistic

and social influences.

46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
3. The Social type most sensitive to social, humanitarian,
is

and religious influences and least sensitive to abstract or analytic

influences.
4.The Conventional type is most sensitive to materialistic and
social influences and least sensitive to intellectual and idealistic

influences.
5. The Enterprising type is most sensitive to social, emotional,
enthusiastic, and materialistic influences and least sensitive to
intellectual, humanitarian, and idealistic influences.
6. The Artistic type is most sensitive to personal, emotional

and imaginative influences and least sensitive to social, material-

istic, and realistic influences.

To determine the effects of one external influence, financial

aid, upon vocational choice, students (National Merit Finalists)
were asked, "If you had unlimited financial resources, would your
first choice be a different one?" Responses were related to the
students'dominant personality type in 2 by 6 tables, which were
then tested with chi square. Table 5 presents the results for both
sexes [67]. As the table shows, 32.7 per cent of the boys with

Table 5
Relation Between the Student's High-Point Code and His
Response to the Question "If You Had Unlimited Financial
Resources, Would Your First Choice Be a Different One?"

Would
* 3 4 6
Change * J>
~«
Real
,
Int Soc Conv Ent A
Art x
Choice

Boys (N= 148) 12.3 7.6 18.5 17.1 32.7 22.0 25. 12
Girls (N = 86) 16.4 19.5 9.3 14.8 17.9 32.2 i5-94t

Note: Only 17.8 and 18.7 per cent of the total sample of boys and girls,
respectively, indicated they would change their choices if unlimited funds
were available. The "high-point code" is the scale on which the person
achieves his highest score.
*
p <.ooi.
t p <.oi.
 PERSONALITY TYPES AND PERFORMANCE 47
Enterprising codes said they would change their vocational choice
if thev had unlimited financial resources, whereas only 7.6 per
cent of the students with Intellectual codes said they would
change. This extreme contrast seems consistent with the values
expressed by persons in each of the two occupational codes. The
findings for girls are more ambiguous: girls with Artistic choices
would change their goals more readilv than girls with Social
choices. These differences in susceptibility to external influence
may be attributable to cultural biases about the "impracticality"
of Artistic occupations and the "practicality" of Social occupa-
tions for girls.
Vocational Achievement. In addition to determining the direc-
tion of vocational choice, the personality pattern also deter-
mines the person's level of vocational aspiration and achievement.
A consistent personality pattern makes for effective functioning.
We may assume that an integrated pattern makes for stability
and integrated effort, and therefore a person with a consistent
pattern is more likely to survive at a given kind of work.
People who have not onlv a consistent pattern but also a close
resemblance to the Social or the Enterprising type are likely to
have higher aspirations, to achieve more frequently, and to be
more occupationallv mobile. Other things being equal, people
with closer resemblances to these two types achieve more than
people with fewer resemblances. (Here "other things" include the
person's intelligence and social background, factors that are im-
portant determinants of achievement but that are partially incor-
porated in the types themselves. ) No doubt their self-confidence,
enthusiasm, and perceptiveness in dealing with others— common
requirements for achievement in our culture— account for the
greater success of these types.
The level of vocational aspiration is also related to the per-
sonality types. Enterprising, Social, and Artistic types tend to
overevaluate their potential, and thus to have higher aspirations;
Conventional, Intellectual, and Realistic types tend to underrate
themselves. We see here a reflection of the "realism hypothesis"
frequently discussed in vocational counseling: "unrealistic" voca-
tional aspirations (that is, aspirations that are either too high or
48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
and potential ) are associated
too low in terms of a person's ability
with the extremes of overevaluation and underevaluation. Thus,
we would expect both the Enterprising and the Realistic types
to have "unrealistic" vocational goals.
Moreover, people with consistent codes are more likely to make
"realistic" choices and to have reasonable aspirations, because a
consistent code implies an integrated person who knows himself
well. Consequently, an accurate self-evaluation is one facet of
integrity and stability.
Work History (Career Pattern). From the previous statements
about stability of vocational choice, we can make certain predic-
tions about the character of the work historv. The Realistic and
Intellectual types and people with consistent codes will be more
vocationally stable ( that is, they will change jobs less often ) than
people who resemble the other four types or people with in-
consistent codes.
Work Satisfaction. Expressions of work satisfaction will be as-
sociated with consistent rather than inconsistent codes. Persons
with inconsistent codes may be expected to express dissatisfaction
more often, because they are by definition somewhat dissatisfied
and self-contradictory and because they appear to have conflict-
ing motives.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Such other things and socioeconomic status be-

as intelligence
ing equal, high educational aspirations (as measured by highest
academic degree sought) will be positively associated with the
model types in the following order: Intellectual, Social, Artistic,
Conventional, Enterprising, and Realistic. Educational achieve-
ment (as reflected in grades) and satisfaction with educational
training will be correlated with the types in about the same order.
The formulations for each type suggest the particular level of
educational aspiration, achievement, and satisfaction. For ex-
ample, the Intellectual type would be expected to have the
highest educational aspirations of the six types, because the In-
tellectual type by definition values intellectual tasks: reading,
 )

PERSONALITY TYPES AND PERFORMANCE 49

thinking, writing. In contrast, the Realistic type, who is concerned
with action as opposed to thought, would aspire to achievements
in the "real" rather than the intellectual world.
The choice major field, stability
of in major field, and satisfac-
tion with and achievement in major field will be influenced by
personality in the same ways that vocational choice is. (See the
previous discussion.

CREATIVE PERFORMANCE

The field in which a person will perform creatively is deter-

mined by the dominant characteristic of his personality pattern.
Whatever a person's dominant personality characteristic, the
higher the rank of the Artistic and Intellectual types in his profile,
the more likely it is that he will perform creatively. This hypoth-
esis restson the formulations and related evidence that suggest
that these types have creative predispositions. For example, a
person with a Realistic-Intellectual-Artistic [126] pattern would
be expected to perform more originally than a person with a
Realistic-Conventional- Artistic-Intellectual [1462] pattern.
Similarly, people with consistent codes are more apt to per-
form creatively than are people with inconsistent codes, because
consistent codes probably foster achievement. Because the Intel-
lectual and the Artistic types are the most creative, and because
these two types are consistent with one another, the Intellectual-
Artistic and the Artistic-Intellectual patterns probably represent
the highest degree of creative performance. At the other extreme,
a Realistic-Enterprising pattern would be especially uncreative,
because this pattern is inconsistent and because the individual
types lack creative potential.
Other things— such as field or vocation, consistency of codes,
and environmental pressures— being equal, the specific nature of
the created product will be predictable from the personality pat-
tern. For example, people with patterns of 261 (Intellectual-
Artistic-Realistic) would be expected to develop ingenious
mechanical apparatus, whereas people with patterns of 263 (In-
50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
tellectual-Artistic-Social ) would be expected to develop ingenious
social techniques, imaginative social theories, and similar socially
oriented products. This kind of analysis is analogous to Weiss-
man's method of profile analysis of the Strong [138], which he
used to study the "intellectual disposition" of students by arrang-
ing students along an applied-theoretical interest continuum.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY

Because the various types developmental histories

differ in their
and adult personalities, they probably differ in their proneness to
behavior disorders. We may hypothesize that the Realistic type
(who is literally that: reality-oriented) is the least apt to develop
adjustment problems, whereas the Artistic type (because of the
very qualities that make him "artistic") is the most likely. There
is some evidence to support this hypothesis [41, 47, 101], although

much of the evidence is contradictory.

The differences among types with respect to history, adult
personality, and perceptual outlook imply respond
also that they
differentially to various kinds of psychiatric treatment. For ex-
ample, the Realistic and Conventional types might be expected
to respond well to treatments that involve explicit authoritative
manipulation of the soma through drugs, physical therapies, and
activity. The Social type, and to a lesser degree the Enterprising
type, because of their orientation toward people and their verbal
skills,would probably respond well to individual and group
psychotherapy. The Artistic type, although by definition more
unstable than the others, would also be amenable to individual
psychotherapy because of his habit of using his primitive and
childish impulses. The Intellectual type would be only a fair
prospect for individual psychotherapy because of his ability to
erect intricate barriers that neither he nor his therapist can easily
break through.
 PERSONALITY TYPES AND PERFORMANCE 51

SUMMARY
This chapter spells out some of the obvious implications of the
formulations for the personality types. The models can be used
for constructing hypotheses about a number of other human
problems. For example, we might ask what kind of leadership
is ideal for each model? If we wanted to bring about changes

in certain institutions and practices— childrearing, teaching, busi-

ness organizations— what appeals will be most effective in reach-
ing each of the types? Why have labor unions been relatively
successful among Realistic persons, but unsuccessful among
Social and Conventional persons? Provisional answers to these
and other questions can be inferred from the model formulations.
 CHAPTER FOUR

The Environmental Model

Human behavior depends upon both personality and the spe-

cific environment in which a person lives. The model formulations
yield helpful information about people, but that information is

incomplete unless we find some way to characterize the en-

vironment as well as the person. Murray's early study [96] of
personal "needs" and environmental "presses" is a useful illustra-
tion of this idea. Therefore, to supplement the model personality
types, we have proposed six model environments to characterize
the common physical and social environments in our culture.
The model environments correspond to the personality types:
thus, foreach personality type there is a related environment.
Just as we can assess real people by comparing them with the
personality types, so we can assess real environments by com-
paring them with model environments— that is, descriptions of
hypothetical environments. Both the environmental models and
the personality types are derived from the same concepts. The six

personality types— Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conventional,

Enterprising, and Artistic— reflect vocational preferences; the
formulations in Chapter Two explain the meaning of these prefer-
ences and their relations to personal traits. In turn, environmental
models may be defined as the situation or atmosphere created by
the people who dominate a given environment. For instance, a
Realistic environment would be an environment dominated by
Realistic types.

52
 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS 53
Because the personality types and the environmental models
share a common set of constructs, it is possible to classify people
and environments in the same terms and thus to predict the
outcome of pairing people and environments. More explicitly: to
predict what will happen when a particular person is put into a
particular environment, we need only to characterize the person
and his environment in terms of the models and to review the
appropriate formulations in order to discover the congruities and
incongruities the models suggest. For example, the interaction of
a Realistic type and a Realistic environment should produce a
number of desirable outcomes, such as work satisfaction, achieve-
ment, and vocational stability.* Our typology gives us a tremen-
dous advantage both in planning research and in interpreting
results. Without it, we would have to deal with a formidable
number of possible person-environment interactions; with it, we
have relatively few variables to juggle and an explicit rationale
to guide us.
The construction model environments
of the rests mainly on
the suggestion made by Linton [89] and others that most of our
environment is transmitted through other people. This idea im-
plies that the character ofan environment is dependent upon the
nature of its members, and that the dominant features of an
environment are dependent upon the typical characteristics of
its members. If we know what kind of people make up a group,

then, we can infer the climate that the group creates. For ex-
ample, an office full of engineers would be expected to have a
different atmosphere than an office full of accountants. Or, an
informal gathering of salesmen would differ in atmosphere from
an informal gathering of ministers.
A large portion of the model environment consists of those
attributes of the model types that affect others. In addition, be-
cause model types are characterized by a preference for special
tasks and situations, the description of model environments by
means of model types results in the delineation of tasks and
Chapters Five and Six provide a complete account of the explanatory
values of the theory for these purposes.
54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
situations thought to be associated with and congenial to the
different personality types.
The descriptions of the model environments in this chapter
follow the plan for the model types: Conceptual definition; em-
pirical definition; empirical characterization in terms of typical
tasks, situations, and interpersonal relationships; and conceptual
formulation. The information about occupational environments
was obtained from Fine's United States Employment Service
study of 4000 jobs [39, 132]. This information was sorted into
six categories, using the lists of occupations shown in Table 1.

A each of the six occupa-

tally of the attributes characteristic of
tional classes was then made. In this way, it was possible to
secure the typical characteristics for each occupational class or
model environment. In addition, hypotheses about other prob-
able attributes and their effects were made after a careful review
of Fine's data. Because Fine's classification and the present selec-
tion of information are in the last analysis subjective (Fine used
experienced employment men), the reader should realize that
the environmental models are just that— speculative formulations
rather than empirical summaries.

The Realistic Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Realistic environment is charac-

terized by the explicit, physical, concrete tasks with which it
confronts its inhabitants. Effective solutions often require me-
chanical ingenuity and skill, and physical movement
persistence,
from place to place, often outdoors. The Realistic environment
demands only minimal interpersonal skills, because most of the
tasks it sets can be accomplished by superficial and casual rela-
tionships that frequently require only stereotyped conversations.
Tasks frequently call for simple sets of action. The explicit quality
of the environmental demands make "success" and "failure" al-
most immediately obvious.
Empirical Definition. The Realistic environment is populated
largely by persons who have preferences for, are training for, or
are employed in such occupations as airplane mechanic, con-
 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS 55
struction inspector, electrician, filling station attendant, and fish

and wildlife specialist. The following settings are typical of the

Realistic environment: a filling station, a machine shop, a farm,
a construction project, a barber shop.
Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:
Typically the problems are mechanical, demanding the use of
tools and machines. Solutions frequently must be reached within
established limits of time and physical tolerance. Such tasks
demand carefulness, close attention, speed, and persistence. Work
activities are typically nonsocial and are carried on in relation to
processes, machines, and techniques, both indoors and outdoors.
Work activities are occasionally physically hazardous. Work tasks
often require medium to great capacity for such physical activ-
ities as reaching, handling, fingering, feeling, and seeing.
Interpersonal Relationships: Minimal social skills are de-
manded, and these are usually limited to receiving or giving ex-
plicit information and playing a masculine role. Need for sensitivity
or perceptiveness toward others is minimal. The persons in this
environment are "realistic"; thus, a person introduced into the
Realistic environment is surrounded by people whose values,
aptitudes, and personalities are conventional, materialistic, and
masculine. A person new to the Realistic environment, then, needs
some ability to cope with the Realistic person. Presumably, sim-
ilaritv between the inhabitants and the newcomer will make for
effective interpersonal relations.

The Intellectual Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Intellectual environment is char-

acterized by tasks that require abstract and creative abilities

rather than personal perceptiveness. Effective solutions require

imagination, intelligence, and sensitivity to physical and intel-
lectual problems. Achievement is usually gradual, taking place
over a prolonged period of time, although the criteria of achieve-
ment may be objective and measurable. The problems posed by
* See Chapter Two for a complete list of these criteria and of the criteria
for the other five classes.
56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
the environment vary in their level of difficulty: solutions to
simple problems can sometimes be obtained by the direct ap-
plication of past training, whereas solutions to more complex
problems require persistence and originality. Tools and apparatus
require intellectual more than manual skills. Writing ability is
frequently necessary.
Empirical Definition. The Intellectual environment is populated
mostly by persons who have preferences for, are training for, or
are employed in such occupations as aeronautical design en-
gineer, anthropologist, astronomer, biologist, and botanist. The
following settings are typical of the Intellectual environment: a
research laboratory; a diagnostic case conference in a hospital or
clinic; a library; work groups of scientists, research engineers, or
mathematicians; studies and offices with books or scientific ap-
paratus.
Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:
Work is with ideas and things rather than with other people.
Relationships with others are superficial rather than close. Sci-
entificproblems usually have standards, tolerances, and limits,
but these limits are less explicit than those necessary for achieve-
ment in the Realistic or Conventional environments. Laboratory
equipment is used in the service of intellectual or scientific prob-
lems rather than in the performance of mechanical solutions, as
is the case in the Realistic environment. The physical require-

ments are light: talking, reading, and verbal and ideational learn-
ing. Work activities usually take place indoors.
Interpersonal Relationships: Minimal social skills are de-
manded, although ability to give and receive complicated written
and oral instructions is necessary. Need for sensitivity to the
needs and problems of others is minimal. Ability to relate ef-
fectively to Intellectual types is helpful in achieving personal
goals and acquiring vocational status, because the Intellectual
environment is populated principally by Intellectual types.

The Social Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Social environment is characterized

by problems that require the ability to interpret and modify
 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS 57
human behavior and an interest in caring for and communicating
with others. Generally, the work situations foster self-esteem and
convey status.
Empirical Definition. The Social environment is populated
largelybv persons who have preferences for, are training for, or
are employed in such occupations as assistant city school super-
intendent, clinical psychologist, director of welfare agency, for-
eign missionary, and high school teacher. The following settings
are typical of the Social environment: school and college class-
rooms, counseling or therapeutic interviewing offices, mental
hospitals, churches, educational offices, and recreation centers.
Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:
The ability to interpret human behavior and to teach others is
required. Principal work situations require frequent, prolonged
personal relationships with others. Those persons receiving help
or training convey status and affection to the person working in
this environment. Work hazards are emotional because relatively
close relationships with students, employees, and patients may
stir up those conflicts and feelings that have been poorly re-
solved. Verbal facility is demanded for lecturing, teaching, and

helping others. Physical requirements are light: talking, reading,

and listening.
Interpersonal Relationships: High degree of social sensitivity
and skill is demanded. Ability to interpret and cope with a great
range of types, including other Social types, is required.

The Conventional Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Conventional environment is char-
acterized by tasks and problems that require systematic, concrete,
routine processing of verbal and mathematical information. Suc-
cessful solutions are relatively explicit and occur in relatively
short periods of time. More complex problems in this environ-
ment require managing the activities of others or directing an
entire operation.
Empirical Definition. The Conventional environment is pop-
ulated largely by persons who have preferences for, are training
for, or are employed in such occupations as bank examiner, bank
58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
bookkeeper, budget reviewer, and cost estimator. The fol-
teller,

lowing settings are typical of the Conventional environment: a

bank, an accounting firm, a post office, a file room, and a business
office.

Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:

Tasks frequently call for repetitive, short-cycle operations carried
out according to set procedures or sequences. Activities are
routine, concrete, organized. Regular duties require reaching,
handling, fingering, feeling, and seeing. Little physical strength
is required.
Interpersonal Relationships: Regular duties require minimal
interpersonal skills, because the majority of time is spent working
with things and materials. Interpersonal relationships can be
coped with in a relatively superficial manner and without much
personal involvement or feeling. The Conventional environment
requires the ability to cope with Conventional types, who are
characterized by their economic values, self-control, and passivity.

The Enterprising Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Enterprising environment is char-

acterized by tasks that place a premium on verbal facility used
to direct or persuade other people.
Empirical Definition. The Enterprising environment is pop-
ulated largely by persons who have preferences for, are training
for, or are employed in such occupations as business executive,
buyer, hotel manager, industrial relations consultant, and man-
ufacturer's representative. The following settings are typical of
the Enterprising environment: a car lot, a real-estate office, a
political rally, and an advertising agency.
Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:
Tasks typically require directing, controlling, and planning the
activities of others. Persuasive and supervisory roles usually draw
esteem and respect from other people. The environment requires
an interest in people and things. Because most work activities are
people-oriented, social skills are needed. The most important
physical requirements relate to talking and listening.
 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS 59
Interpersonal Relationships: The ability to relate to a great
variety of other people in many different situations is frequently
necessary. Likewise, the ability to perceive the motives of others
in order to lead and persuade is essential. Unlike the Social en-
vironment, this environment does not call for the ability to form
close relationships that tax emotional resources. Finally, this en-
vironment requires the ability to cope with Enterprising types,
who are competitive, aggressive, and materialistic.

The Artistic Environment

Conceptual Definition. The Artistic environment is character-

ized by tasks and problems that require the interpretation or
creation of artistic forms through taste, feelings, and imagination.
The most complex tasks require great tolerance for ambiguity and
imagination. The simpler tasks require chiefly a sense of excel-
lence or fitness. The Artistic environment requires the ability to
draw upon all of one's knowledge, intuition, and emotional life
in problem solving; in contrast, the Realistic, Intellectual, and
Conventional environments frequently demand less use of a
person's total resources.
Empirical Definition. The Artistic environment is populated
mostlv by persons who have preferences for, are training for, or
are employed such occupations as art dealer, author, cartoonist,
in
commercial artist, and composer. The following settings are
typical of the Artistic environment: a play rehearsal, a concert
hall, adance studio, a study, a library, a garret.
Empirical Characterization. Typical Problems and Situations:
Tasks typically require the interpretation of feelings, ideas, or
facts in terms of a personal viewpoint. Information is evaluated
against sensorv or judgmental criteria. Standards of excellence
are demanded, but ambiguous. The
their definitions are often
Artistic environment demands intense involvement over long
periods of time. Some Artistic activities (drama) involve close
working relationships, whereas others (painting) are carried out
in almost complete isolation.
6o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Because many of the psychologically important features of the

environment consist of or are transmitted by the people in it, we
can, in principle, characterize an environment by assessing its
population. The Environmental Assessment Technique (EAT)
was developed for this purpose. This technique entails a census
of the occupations, training preferences, or vocational preferences
of a population; the population may be that of a college, a hos-
pital, a business, a community, or any other group. These prefer-
ences or occupations are classified on the basis of the criteria for
the classes as belonging to one of the six environments. This
classification results in a six-variable profile. The absolute num-
bers for each type are then converted to percentages of the total
population for the particular environment or institution. For
example, a business consisting of 100 employees might have the
following distribution of types:

Type No. Type Number Per Cent

1 Realistic 10 10
2 Intellectual 4 4
3 Social 6 6
4 Conventional 64 64
5 Enterprising 14 14
6 Artistic 2 2

Its environmental pattern would be represented by the code

451326, because the dominant type in this environment is the
Conventional (type 4), followed by the Enterprising (type 5).
Such an environment would be expected to emphasize order-
liness, social status, conservative economic and political beliefs,
and similar presses.
Similar codes can be obtained for colleges by a census and
categorization of the proportion of students in different major
fields. Studies by Astin and Holland [9] and by Astin [8] indicate
 THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS 6l

that such a technique has moderate validity and high retest

reliability over a one-vear interval. For the Environmental
six
Assessment Technique variables, retest coefficients range from
.Si to .99. To test the validity of this method, profiles of 335

colleges were obtained; these profiles were based on the per-

centage of students majoring in fields in each of the six areas.
Then the percentages were correlated with reports by other
groups of students who rated their colleges on the College Char-
acteristics Index [99].
In general, the results were positive. For example, colleges with
large percentages of Realistic students (engineering and agricul-
tural majors) tended to be rated low on Humanism, high on
Pragmatism, low on Sentience (capacity for feeling experience),
and low on Reflectiveness. Colleges with large percentages of
Social students ( education majors ) were described on the College
Characteristics Inventory as having a narcissistic, sexual, exhibi-
tionistic, and aniiscientific atmosphere.

In a second study, similar results were obtained [8]. In short,

these studies suggest that a census of the kinds of people found
at a college provides a useful index of the atmosphere or climate
of the college.
More recently in a factor analysis of institutional variables at
335 colleges, Astin [5] found five factors that were similar to five
of the six Environmental Assessment Technique variables. His
study suggests that the simple census of a college provided by
the Environmental Assessment Technique is related to a great
varietv of institutional characteristics: faculty attributes, financial
status, size, control, and similar objective attributes.
Astin has also refined the Environmental Assessment Technique
[8] by weighting each vocation or major for the two types it
resembles. This refinement may lead to more discriminating as-

sessments than those provided by assigning a vocation to a single

type-
Presumably, we can assess environments other than colleges.
For instance, communities could be assessed using information
from the government census. Such assessments might make pos-
sible cross-cultural comparisons. Close human relationships, such
62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
as the one between parents and child, could be studied by cat-
egorizing the significant person as a kind of one-man environ-
ment.

SUMMARY
The model environments are useful in suggesting research and
in categorizing the character of an environment. It is assumed
that environments can be characterized by a six-variable typol-
ogy that will provide a simple, empirical tool especially helpful
for predicting and understanding the various outcomes of a given
person's being placed in a given environment.
 CHAPTER FIVE

Environmental Models

and Expected Influences

Like the model personality types, the model environments

imply many hypotheses about a person's vocational, academic,
creative, and personal performance. The following hypotheses
are derived from the model formulations ( Chapter Four regarded
simply as axiomatic statements from which certain inferences
can be drawn.
To facilitate comparisons, the following sections on the impli-
cations of the environmental models follow the same sequence
as the discussion of the implications of the personality types
(Chapter Three).

VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR

The implications of the model environments for the direction

of vocational choice, stability of choice, vocational achievement,
work and job satisfaction are as follows:
history (career pattern),
Direction of Vocational Choice. Each model environment at-
tracts or is sought out by that person whose dominant type is
similar to the type associated with the environment. Realistic
environments attract Realistic types; Intellectual environments
attract Intellectual types. This hypothesis, which is based on the
notion that friendships grow out of similar interests and values,

63
64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
should be qualified: The person is attracted also to those tasks
and situations that gratify his personal needs and give him satis-

faction.
There is some tentative support for the hypothesis that attrac-
tion to a group is a function of the satisfaction of needs provided
by membership in the group [120]. The converse also seems true.
Libo [88] found that people regard as unattractive those groups
in which they have to discuss topics uninteresting to them.
Individual items from various interest inventories illustrate
the attraction of environmental presses. In the Strong Vocational
Interest Blank, for example, the subject is given an opportunity
to express his preference for various kinds of supervision, for
opportunity to use his knowledge and experience, for opportunity
for promotion, for opportunity to seek help about difficulties, and
for similar environmental attributes.
Table 6 shows the degree of positive and negative attractive-
ness that the different environments have to each personal type.
This table makes explicit the hypothesis that a given environment

Table 6
The Attractiveness of the Model Environments to
Different Personality Types

Model Environments
Personality 1 2 3 4 5 6
Types Real Int Soc Conv Ent Art

1 Realistic ++ + — — —
2 Intellectual + ++ — — +
3 Social — ++ — + +
4 Conventional — — + ++ +
5 Enterprising — + — ++ +
6 Artistic — — + — ++
Note: (++) equals "very equals "attractive." ( — ) equals
attractive." ( + )

"unattractive." ( ) equals "very unattractive." This table should also

be interpreted as showing the degree of congruency for various person-
environment interactions.
 ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS AND INFLUENCES 65
Table 7
The Role Demands of Different Environments

Environmental Models

1 2 3 4 5 6
Roles Real Int Soc Conv Ent Art

Practitioner 1 2 1 1 4 1

Teacher or therapist 5 4 2 4 3 4
Leader or supervisor 2 5 3 2 1 5
Expert or consultant 3 3 6 3 5 3
Researcher 4 1 5 5 6 2
Multiple roles 6 6 4 6 2 6

Note: 1 indicates role most in demand; 6 indicates role least in demand.

will have a somewhat different potency for each personality type

as a function of the degree of similarity between the personality
type and the environmental model. A Social type in a Social
environment will find he is surrounded by other Social types
who, like himself, enjoy talking and teaching others. Moreover,
he finds that he is in an environment where he can avoid me-
chanical and mathematical problems— tasks he finds distasteful.
Environments press their members to assume particular roles:
a given environment exerts upon the person different degrees of
pressure for different roles. Table 7 shows the ordering of role
demands within the various environments. To elaborate, the en-
vironments not only present special tasks and situations but also
attract or repel persons by emphasizing special roles. A Realistic
environment, for instance, most frequently demands that a person
play the role of a practitioner of his trade. Only infrequently does
it demand that a person play the role of a teacher or a therapist.
Accordingly, a person who likes the role of the skilled tradesman
and who dislikes or feels threatened by the role of teacher will
find the Realistic environment congenial. To take another ex-
ample, a person who likes to be a teacher or a leader, or to adopt
multiple roles rather than limiting himself to one, and who dis-
66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
likes studious or intellectual roles— expert, consultant, researcher
—will find the Enterprising environment a satisfying one, because
in he can play the roles he favors and escape those he dislikes.
it

Stability of Choice. An environment affects stability of voca-

tional choice by virtue of both its special character and its con-
sistency. The Realistic environments are probably conducive to
stability because they offer many explicit or immediate satisfac-
tions. A carpenter, for example, can see the immediate results of
his craftsmanship; he can make rapid checks to learn if his work
conforms to standards (blueprints); and he can show his work
to others.
In contrast, the Social, Enterprising, and Artistic environments
are not conducive to stability of vocational choice and goals for
two reasons: First, explicit signs of achievement are un-
at least
common. Second, the complexity of the problems involved— the
manipulation of other people or of artistic media— make "success-
ful performance" difficult to attain. The sophisticated teacher,
for instance, can rarely be sure which techniques will prove
effective in teaching students; nor, in the case of failure, can he
know whether the fault lies in him, in the students, or in some
extraneous factor that interfered with teaching effectiveness. The
work of the psychotherapist is even more elusive. He is not sure
of what he starts with— the patient's true condition— and he is
not sure what creates growth, what blocks therapeutic progress,
or even whether to believe the patient's reports of progress or
failure.
Both the consistency and the homogeneity of an environment
are positively correlated with stability of vocational choice. A
"consistent" environment is one whose environmental pattern is
psychologically and sociologically consistent. The "environmental
pattern" is the profile of types obtained from the census of all
types in an environment. The two-digit codes considered con-
sistent personality patterns also indicate consistent environmental
patterns. (See page 44.)
A consistent environment isassumed to foster stability because
it exerts pressure for unified or complementary goals, roles, and
coping behavior. The divergent attributes of the inconsistent en-
 ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS AND INFLUENCES 67
vironment press for diverse goals, roles, and coping behavior; in
short, the pressures conflict. This conflict activates the doubts and
conflicts of the person in the environment. Thus, a consistent
environment helps the person who is ambivalent about his choice
to suppress his uncertainties, whereas an inconsistent environment
not only prevents the person from suppressing his doubts but
even encourages him to reconsider other plans by providing con-
crete alternatives that sometimes represent the poles of his con-
flict. For example, a boy who is majoring in physics but is

uncertain about his choice, having considered art as as an alter-

native, will be moved to reconsider his decision if he is attending
a college with a strong art department.
Homogeneous environments are also conducive to vocational
stability. A "homogeneous" environment is one that has only one

or two dominant environmental presses and four or five very

weak environmental presses. Empirically, homogeneity is esti-
mated as the difference in percentage between the highest and
lowest types in the environmental profile. Homogeneity is pos-
itively correlated with consistency but is not identical with it:

consistencv refers to the structure of the environment, whereas

homogeneity is an intensity measure. It seems likely
in essence
that a homogeneous environment encourages stability because it
exposes its members to one single, strong, integrated press. Other
environmental presses, being insignificant, have little influence.
For example, technological institutions are usually homogeneous,
because engineering departments clearly dominate such institu-
tions. The small islands of the humanities, if they exist at all at

such institutions, exert little influence.

Vocational Achievement. The environmental pattern and its
individual components considered separately have differential
influences on a person's vocational achievement. Each of the six
environmental types, considered separately, encourages the kind
of vocational achievement associated with that kind of environ-
ment. The Social environment fosters social achievements; the
Artistic environment fosters artistic achievements.
A consistent and homogeneous environmental profile is prob-
ablv conducive to vocational achievement. Consistency is as-
68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
sumed to limit the number of different kinds of achievements that
an environment presses for; homogeneity is assumed to increase
the intensity of the environmental press for a particular kind of
achievement. For example, a student at a technological institute
finds himself in a consistent environment that presses principally
for scientific and technological goals rather than for a broad
range of goals, as a large state university does. The homogeneity
of this environment makes the pressure more intense; nearly
everybody is striving for the same goals. To strive for other goals
or to express doubts about the value of scientific and technological
goals is to swim against the current of student and faculty
opinion.
Work History (Career Patterns). The nature of the environ-
mental influences upon a person's work history can be inferred
from the earlier statements concerning stability of vocational
choice. Over a period of time, the number of jobs held by a
person in a homogeneous and consistent environment, or in the
Realistic or Intellectual environment, will be relatively few. In
contrast, a person in a heterogeneous or an inconsistent environ-
ment, or in Social, Conventional, Enterprising, or Artistic en-
vironments, will change jobs relatively often.
Work Satisfaction. Expressions of vocational satisfaction will be
more frequently with consistent than with inconsistent
associated
codes and with some environmental models more than others.
The person in a consistent environment may feel satisfaction
simply because, being in an environment that from con-
is free
tradictory presses, he knows what to expect. The Social and
Enterprising environments may provide satisfaction because they
convey prestige on their members— that is, occupations in these
environments generally carry more status than occupations in
other environments. This hypothesis is modified by another, that
satisfaction is positively related to the explicitness of achievement
or successful accomplishment. Because the signs of success in
such occupations as teaching or therapy are intangible, the per-
son in a Social environment mav feel less satisfaction than does
a file clerk or a typist in the Conventional environment, where
achievement is tangible and definite. It is hard to know which
 ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS AND INFLUENCES (x)

factor— status conferred or lack of explicitness of achievement-

has more weight for the person in a Social or an Enterprising
environment.
So far, we have talked as if an environment exerted a uniform
influence on all members. Yet obviously the effect of a par-
its

ticular environment will depend upon the person involved. To

revert to the previous example: the status conveyed by the
Social and the Enterprising environments will have little or no
effect upon people who are not concerned with status. Presum-
ably, there are a number of such personal differences that neither
the personality types nor the environmental models can cope
with adequately. Hopefully, new research and new ideas will
lead to more certain knowledge.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

The various environments influence academic achievement in

different ways,depending on the aspirations and attributes of
the types populating each environment. Environments can be
ranked from those thought to be most conducive to academic
achievement to those that seem least conducive: Intellectual,
Social, Conventional, Artistic, Realistic, Enterprising. The Intel-
lectual environment, by definition, encourages academic achieve-
ment most. The common concerns of that environment— thinking,
reading, writing, and their associated values— press for scholarly
work and achievement. The Enterprising environment is least
conducive to academic achievement, because it places a premium
on activity, aggressiveness, sociability, and their associated values.
Such influences interfere with academic achievement.

CREATIVE PERFORMANCE

The various environments foster creativity in different media

and to different degrees. The climate for and ethos about creative
work vary considerably from environment to environment. En-
JO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
vironments are thought to foster creative performance in the
following descending order: Artistic, Intellectual, Social, Enter-
prising, and Conventional. The Artistic environment
Realistic,
generally demands that the person work without much direction
or structure. To survive, he must be able to create esthetically
pleasing forms in one or more media of self-expression. Members
and prospective members of the Artistic environment are well
aware that it demands creative performance. Therefore, these
demands serve to attract people with creative potential and to
stimulate such people to create after they become members of
the environment. In contrast, the Conventional environment dis-
courages creative performance by its excessive structure, its sup-
pression of self-expression, and its recruitment of people who
prefer structure to freedom.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY

Because the model environments provide different kinds of

and interpersonal relationships, it is likely
gratifications, tasks,
that they foster personal development and stability in different
ways and to different degrees. The Realistic and Conventional
environments are thought to be conducive to personal stability
because of the concrete, explicit satisfactions and tasks they
provide, even though they frequently deny personal expression.
The Artistic environment, because of its general character and
because of the ambiguity of its criteria of achievement, is prob-
ably more conducive to personal instability than any of the other
environments. The Intellectual, Social, and Enterprising environ-
ments fall between these extremes.

SUMMARY
This attempt to spell out the implications of the model environ-
ments is grossly incomplete. No doubt a variety of other hypoth-
eses about the nature of environments will be apparent to readers
 ENVIRONMENTAL MODELS AND INFLUENCES Jl

interested in different outcomes of person-environment interac-

tions. Onlv further research will show whether or not the en-
\-ironmental models will prove useful in studying parent-child
relationships, communities, labor unions, business and profes-
sional organizations, and other environments.
 CHAPTER SIX

People m Environments

This chapter describes what happens when a particular kind

of person is put into a particular environment. The principal as-
sumptions underlying these hypotheses are, more pre-
first, that
cise predictions about human behavior can be made by assessing
both the person and the environment; and, second, that if the
models for the personal types and environments are valid, these
models can be used to derive a set of useful hypotheses about
the outcomes of pairing persons and environments.
The hypotheses about person-environment interactions are of
two main kinds: those having to do with congruent interactions,
which involve the pairing of a person and his corresponding en-
vironment (a Realistic type in a Realistic environment, an
Intellectual type in an Intellectual environment, and so on); and
those having to do with incongruent interactions, which involve
the pairing of a person and a more or less dissimilar environment
(a Realistic type in an Intellectual environment, a Social type in
an Intellectual environment, and so on). It is obvious that con-
gruent interactions strongly reinforce a person's behavior, be-
cause he lives with others like himself and engages in tasks
tailor-made to suit his aptitudes, values, and favorite methods
for dealing with problems. The effects of incongruent interactions
are more complicated; however, certain hypotheses about the
possible outcomes of such pairings can be inferred. Thus, the
theory provides a way to study crude differences in person-

72
 PEOPLE IN ENVIRONMENTS 73
environment "strain" and to formulate hypotheses about the
nature of such strains and their relation to anxiety and changes
in behavior.
Earlier work by Stern, Stein, and Bloom [115] and Sanford
[109] dealt with this question of the psychological "fit" of person
and environment. They proposed some minimal stress is
that
probably necessary for stimulating people to change and to cope
with environmental problems. If the environment and person
are an exact fit, then the need for change is negligible. But if the
person and environment are slightly incompatible, the resultant
stress stirs the person to act constructively. However, if the person
and the environment are so grossly incompatible that the person
cannot, even with great effort, succeed, then such an interaction
becomes destructive.

CONGRUENT-INCONGRUENT INTERACTIONS
Generally, congruent person-environment interactions (that is,

interactions of people and environments belonging to the same

type or model), in contrast to incongruent interactions, are con-
ducive to the following personal performance ( 1 ) more stable
:

vocational choice, ( 2 ) higher vocational achievement, ( 3 ) higher

academic achievement, (4) better maintenance of personal stabil-
ity, and (5) greater satisfaction. Presumably, congruent inter-

actions produce these outcomes because by definition they involve

situations where the tasks and problems presented by the environ-
ment are well suited to the person's coping abilities. For example,
a salesman (Enterprising type) in an Enterprising environment
finds that his interpersonal skills and his need for social inter-
action are given frequent opportunity for expression and satisfac-
tion. Equally important, the Enterprising environment minimizes

the tasks he dislikes— academic, mechanical, and clerical prob-

lems. Moreover, he can play the roles he prefers— the leader, the
persuader— and avoid the roles he dislikes— the follower, the
researcher, the intellectual.
There is an extensive literature to support the hypothesis that
74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
a person more likely to remain in his field of study or his oc-
is

cupation and to achieve vocationally when his interests (person-

ality pattern) are congruent with his environment [10, 18, 19,
36, 51, 75, 77, 90, 92, 108, 115, 119, 121, 136]. In recent studies,
Astin [7] and Holland [67, 68] have shown that a student is less
likely to change his major field in college if that field is congruent
with the dominant feature of his college environment. Astin's
study of Ph.D. aspiration [6] also suggests that to some extent
the congruency of student and college is conducive to high educa-
tional aspiration. The results of these studies are encouraging in
that they suggest that the Environmental Assessment Technique
variables (which correspond to the six model environments) are
measures of some of the most potent forces in the college en-
vironment. Further, many of Astin's findings are consistent with
our theoretical expectations.
The person-environment incongruencies were
effects of various
outlined earlier in Table 6. The predictions of performance shown
in Table 6 were obtained by comparing the formulations for the
personal types with those for the model environments. Because
some of the personal types (and, of course, the model environ-
ments too) are closely related to one another, the degree of
incongruency varies: that is, a particular personal type will find
some environments more incompatible than others. For example,
a Realistic type is less out of place in a Conventional environment
than he is in an Enterprising environment. In addition, each
specific interactionproduces a different set of outcomes: that is,
a particular personal type, confronted by different tasks, settings,
and persons to cope with in each of the incongruent environments,
will perform differently in each. For example, a mechanic ( Real-
istic type) would feel uncomfortable and incompetent in both a

business office (Conventional environment) and an art studio

( Artistic environment ) but he would
, feel more uncomfortable in
the art studio.
 • ,

PEOPLE IN ENVIRONMENTS 75

CONSISTENT-INCONSISTENT INTERACTIONS

Because consistent codes imply psychological integration, it is

assumed that the pairing of consistent persons and consistent
environments is conducive to stability of vocational choice, voca-
tional achievement, academic achievement, personal stability,
and satisfaction with vocational choice.
We can further assume that when a person with a consistent
personality tvpe (for instance, a 12 code) is placed in an en-
vironment which is consistent and congruent ( a 12 environment )
his performance will be high. Similarly, the interaction of an
inconsistent personal type (code 13) and an inconsistent en-
vironment ( code 24 ) will lead to such outcomes as dissatisfaction
with and changes in vocational choice, lack of academic and vo-
cational achievement, and personal instability. When types and
environments are treated as two- to six-digit profiles, the number
of possible interactions is extremely large. In the case of two-
30 possible permutations for the personality
digit codes, there are
pattern and 30 possible permutations for the environmental pat-
tern. Thus, for the two-digit codes alone, 900 combinations of
person-environment interactions are possible! Predictions for all
possible combinations and permutations of personal and environ-
mental codes can be arrived at by reviewing and comparing con-
sistent and inconsistent codes defined and listed earlier (pages

43-44 )
Using six scales of the Strong to represent the types, Holland
[68] found that the consistency of a student's code was related to
his remaining in a major field over a four-year period. Consistency
was also related to achievement, but these findings were equivocal.
In addition, students with consistent codes who attended colleges
with consistent codes (as measured by the EAT) were more
stable in their major field than were any other student-college
combination.
-/6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

HOMOGENEOUS-HETEROGENEOUS INTERACTIONS
The chief effect of pairing a homogeneous type and a homoge-
neous environment is to make the expected outcomes even more
probable. To be more specific: we have hypothesized that the
interaction of a consistent type and a consistent environment is

conducive to vocational achievement (as well as to other desir-

able outcomes ) if either the personality type or the environment
;

is homogeneous as well as consistent, then vocational achievement

is even more likely. Homogeneity means the magnitude of the

difference between the highest and lowest scores on the six

variables used to determine a person's or an environment's degree
of resemblance to a personality type or an environmental model.
The greater the difference between the highest and lowest of
the six scores, the greater the homogeneity. Graphically, the
profile of a homogeneous pattern will have high peaks and low
valleys; the profile of a heterogeneous pattern will appear rel-

Figure 1

Identical Personality Patterns with Different

Degrees of Homogeneity

Type and Scale Numbers

i
2 3 4 5
6

99 ^^- 99

l l

Note: Code for A = 214536 Homogeneity = 79

Code for B = 214536 Homogeneity = 40
 PEOPLE IN ENVIRONMENTS JJ
ativelv flat. Figureshows two identical and consistent person-
1

ality patterns that have different degrees of homogeneity.

In Figure 1, person A, who has a more homogeneous personal-
ity pattern than person B, would be more likely to exhibit the

performances and attributes associated with the Intellectual-Real-

istic pattern. Similarly, when a person with a highly homogeneous

Intellectual-Realistic pattern interacts with an environment that

has the same pattern and is also homogeneous, the effects are
more predictable and more intense than are the effects of an
interaction between a person and an environment of the same
pattern but of less homogeneity.

COMBINATIONS OF CONGRUENCY,
CONSISTENCY, AND HOMOGENEITY
It is assumed that interactions involving different degrees of
congruency, consistency, and homogeneity will result in different
kinds and degrees of outcomes. At one extreme, the interaction
of a type and a model environment that are congruent, consistent,
and homogeneous will intensify and make more predictable such
outcomes as vocational choice and stability, vocational and
academic achievement, personal stability, and perhaps creative
performance. For example, a Social-Artistic person whose pattern
is consistent and homogeneous, and who enters a Social-Artistic

environment that has a high degree of homogeneity, will prob-

ably be an effective, satisfied person. At the other extreme, in-
congruency, inconsistency, and heterogeneity make for uncertain
predictions and undesirable outcomes: instability in vocational
choice, low academic and vocational achievement, personal in-
stability, and lack of creative performance. For example, an
Intellectual-Conventional person (an inconsistent pattern) with
a low degree of homogeneity who enters a Social-Realistic en-
vironment (an inconsistent environment) with a low degree of
homogeneity would be expected to be ineffective and dissatisfied.
We do not know the influences of these characteristics—
if

congruency, consistency, and homogeneity— are equal or differ-

y8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
ential, because we have not definitely established their validity
as individual phenomena or estimated empirically their relative
predictive power. To determine their relative influence, further
research is required. Up to now, studies have sought to learn only
whether or not these characteristics taken individually have sta-
tistically significant effects.

SUMMARY
The outcomes associated with the interactions of congruent,
consistent, and homogeneous persons and environments have
been outlined. Generally, it is assumed that congruent, consistent,
and homogeneous interactions have more potent and predictable
effects than do incongruent, inconsistent, and heterogeneous inter-
actions. Some evidence in the psychological literature supports
the validity of these assertions.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Life Histories

Previous chapters were concerned primarily with viewing

persons and environments at a single point in time. In this chap-
ter, we will examine changes in human behavior over extended

periods of time: the life history. For our purpose, life history (or
icork history, as we shall sometimes call it)* may be regarded as
representing a particular pattern of living: what Adler has
termed life style.
By using the definitions of the personality types and model
environments, we can, theoretically, trace a person's develop-
ment from the time he can express a vocational preference to his
death and examine the principal environments in which he lives
during his entire lifetime. The person can be assessed by his
vocational preferences at different points in his life. His environ-
ments—family background, school, work situations, and so on—
can be assessed using the environmental models. Although this
theoretical orientation has been little used, it has promise. By
applying the theory, with its small number of classes and rel-
atively simple sets of definitions, to an entire life span, we can
utilize a great range of information about human behavior and
* The terms life history and work history seem preferable to career or
career pattern. The concept of not sufficiently comprehensive.
career is

Wilenskv [139], for example, writes, "When the idea of career is taken
seriously and applied to large populations, we see that few men are gripped
by careers for the entire worklife, only a minority for as much as half
the worklife."

79
80 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
environments, and thus more easily study person-environment
interactions and their outcomes. The application of the theory
to the life history is outlined in the following sections: "The
Longitudinal Model," "Personal Development and Stability,"
"Vocational Behavior," "Academic Achievement," "Creative Per-
formance," "Types and Personality Change."

THE LONGITUDINAL MODEL

The longitudinal model is a simple one : the person is conceived

of as a personality type or personality pattern and assessed by
his vocational preferences at various age levels ( child, adolescent,
and adult). His family, social group, school, college, and voca-
tions are conceived of as environments and also assessed by vo-
cational preferences. These two assumptions make it possible to
predict many outcomes from the interactions shown in the model
life history diagramed in Figure 2. This longitudinal formulation

can be elaborated in many ways: by assigning single-digit codes

to the person and each environment and then, on the basis of
the formulations for the personality types and the environmental
models, making predictions about interactions and outcomes; or
by assigning two- to six-digit codes to each type and environment
in the life span.
A person's movement from vocational preference to vocational
preference, major field to major field, or occupation to occupation
has been categorized in the following way. If, for a given time
interval, a person maintains the same vocational preference or
stays in the same major field or occupation, he is regarded as a
"nonchanger" and coded 1.
If a person moves to a major an occupation in the same
field or
class as his original choice, he is called an "intraclass changer"
and coded 2. Similar changes in vocational preferences are coded
in the same way. For example, a student who first majors in
physics and then switches to chemistry would be an "intraclass
changer."
If a person moves from an occupation in one class to an occupa-
 LIFE HISTORIES 81

Figure 2
The Interactions of PcrsoJis and Environments

Time Parents as Children as

Tvpes 1-6 Types 1-6

High Schools Students

(1-6) (1-6)

Y
Churches and Students
Other (1-6)
Institutions
(1-6)

Colleges College Students

(1-6) (1-6)

Work Situation Adults

No. 1 (1-6) (1-6)

Y
Work Situation Adults
No. 2 (1-6) (1-6)

tion in a different class— for example, physicist to executive, artist

to teacher, accountant to salesman— he is called an "interclass
changer" and coded 3.
To determine intraclass and interclasss change, a person's pref-
erences, major fields, or occupations are categorized in terms of
the classification scheme given in Appendix A. This coding
method makes it possible to give approximate weights to the
degree of stability in a person's vocational preferences, educa-
82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
Table 8
Some Examples of Changes in Vocation and Their Codes-

Choice

First Second Code No. Description

Physicist to Physicist 1 Nonchanger

Chemist to Mathematician 2 Intraclass changer
Engineer to Artist 3 Interclass changer
Social worker to Accountant 3 Interclass changer
Salesman to Sales manager 2 Intraclass changer
Teacher to Salesman 3 Interclass changer

tional career, and work history. Moreover, because this method

distinguishes between minor changes ( for instance, from physicist
to chemist, from mathematician to statistician ) and major changes
(for instance, from mathematician to musician, from biologist to
administrator), it reduces the distortion inherent in the simple
dichotomy of "change" versus "no change." Table 8 illustrates the
coding procedures.
A preliminary study using this coding system lends support
to the general hypothesis that students who leave a particular
field of study in college lack some of the personal attributes-
traits, aptitudes, self -concepts— associated with the typical student
work [121] and Cooley's
in his field of choice [72]. Strong's earlier
recent longitudinal study [20] of high school and college students
also support the hypothesis that incongruence between person
and environment makes for instability. These studies give some
support also to the hypothesis that a person remains in the field
whose members he most resembles in his values, interests, self-
concepts, and so on, although some of the findings were in-
consistent. Related studies by Davis [28], Rosenberg [108],
Pierson [102], and Warren [137] lend support to these results.
Because some people change jobs more often than once per
unit of time (per year, for example), a more elaborate coding
system for change is sometimes required. To take care of this
 LIFE HISTORIES 83
situation, intraclass changes can be coded 21-29; the second
digit indicates the number of intraclass changes. Interclass
changes can be coded 41-49: 41 represents one interclass change,
49 represents nine such changes. A code of 10 means there was
no change in field. The gaps of 11 and 12 units between the
three kinds of change are intended to maintain a minimal quan-
titative difference between no change, intraclass change, and
interclass change. Table 9 illustrates this more complex coding
scheme. Similar systems for assessing change can also be estab-
lished by changing the weights for the various kinds of change.
In Table 9, Work History A is coded 10 because there was no
change during the seven-year period. In History B, the first
change is an intraclass change, and so is coded 21; the second
change— social worker to sales person— is an interclass change,
and so is coded 41. Taken together, the changes in History B
total 62. In History C, there was a total of five inrraclass changes,
so the History is coded 25.

Table 9
A More Complex Coding Procedure for Work Histories

Work Histories

Time A B C
Chemist Elementary-school Car salesman
teacher
1 year Social worker Liquor salesman
2 vears Sales person
]
Insurance salesman
3 vears Small business owner
4 vears Insurance salesman
5 vears Real-estate salesman
6 years > r > t i
7 years Chemist Sales person Real-estate salesman

Code 10 21 + 41 = 62 25

Note: When changes of several kinds occur, they can be coded and
summed as in Historv B.
84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND STABILITY

assumed that a person's stability— personal and vocational

It is

—is determined chiefly by his personal development, particularly

during his childhood. To be more specific, the stable person
probably has parents whose individual personality patterns are
consistent both in themselves and in relation to the other parent's
personality pattern. Consequently, the parents' values and child-
rearing practices are harmonious and free from conflict. These
attributes foster consistent, integrated behavior in the child.
Because the child perceives himself and the world accurately,
he is more likely to select congruent environments for training
and eventual vocation. This selection leads to achievement, satis-
faction, and reinforcement of his particular coping behavior.
However, if one or both of the parents have inconsistent per-
sonality patterns, or if the father's pattern is inconsistent with the
mother's, then the child is likely to develop inconsistent values,
ineffective coping behavior, an inaccurate self-concept, and little
self-confidence. Consequently, he will tend to vacillate, to make
poor choices of environments, and to function ineffectively even
in compatible environments.
In short, personal stability is the outcome of passing through
a series of consistent environments that foster and strengthen
one's ability to cope with the world in an integrated way. In-
stability, in contrast, results from living in a succession of in-

consistent environments that create and perpetuate inaccurate,

contradictory self-concepts and conflicting, ineffective coping
behavior.
In Figure 3, the "Stable History" shows parents with consistent
personality patterns. Their son has a consistent personality pat-
tern, which is, in addition, related to his parents' personality
patterns. The son selects jobs that are congruent with his per-
sonality pattern. The "Unstable History" in Figure 3 shows
parents with inconsistent personality patterns and who are at
war within themselves and with one another. These intrapersonal
 life histories 85
Figure 3
Stable and Unstable Work Histories

Stable History Unstable History

Father Mother Father Mother

(53) (34) (25) (46)

Son Daughter
(54) (24)

Job, (E 54 ) Job x (E 4C )
Time
(54) (24)

Job, (E 54 ) Job 2 (E 45 )
(54) (42)

Job„ (E 34 ) Job n (E 52 )
(54) (42)

Note: Numbers in parentheses are 2-digit codes for personality patterns

and environmental models. Note that the stable history is associated with
consistent codes and the unstable history with inconsistent codes.

and interpersonal relationships produce a daughter with a related

but inconsistent personality pattern. The daughter selects several
jobs in succession, none of which is congruent with her person-
ality pattern.

VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Looking at the longitudinal model, we can easily see that the

stability or instability of the personality pattern may lead to
certain kinds of behavior, which in turnproduce such outcomes
as vocational choice, stability, achievement, and satisfaction. For
86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
example, stable personal development leads to accurate self-

knowledge and integrated coping behavior. These outcomes, in

turn, make for better vocational choices, higher achievement, and
greater satisfaction. In addition, the person who stays in the
same job over a long period gains in vocational knowledge and
experience— conditions conducive to achievement.
Figure 3 illustrates stable and unstable career patterns by
showing the hypothesized vocational paths of persons with con-
sistent and inconsistent personality patterns. The stability of a
person's career pattern can also be examined by computing the
number of positions he holds during a given unit of time. A more
sensitive method of computing stability is the coding system
described earlier (pages 82-83), which, because it uses the
formulations for the personal types and model environments,
permits us to assess degrees of change in the work history. To-
gether, these techniques provide an easily interpreted conceptual
scheme that has promising explanatory power.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
It is assumed that high academic achievement is another
product of a stable history. The dominance of Intellectual, Social,
Artistic, and Conventional types in a person's personality pattern
is conducive to success in academic work because such types

have values, goals, and attitudes that are congruent with those of
their teachers. Conversely, personality patterns dominated by
Realistic and Enterprising types are less successful academically
because of their relative incongruence with academic environ-
ments.

CREATIVE PERFORMANCE

Like academic achievement, creative performance is assumed

to be a function of a stable and consistent life history. Given a
stable history, the personality patterns of Intellectual-Artistic and
 LIFE HISTORIES 87
Artistic-Intellectual are most conducive to creative performance.
This formulation may help to explain the commonsense notion
that creativity is the result of "persistence" and "dedication." To
elucidate: in the course of his development, the person with a
consistent (that is, well-integrated) personality pattern develops
well-defined, unified goals. Because he has eliminated extraneous
and distracting subgoals he can discard those values, habits, and
methods of coping that are irrelevant to his purpose and devote
his effort to achieving his goal. Such a person is able to perform
at a higher level than the person who is easily distracted by
conflicting forces in himself or in his environment.

TYPES AND PERSONALITY CHANGE

So far, it has been assumed that vocational choice and other
outcomes are the results of the interaction of immutable per-
sonality types in immutable environments. But, of course, people
change. Traumatic events, such special experiences as psycho-
therapy, or simply the process of living and maturing— all of
these factors foster changes that, presumably, lead the person
to seek congruent environments. Moreover, environments change
as their populations shift and alter. What is at one point a con-
gruent environment for a particular person may become in-

congruent.
In the present theory, it isassumed that some types are more
receptive to social experience and thus more prone to change
than are others. The types listed in descending order in terms
of their potential for change are Social, Enterprising, Conven-
tional, Artistic, Intellectual, Realistic. Moreover, the person with
an inconsistent pattern, because his values, needs, and abilities

conflict and who therefore has a greater need of outside as-

sistance, is especially sensitive to environmental pressures and is

more likely tochange. In contrast, the consistent personality

has little need for assistance and is thus resistant to influence.
For example, we would expect a person with a Social-Intellectual
88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
pattern to have great potential for change, whereas a person with
a Realistic-Intellectual pattern would be unlikely to undergo
personality change.
Similarly, environments change— because their populations
change, because their members restructure the environment, or
because outside influences act upon them. At this time, it is not
possible to formulate exactly how such environmental and per-
sonal restructuring takes place.

SUMMARY
The extension of the theory to life patterns provides a way for
conceptualizing personal development and the different outcomes
associated with different patterns of development. Of equal im-
portance, the longitudinal model suggests some of the conditions
that lead to stable or unstable patterns.
The factors determining change in the person and in the en-
vironment are not altogether clear. Levinson's discussion [87]
is useful in showing the complexity of the interaction of person

and environment. More research and thought are needed before

we can usefully apply the present theory to the life history.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Research and Practical

Applications

To make the theory outlined in this book more systematic

and useful, extensive research is necessary. The formal statement
of the theory should be reexamined logically to determine the
adequacy of its definitions and classifications and to discover hy-
potheses that may have been overlooked in the present account.
The hypotheses already suggested require extensive testing to
determine their validity.
Those parts of the theory that were used to develop most of
the hypotheses are of fundamental importance. The model types
and environments, for instance, constitute the heart of the theory:
their usefulness affects all the other parts. They represent only
one of many possible typologies. Perhaps another classification
scheme would prove more useful: schemes such as those sug-
gested by Fine [39], Roe [104], or various factor analytic studies
[4, 23, 37, 100, 127,135] may be of greater value.
We need to explore more fully the problem of assessing the
personality pattern. So far, the Vocational Preference Inventory
and selected scales from the Strong Vocational Interest Blank
have proved useful. But perhaps a simple personal history ( which
would capitalize on a wider range of information) would give
a more accurate assessment. Whether or not the Personal Survey
(Appendix B) fulfills our needs remains to be seen.

89
90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
At this point the usefulness of the theory is only partially ex-
plored. The empirical been performed have
studies that have
been limited to investigating only a few of the hypotheses and
have dealt with atypical samples [67, 68, 69, 71, 72, no, 118].
We need many more comprehensive studies of the following
aspects of the theory: (1) the personality types and their hy-
pothetical attributes, (2) the model environments and their
hypothetical attributes, (3) the life histories as revealed by
personal histories and work histories, (4) the interaction of
people and environments, especially studies of the same people
over extended time intervals. The individual chapters suggest some
starting points for these studies. Ideally, they should use large
samples, the larger the better, because classifications by sex, type,
and subtype reduce the subjects in any given category to a
number so low that reliable statistical tests are not possible.
We need to study a greater variety of occupations simultane-
ously. Studies using the "closed system"— that is, studies such as
Nachmann's [97] and Segal's [111], which are limited to single
occupations or pairs of occupations— though suited to investigat-
ing special problems, leave much to be desired. They are dif-
ficult to execute because of prohibitive research costs, and they

give us incomplete information that is hard to integrate with

current knowledge. The present typology, on the other hand,
provides an "open system," which, according to Clark [19], is
more useful for organizing our present knowledge about interests.
We need to study more representative samples over longer time
intervals. A large portion of the evidence for the present theory
rests on atypical samples (exceptionally talented high school and
college students) studied over relatively short periods. Whether
or not the theory is applicable to people in lower-level occupa-
tions is a moot question.
The theory needs to account for learning and
be extended to
change. Hill [61] proposes that learning theory can be applied
to the study of how people acquire values (and, by implication,
interests), and that such processes as "identification," "introjec-
tion," and "internalization" can be analyzed, using terms drawn
from learning theory. He outlines a reinforcement framework for
 RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS C)I

such analyses and presents an analysis of the concept of con-

science and the factors influencing development. He argues
its

that his scheme would simplify terminology, encourage more

precise study, and further the integration of learning and per-
sonality theories. The present theory, like most theories of per-
sonality and vocational choice [70], has little to say about
learning.
Finally, we must either make more efficient predictions on the
basis of theory or abandon our efforts to construct theories.
Despite several decades of research, the most efficient way to
predict vocational choice is simply to ask the person what he
wants to be; our best devices do not exceed the predictive value
of that method [68, 94].
The theory may be valuable in dealing with a number of
practical problems. The following suggestions, all of which stem
from the present formulations, are offered for whatever heuristic
values thev may have for the professional personnel worker or
clinical psychologist.
The theory provides a way of conceptualizing psychotherapy
and counseling. In theoretical terms, psychotherapy can be
viewed as the process of integrating people who have inconsistent
(that is, unintegrated ) personality patterns, by changing and re-
solving their developmental patterns. Personal and vocational
counseling can be viewed as the process of helping persons to
deal with themselves as they are and to find appropriate en-
vironments in which to live. It follows from this view that voca-
tional counseling is most effective for people with consistent
personality patterns.
The theory may be useful in training psychologists, vocational
counselors, and personnel workers. It can be used to concep-
tualize the client, his history, and his future plans, thus providing
the trainee with a framework for what would otherwise be a
chaotic mass of information drawn from life histories, interviews,
and test scores. For instance, with the major headings of the six
formulations to guide him, the trainee can use the information
drawn from diagnostic interviews and tests to categorize the
client as one of the six types. Not only does this classification give
92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
order and shape to otherwise amorphous data, but it also in-
dicates what additional information should be sought from the
client. The client's occupational goals can be viewed in terms of
the model environments; possible interactions can then be ex-
plored. Whatever the ultimate validity of the theory, it will, thus
used, sharpen the trainee's perceptions of others.
For the practitioner, the theory provides a starting point for
developing new classifications as well as a framework for or-
ganizing and interpreting studies of specific occupations and
vocational choice, achievement, and creativity. Because the the-
orv views vocational interests as an expression of personality, it

enables the practitioner to integrate knowledge about vocational

choice with other information about personality. For example,
the practitioner may find it instructive to apply the type names
to equivalent scales from interest inventories, following the equiv-
alencies given in Table 2 page 37. In this way, more fruitful
interpretations of otherwise isolated data can be made.
Similarly, the theory may be useful in selecting persons for
scholarships, fellowships, and jobs. At present, such selections
are usually done with no explicit rationale to serve as a guide.
The present scheme, because it is explicit and systematic, could
provide such a rationale.
The present models may also make possible the investigation of
the nature of leadership and supervision. We would expect, for
example, that the personality pattern of the head of an organiza-
tion would provide a clue to the organization's growth and de-
velopment, its policies and regulations, the kinds of personality
types who survive in it, and the like. Presumably, by using the
typology to assess the personality patterns of leaders and sub-
ordinates, we can predict the effectiveness of various pairings.
The value of the theory to the vocational counselor who works
with normal adults is immediately apparent. Although there is
no direct evidence that it will also be helpful to the counselor
or psychologist working with psychiatric patients, it may well
provide a valuable diagnostic framework.
The formulations for the types imply that people of different
types have different reactions to psychotherapy. Realistic, Con-
 RESEAKCH AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 93
ntional,and Enterprising types would probably benefit 1<

from psychotherapy than would Intellectual, Social, and Artistic

tvpes. The formulations also imply that different kinds of treat-
ment are suitable for different types of people. Individual psy-
chotherapy would be effective with the Social, Intellectual, and
Artistic tvpes. whereas somatic and activity therapies might be
more effective with the Realistic, Conventional, and Enterprising
tvpes. One could use the present typology to analyze more exactly
how successful a particular treatment is for a particular type.
For example, the personality pattern of the therapist ( who would
constitute, in essence, a single-person environment) and the
personality pattern of the patient could be coded, and then, on
the basis of the person-environment interactions hypothesized
earlier, predictions could be made. We would expect that con-
gruent interactions would be conducive to learning, because
congruence implies that the therapist and the patient share many
attributes. The pairing of a therapist and a patient who differed
to a moderate degree would be even more conducive to change,
because it would produce a useful strain in the interpersonal
relationship. Gross differences, however, would probably create
barriers in communication and thus impede change.
A patient's reaction to trauma and illness and his subsequent
rehabilitation might also be related to his personality type. For
example, a man would probably react very
of the Realistic type
differently to a heart attack than would a man of the Artistic
type. The Realistic man would be greatly concerned about con-
tinuing to plav a man's role. If his cardiologist recommended
that he change jobs, he would attempt to find a "masculine"
position. He would probably have less insight into and less
readiness to accept his heart disease and its consequences. In
contrast, heart disease would be less threatening to the Artistic
person, because masculinity is not a trait that is prominent in
his self-image.
Using the Kuder Preference Record, Forer [41, 42] found
evidence that suggests that certain physical illnesses and traumas
are associated with certain personality types. The relation of ill-

ness to tvpe seems to be consistent with speculation about the

94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
psychogenic nature of accident-proneness, heart disease, and
alcoholism. At present, the evidence is more
suggestive only:
thorough and direct investigations of the connection between
personality types and particular diseases are needed. For ex-
ample, it might be useful to explore more fully the relationships
between personality, smoking, and cancer.
The theory might usefully be applied to educational problems
too. For example, a teacher could be assigned to a particular
class on the basis of the congruence of his personality pattern
with the profile of the class (estimated by the proportions of
students of different types in the class). Such profiles could also
be used to guide the teacher in choosing the most effective teach-
ing methods and incentives to learning. Current attempts to
interest engineering students in theoretical rather than practical
problems might be more successful if appeals were couched in
"Realistic" terms.
The formulations for the personality types provide a means for
interpreting and perhaps predicting the behavior of social groups
and organizations. For example, in the period immediately fol-
lowing Sputnik, the Engineering Council began publication of a
periodical called Action— a. title that seems consistent with the
attributes of the Realistic type. To take another example: it is of
interest that the labor movement has its greatest strength among
the skilled trades and manual occupations (Realistic type) and
that it has had relatively little success among occupations clas-
sified as Conventional and Enterprising. Various divisions of the
American Psychological Association also behave in ways con-
sistent with the formulations. For example, Division 17, Counsel-
ing Psychology, is assumed to consist of people who resemble
primarily the Social type— a type that is, among other things,
orally dependent. It is not surprising, then, that at annual meet-
ings this group produces few research papers but contributes
heavily to such socially oriented activities as symposia, confer-
ences, and lectures. The recent movements of experimental psy-
chologists to secede from the APA can also be explained by the
theory. Because this group is assumed to consist of people who
resemble the Intellectual type, one would expect that they would
 RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 95
prefer to withdraw from the organization rather than to engage
in constructive social interaction within the APA.
At this point, the research literature clearly suggests that voca-
tional choice is the outcome of a person's developmental history,
although the small, often negligible, statistical relationships be-
tween and vocational choice indicate that the
specific variables
forces that determine choice are complex and intricately inter-
woven. Apparently, a young person, by virtue of his heredity,
family background, and school experience, learns to cope with
some environmental tasks better than with others. With or with-
out professional guidance, consciously or unconsciously, he per-
ceivesmore or less accurately what he can do, what he cannot
do, what he likes to do, and what he dislikes doing. Moreover,
the voung person acquires knowledge, more or less valid, about
various occupations. On he tentatively selects vocations
this basis
that will, first, permit him to engage in activities and roles that
are attractive to him and, second, enable him to avoid activities
and roles that are distasteful or difficult.
These findings have several implications for the practice of
vocational counseling. At present, the student's perceptions of
various occupations are usually too broad and general; he needs
to develop more differentiated images. For example, most stu-
dents think of the term researcher as applying chiefly to the
physicist or chemist, even though almost all occupations require
researchers. Similarly, most students regard all teachers as under-
paid, even though in actuality some teachers make very good
money. If more differentiated images were developed, students
might see themselves in more diverse vocations and roles within
an occupation; this perception might serve to attract talented
students into a wider varietv of occupations. Occupational lit- \/
erature now tends to emphasize the most typical role within an
occupation; it needs to be rewritten to emphasize the diversity
of opportunities and roles within an occupation.
Since vocational choice is the outcome of a varietv of in-
fluences, vocational counseling at the high school and college
levels might be improved if students were given a chance to
learn about different occupations through means other than just
96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
talking with a vocational counselor. For instance, the student
might learn more about different vocations— and thereby make
wiser vocational choices— if he were encouraged to work part
time at different jobs or to talk with people actually employed
in his field of interest. In short, it might be more useful if
counseling center personnel were reduced and if psychologists
and counselors concentrated on coordinating the interaction of
students, special work and curriculum experiences, and employed
adults rather than on directly advising the student. Also, because
the evidence indicates that a person's past choices and tentative
future choices are the most efficient and simple guides to his
interests, counselors might make greater use of the client's ex-
pressed choices and reduce or abandon the use of interest in-
ventories.

SUMMARY
Like most psychological theories, the present one will require
extensive investigation to determine its general usefulness. At
this time, several studies suggest that it has some value, but only
after we have applied it to a greater range of populations and
problems will we be able to evaluate its usefulness with any
certainty. Similarly, its practical applications need be extended
to
and verified in a variety of settings: clinical, educational, and
industrial.
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 Appendix A
A CLASSIFICATION SCHEME
FOR DETERMINING A PERSON'S RESEMBLANCE
TO THE MODEL TYPES

The following lists of occupational titles and major fields

were prepared as criteria for use in exploring a theory of voca-
tional choice. The can be used to classify expressed voca-
lists

tional choices, choices of major field, changes in such preferences,

and work histories (movement within a class or from class to
class over some specified time interval).
Part I contains the most comprehensive criteria for classifying
occupations; it includes occupational titles used as items in the
third, fourth, and fifth revisions of the VPI, plus other occupa-
tions. Part II contains only those occupations included in the
fourth revision of the VPI. And Table 1, page 16 contains only
the items in the fifth revision of the VPI. All three classifications
result in similar categorization. They differ principally in their
comprehensiveness.
For research, the most homogeneous scheme (the one given
in Table 1 ) is the most useful. When in doubt about what class a
given occupation belongs in, it is better to omit the occupation,
because "errors" in classification probably reduce expected rela-
tionships.
Part II contains lists of occupational titles for determining a
person's resemblance to the types and some subtypes. These
items are from the fourth revision of the VPI. Subtypes were

109
HO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
found by inspecting the correlations between each occupational
title and the six scales— Realistic, Intellectual, Social, Conven-

tional, Enterprising, and Artistic— for a group of 400 male Na-

tional Merit Finalists.
If an item has its highest correlation with the Realistic scale
and its next highest correlation with the Intellectual scale, it is

coded as a subtype, 12. Ties are indicated by underlining ( ).

The usefulness of these subtypes is not known at present. A

person's preferences for the occupations associated with each sub-
type can be scored so that his resemblance to each subtype can
be estimated. The rationale for the types in Chapter 2 can be
used to predict outcomes. Whether or not this technique is prefer-
able to using coded VPI scales or the Personal Survey remains to
be determined.

Part I

COMPREHENSIVE CLASSIFICATIONS FOR VOCATIONAL

CHOICES AND OCCUPATIONS

1. Realistic Occupations

Laborers and Skilled Tradesmen

Cook
Construction worker
Electrician, carpenter, master plumber
Electronic technicians (TV station, laboratory, etc.)
Filling station attendant
Inspector of construction, livestock, machines, etc.
Janitor
Machinist
Mechanic (automobile, airplane)
Radio operator
Repairman (TV and radio, piano, furniture, etc.)
Tool designer, tool and die maker
 APPENDIX A 111

Vehicle Drivers (truck driver, locomotive engineer, aviator, bus driver,

heavy equipment driver)

Agriculture and Livestock Workers (farmer, rancher, hunter- trapper)

Natural Resource Conservationists (forest ranger, fish and wildlife

specialist, soil expert)

Servicemen (enlisted men and officers except chaplains 3, medical

doctors 3)

Engineers (all except sales engineer 5) (chemical, electrical, mechani-

cal, civil, industrial, metallurgical, marine, etc.)

College Teachers Of
Engineering and engineering physics
Agriculture
Mining
Animal husbandry

Miscellaneous
Draftsman (engineering, maps, etc.)
Surveyor
Weather observer
Detective, FBI agent
Mail carrier
Policeman, fireman
Laboratory technician (not medical technologist or tester)

2. Intellectual Occupations

Physical and Biological Scientists (astronomer, atomic scientist, chem-

ist, geologist, meteorologist, physicist, biologist, botanist, naturalist,
zoologist)

Related Scientists
Anthropologist
Archeologist
Architect
Computer design and programer
Dentist
Experimental psychologist
Inventor
112 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
Mathematician (mathematics in business or industry 4)
Philosopher
Scientific research worker
Statistician
Veterinarian
Medical technologist
Medical researcher

Science Writers
Writer of scientific articles
Editor of scientific journal
Science-fiction writer

College Teachers Of
Physical and biological sciences
Research science
Experimental psychology
Mathematics
Philosophy
Premedical (girls only, boys are 3)
Predental
Computer design and programing
Astrophysics

3. Social Occupations

Religious Workers
Minister, foreign missionary (including medical missionary)
Chaplain in armed services

Social Service and Welfare Workers

Grade-school teachers
Guidance counselor, therapist (marriage or vocational counselor,
speech therapist, psychiatrist— M & F, clinical psychologist)
High school teacher (by field, physical education teacher too)
Juvenile delinquency expert
Medical doctors (all specialties including ophthalmologist, oculist,
and nonmedical optometrist, if research is specified, 2) (girls
are 2)
Nurse
Playground director
 APPENDIX A 113
Salvation Army officer
School principal and superintendent of education, schools, etc.

Social worker
YMCA secretary, Boy Scout official, director of welfare agency

College Tcaehcrs Of
Theology
Premedical (boys only, girls are 2)
Home economics, dietetics
Education
Sociology
Psychology (except experimental 2)
Nursing
Speech therapy, speech correction

Miscellaneous
College teacher when field is not specified
Conciliator (employee-employer)
Employment interviewer
Judge
Psychologist when field is not specified
Public health officer
Truant officer (education)

4. Conventional Occupations

Financial Workers
Accountant (certified public accountant, actuary, auditor, book-
keeper)
Allbank employees except officials
Budget reviewer, financial analyst
Cashier
Cost estimator, cost engineer
Credit investigator
Rate analyst
Secretarv-treasurer of firms
Tax expert, Internal Revenue agent

Office Workers
Clerk (post office, payroll, shipping and receiving, etc.)
IBM equipment operator
 ) )

114 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

Office manager
Secretary and assistants ( administrative, executive, legal, etc.
Traffic manager

College Teachers Of
Accounting
Banking
Business (not administration or management 5)
Commerce and finance
Economics

Miscellaneous
Customs liquidator
Efficiency expert
Inventory controller
Quality control
Records supervisor
Real-estate appraiser
Statistician (except where theoretical or nonapplied statistician is

specified 2)
Proofreader
Adjudicator
Supply officer

5. Enterprising Occupations

Sales Personnel (buyer, distributor)

Salesman, manufacturer's representative, store clerk, auctioneer (of
products), seller of real estate, insurance, stocks and bonds, etc.

Owners and Managers of a Business, Including

Contractor
Importer
Investment, finance business, speculator
Publisher (newspaper, book)
Business or sports promoter
Advertising man
Optician see 3 on other "eye" professions
(

Travel consultant
(Not pharmacist)
 )

APPENDIX A 115
Managers and Supervisors
Business executive and manager (not secretary-treasurer 4)
Sales manager, sales engineer
Foreman, supervisor and other men (not machines 1)
of production
Directors ( of research and development laboratories, etc.
(Not office manager 4)
Lawyers (attorney, counsel or private or corporation, not judges 3)
College Teachers Of
Business administration and management (only, see 4)
International relations (foreign service programs)
Political science and government
Prelaw, Law
History

Miscellaneous
Master of ceremonies
Politician (congressional lobbyist, political campaign manager, state

governor)
Radio -TV program director, announcer, producer
College president or dean
Diplomat, foreign service officer, United Nations officer (not secre-
tary 4, translator 6)
Personnel manager
Labor relations man (industrial relations)
Insurance claims adjustor
Industrial psychologist

6. Artistic Occupations
Creative Artists
Writer, editor (novelist, journalist, newspaper reporter, advertising
copy writer)
Artist, designer, decorator (portrait artist, furniture or clothing de-
signer, window decorator, interior decorator, advertising layout
man)
Theatrical artists (actor, stage director)
Musician (arranger, composer, pop singer, etc.)

College Teachers Of
English
Theater, dramatics
Il6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
Art
Music
Journalism
Speech (general)

Miscellaneous
Art and music critic

Art dealer
Cartoonist
Humorist
Linguist, translator, interpreter

TYPICAL UNCLASSIFIABLE OCCUPATIONS

Pharmacist
Professional student
Tramp
Playboy
Unspecified civil service or government work

Part II

EXPERIMENTAL CLASSIFICATION FOR VOCATIONAL

CHOICES AND OCCUPATIONS

1. Realistic Occupations

(code 12) (code 14)

Surveyor (.83) Power station operator (.83)

Tool designer (.79) Radio operator (.83)

* If an item had its highest correlation with the Realistic Scale and its

next highest correlation with the Intellectual Scale, it was coded as a

subtype 12. Ties are indicated by underlining ( ). Correlations in
parentheses indicate the correlation between the occupational tide and the
VPI scale with which it is most highly correlated.
 APPENDIX A 11 7

(code 12) (code 14)

Electrician (.79) Crane operator (.79)

Photoengraver (.78) Power shovel operator (.79)
Blaster (dynamiter) (.71) Machinist (.78)
Tree surgeon (.70) Locksmith (.76)
Aviator (.66) Airplane mechanic (.75)
Fish and wildlife specialist (.62) Auto mechanic (.73)
Forest ranger (.62) Locomotive engineer (.73)
Test pilot (.61) Master plumber (.67)
Draftsman (.59) Filling station attendant (.62)
Hunter and trapper (.59) Factory foreman (.58)
Weather observer (.57) Truck driver (.58)
North woods guide (.55) Air force ace (.55)
Deep-sea diver (.52) Barber (.51)
Wild-animal trainer (.52)
Lighthouse keeper (.46)
Explorer (.45)
Mountain climber (.42)
Truck gardener (.37)

(code 15) (code 16)

Carpenter (.73) Hypnotist (.28)

Wrecker (building) (.68)
Railroad conductor (.61)
Fireman (.60)
Ranch hand (cowboy) (.56)
Racing car driver (.55)
Photographer (.55)
Jockey (.53)
Stunt man (motion picture) (.52)
Motorcycle driver (.51)
Narcotics inspector (.43)
Detective (.42)
FBI agent (.37)
Prize fighter (.34)
Professional football player (.29)
Il8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
12. Realistic-Intellectual Occupations

Electronic technician (.66, .66)

Engineer (.62, .60)

14. Realistic-Conventional Occupation

Construction inspector (.76)

2. Intellectual Occupations

(code 21) (code 26)

Zoologist (.82) Anthropologist (.81)

Botanist (.79) Editor of scientific journal (.75)
Aeronautic design engineer (.78)
Geologist (.76) (code 23)
Astronomer (.75)
Surgeon (.46)
Writer of scientific or technical
articles (.75)
Biologist (.74)
Experimental laboratory engineer
(•74)
Chemist (.73)
Scientific research worker (.73)
Interplanetary scientist (.73)
Physicist (.72)
Bacteriologist (.71)
Meteorologist (.71)
Atomic scientist (.70)
Independent research scientist (.70)
Mathematician (.62)
Medical laboratory technician (.62)

Scientific theorist (.61)

Archeologist (.58)
Inventor (.56)
Scientific authority (.51)
 APPENDIX A 119

3. Social Occupations

(code 35) (code 365)

Personal counselor (.83) Juvenile delinquency expert (.81)

Vocational counselor (.82) Marriage counselor (.76)
Conciliator ( employee—employer School principal (.71)
relations) (.77) Director of welfare agency (.71)
Assistant City School Superintend- World peace organizer (.59)
ent (.69)
Playground director (.66) (code 356)
Parole officer (.64)
Criminal psychologist (.57)
Employment interviewer (.64)
Funeral director (.46)
Truant officer (.62)
UN official (.60)
(code 345 )
Phvsical education teacher (.53)
Boy Scout official (.45) YMCA secretary (.44, .44, .41)

(code 35) (code 362)

Athletic coach (.39) Experimental psychologist (.47)

Police judge (.35)
Ward attendant (.35) (code 32)

Public health official (.58)

(code 36)
Medical illustrator (.58)
Psychiatric case worker (.82) Pediatrician (.56)
Social science teacher (.78) Physician (.42)
Rehabilitation worker (.75)
Speech therapist (.70)
Social worker (.67)
High school teacher (.66)
Clinical psychologist (.64)
Foreign missionary (.63)
Elementary-schoolteacher (.62)
Psychiatrist (.58)
College professor (.53)

(code 36 )

Florist (.40)
English teacher (.36)
120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
4. Conventional Occupations

(code 45) (code 415 412),

Financial analyst (.81) IBM equipment operator (.66)

Tax expert (.79) Shipping and receiving clerk
Traffic manager (.78) (•54)
Bank examiner (.77) Policeman (.52)
Cost estimator (.75)
Inventory controller (.68) (code 425)
Administrative secretary (.66)
Statistician (.67)
Budget reviewer (.63)
Records supervisor (.65)
Cashier (.61)
Efficiency expert (.58)
C.P.A. (.59)
Bookkeeper (.58)
(code 435)
Insurance clerk (.41)
Court stenographer (.53)
(code 45)

Office manager (.78)

Real-estate appraiser (.69)
Administrative assistant (.67)
Production manager (.63)
Credit investigator (.61)
Chief clerk (.61)
International trade economist (.51)

(code 41)

Quality control expert (.66)

Bank teller (.62)
Payroll clerk (.55)
Post office clerk (.46)

5. Enterprising Occupations

(code 54) (code 53)

Business executive (.89) Industrial relations consultant

Hotel manager (.81) (-77)
Manufacturer's representative (.80) Congressional lobbyist (.68)
Political campaign manager (.77) Travel consultant (.62)
Master of ceremonies (.76) Supreme court judge (.58)
 APPENDIX A 121

(CODE 54) (code 53)

President of manufacturing com- Public relations man (.75)

pany (.75) Personnel manager (.66)
Business promoter (.74) Congressional investigator (.60)
Transcontinental railroad president Diplomat (.57)
(•74) Prosecuting attorney (.55)
Sales manager (.74) Judge (.55)
Sales engineer (.72) Criminal lawyer (.54)
Stock and bond salesman (.70) Lawyer (.48)
Buyer (.70) University president (.47)
Traveling salesman (.67) Criminologist (.46)
Real-estate salesman (.65)
Speculator (.63) (code 51)
Life insurance salesman (.62)
Sports promoter (.61)
Internal Revenue collector (.59)
Restaurant worker (.50)
Army general (.46)
Referee (sporting events) (.46)
Professional athlete (.31)

(code 51)
(code 54)
Liquor salesman (.57)
Insurance manager (.70)
Private investigator (.46)
Banker (.69)
Treasury agent ( .46)
Stockbroker (.67)
Counter-intelligence man (.41)
Headwaiter (.61)
Gambling dealer (.33)
Route salesman (.44)
Armv officer (.41)

(code 56)

TV producer (.83)
Radio announcer (.62)

6. Artistic Occupations

(code 63) (code 65)

Composer (.86) Stage director (.72)

Playwright (.85) Cartoonist (.69)
Music critic (.84) Dance band leader (.64)
Art dealer (.82) Newspaper reporter (.64)
Art critic (.81) Interior decorator (.58)
122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
(code 63) (code 65)

Dramatic coach (.81) Book censor (.44)

Symphony conductor (.80)
Free-lance writer (.79) (code 635)
Concert singer (.78)
Newspaper editor (.49)
Musical arranger (.77)
Actor (.73)
Musician (.73)
Novelist (.72)
Sculptor (.72)
Author (.71)
Poet (.70)
Commercial artist (.70)
Portrait artist (.67)
Stage designer (.66)
Clothing designer (.64)
Humorist (.59)

Part III

CRITERION LISTS FOR FIELDS OF STUDY

1 . Realistic (Revision) EAT Majors*

Agriculturef Agriculture
Agricultural education Agricultural education
Industrial artsf Physical education
Engineering:]: Recreation
Forestry f Industrial arts
Trade and industry Engineering
Animal husbandry! Forestry
Mining Trade and industry

2. Intellectual EAT Majors*

Architecture Architecture
Biological sciences! Biological sciences
Geography Geography
 t

APPENDIX A 123
2. Intellectual EAT Majors

Medical technology Medical technology

Mathematicsf Pharmacy
Philosophy Mathematics
Physical sciences! Philosophy
Anthropology Physical sciences
Experimental psychology Anthropology
Premedical (girls only)
Research engineering!

9
3. Social EAT Majors

Health education Health education

Education of exceptional children Education of exceptional children
and mentally retarded! and mentally retarded
Speech correction Speech correction
Education (unclassified)! Education (unclassified)
Nursing Nursing
Occupational therapy! Occupational therapy
Physical therapy Physical therapy
Scholastic philosophy Scholastic philosophy
Social science (general) Social science (general)
American civilization American civilization
Sociology Sociology
Social work! Social work
Premedical (boys only)
Home economics
Dietetics
Physical education
Recreation
Theology!
Psychology (except experimental)!

4. Conventional (Revision) EAT Majors*

Accounting! Accounting
Secretarial Secretarial
00 Business and commercial
Business and commercial
(general and unclass.) (general and unclass.)
Business education Business education
Economics! Library science
Finance!
 ) )

124 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE

5. Enterprising EAT Majors

Hotel and restauraunt administra- Hotel and restaurant adminis-

tion! tration
Hospital administrationf Hospital administration
History History
International relations International relations
Political science Political science
Foreign service Foreign service
Industrial relations Industrial relations
Public administrationf Public administration
Prelaw
Sales engineering
Business administration and man-
agement!

6. Artistic EAT Majors

Art education Art education

Music education Music education
English and journalism English and journalism
Fine and applied arts (all fields) Fine and applied arts ( all fields
Foreign language and literature Foreign language and literature
(all fields) (all fields)

Speech (except speech correction

and therapy)

Unclassifiable College Majors

1. Double majors falling in different classes (that is, engineering and
accounting, mathematics and education).
2. Ambiguous majors ( that is, rocketry, aviation, social relations, etc.

* Used by Astin and Holland [9].

f The major fields that are most typical of a given type.
t Except sales and research engineering.
°* Not administrative or management.
 Avvcndix B
THE PERSONAL SURVEY
(1963)°

Name: Age: Sex:.

(M-F)

A. Describe yourself by checking the adjectives that describe what

you are like. Check as many as you wish. Try to describe your-
self as you are, not as you would like to be.

6 1 Aloof F3 16 Helpful
5 2 Argumentative 17 Inflexible
Fi 3 Arrogant 18 Insensitive
F3> 3 4 Capable 19 Introverted
F4 5 Commonplace F6, 6 20 Intuitive
F4 6 Conforming Fi 21 Irritable
4 7 Conscientious 22 Kind
2 8 Curious 15 23 Mannerly
4 9 Dependent Fi 24 Masculine
4 10 Efficient F6 25 Nonconforming
1 11 Enduring F4 26 Not artistic
s 12 Energetic 27 Not cultured
F6 13 Feminine F4 28 Not idealistic
F 3> 3 14 Friendly 29 Not popular
F3 15 Generous 30 Original

* The number opposite an item indicates the type assessed by the item.
All items are weighted +1. To score, simply add together all the correct
responses for each type. All items are scored for both sexes unless they are
preceded by an F. Such items (F) are scored for females only.

125
126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
F2 31 Pessimistic F5 39 Stable
5 32 Pleasure-seeking 5 40 Striving
F2 33 Precise F .s 41 Strong
F6 34 Rebellious 4 42 Suspicious
Fi 35 Reserved F2 43 Thorough
F2 36 Scholarly 1 44 Unassuming
2 37 Slow-moving 6 45 Unconventional
F538 Social

B. Rate yourself on each of the following traits as you really

think you are as compared with other people of your age. We
want the most accurate estimate of how you see yourself. Circle
the appropriate number.

Top 10 Above Below

Per Cent Average Average Average

1 Absent-mindedness 1 1

6 Artistic ability 1 1

4 Clerical ability 1 1

4 Conservatism 1 1

3 Cooperativeness 1 1

6 Expressiveness 1 1

5 Leadership 1 1

3 Liking to help others 1 1

2 Mathematical ability 1 1

1 Mechanical ability 1 1

6 Originality 1 1

5 Popularity with the

opposite sex 1 1

2 Research ability 1 1

2 Scientific ability 1 1

5 Self-confidence (social) 1 1

1 Self-understanding 1 1

3 Understanding of others 1 1

4 Neatness 1 1
 APPENDIX B 127

C. Indicate the importance vou place on the following kinds of

accomplishments, aspirations, goals, etc.

Some-
Very what Little
Essen- Impor- Impor- Impor-

4
1
Becoming happy and content
Inventing or developing a
1100
tial

1100
tant tant tance

3
useful product or device
Helping others who are in
1100
1100
difficulty

1100
2 Becoming an authority on a
my

1100
special subject in field

1 Becoming an outstanding athlete

5
5
Becoming a community leader
Becoming influential in public
affairs 1100
1100
4
2

2
Following a formal religious code
Making
to science

Making
a theoretical contribution

a technical contribution
1100
1100
6
to science
Writing good fiction (poems,
1100
0011
1

4
3
novels, short stories, etc.)
Being well read
Producing a
Contributing to
lot of

human
work
welfare
1100
1100
6

6
Producing good artistic

(painting, sculpture,
decorating, etc.)
Becoming an accomplished musi-
work

1100
1100
5

3
cian (performer or composer)
Becoming an expert
and commerce
Finding a real purpose
in finance

in life
1100
1100
128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
D. From the following list of 12 famous people, check the one
whose life you would most like to emulate.

_3 1. Jane Addams 1 7. Thomas Edison

Jl 2. Bernard Baruch _6 8. T. S. Eliot
_i 3^ Admiral Byrd _5 9- Henry Ford
_5 4- Andrew Carnegie 6 10. Pablo Picasso
_2 5- Madame Curie _4 11. John D. Rockefeller
_2 6. Charles Darwin _2 12. Albert Schweitzer

E. Circle L for those school subjects you like and D for those you
dislike.

L D L D
F6, 6 4 1. Art 1 5. Industrial Arts
F4 2. Business F5 6. Modern History
F2 3. Chemistry 2 7. Physics
Fi 4. General Science F3,3 8. Social Studies

F. I most enjoy the following (circle one):

2 Reading and thinking about solutions to problems 1

4 Keeping records and doing computations 2

5 Holding a position of power 3
3 Teaching or helping others 4
1 Working with my hands, using tools, equipment,
apparatus 5
6 Using my artistic talents 6

G. My greatest ability lies in the following area (circle one only):

4 Business 1

6 Arts 2
2 Science 3
5 Leadership 4
3 Human relations 5
1 Mechanics 6

H. I am most incompetent in the following area (circle one only):

3 Mechanics 1

5 Science 2
1 Human relations 3
 APPENDIX B 12C)

6 Business 4
2 Leadership 5
4 Arts 6

I. Which one you must perform it,

of the following activities, if

would you find most frustrating or would make you feel the most
uncomfortable? (Circle one only):

5 Having a position of little responsibility 1

F3 Preparing a textbook on some abstract topic 2

Fi Taking patients in mental hospitals on recreational trips 3
1 Teaching others 4
F6, 6 Keeping elaborate and accurate records 5
F4, 2 Leading or persuading others about a course of action 6
F3, 4 Writing a poem 7
F5, 3 Doing something requiring patience and precision 8
F2 Participating in very formal social affairs 9

VOCATIONAL GOALS
J.
Complete the following statements as explicitly as you can:

1. My present career choice is (if possible name an occu-

pation:
(Code response according to Appendix A)

2. If Icould not have my first choice (above) I would

select the following occupation: .

(Code response according to Appendix A)

3. If I could not have my first two choices, my third choice

would be:
(Code response according to Appendix A)

(5) 4. I have been elected to one or more social, political, or

academic offices. (Circle one): 0123456789 or

more.

(2) 5. I have received one or more awards or honors for my

academic achievement. (Circle one): 012345678
9 or more.
130 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VOCATIONAL CHOICE
(4) 6. I have received one or more awards, honors, or special
recognition for my business accomplishment. (Circle
one): 0123456789 or more.

(3) 7. I have received one or more awards, honors, or special

recognition for civic, religious, or welfare services. (Circle
one): 0123456789 or more.

( 1 ) 8. I have received one or more awards, letters, honors,

prizes, or special recognition for my athletic ability. (Circle
one): 0123456789 or more.

(6) 9. I have received one or more awards, honors, or special

recognition for my artistic, musical, or literary accom-
plishment. (Circle one): 0123456789 or more.

10. List below all the vocations you have ever considered
in thinking about your future. List the vocations you
have daydreamed about as well as those you have talked
to others about. Try to give a history of your tentative
choices and daydreams. Put your present choice on line 1
and work backward to the first vocation you ever con-
sidered.

Vocation At About
What Age?
(Code responses according to
Appendix A)
1.

2.

3. _— _
_
.

4.

5. .

6.

7. __ _

8. _
 )

Index

Academic achievement 48, 69, 86 influence 69

ADLER, A. 7910, origins 52-54
Artistic environment 59 role demands 65
Artistic type 33—35 stability 66-67, 70
astix, a. w. 6,60,61,74
FESTINGER, L. 44
BERDIE, R. F. 2 FINE, S. A. 54, 89
BLOOM, B. S. 73 FORER, B. R. 3, 4, 93
FROMM, E. 10
Career pattern ( see Work history)
CLARK, k. e. 13, 90 GALINSKY, M. D. 5
Conventional environment 57-58 CARMAN, G. A. 4
Conventional type 27-30 GUILFORD, J. P. 10
cooley, w. w. 82
Creative performance 49-50, 69-70, HAGENAH, T. 2, 7
86-87 HAHN, M. E. 43
crites, j. o. 2 HILL, W. F. 90
HOLLAND, J. L. 4, 6, 60, 74, 75
darley, j. g. 2, 7, 15
DAVIS, J. A. 82 Intellectual environment 55-56
Intellectual type 22-25
Enterprising environment 58—59 Interactions ( person-environment
Enterprising type 30-33 6.3-73
Environmental assessment technique congruent—incongruent 72—74
(EAT) 60-61,74 consistent-inconsistent 75
Environments (environmental mod- homogeneous-heterogeneous 76-
els) 11,52-62,63-71 77
assessment 60—61 other interactions 77-78
consistent 66-68
descriptions 54—59 JUNG, C. G. 10
homogeneous 66—68, 76
inconsistent 66—68 KING, B. T. 43

131
 ) )

132 INDEX
Kuder Preference Record 4, 7, 11, SHELDON, W. H. 10
37, 39, 93 Social environment 56-57
Social type 25-27
LAURENT, H. 5 SPRANGER, E 10
LECKY, P. 44 STEIN, M. I. 73
LEVINSON, D. J. 88 STERN, G. G. 73
LIBO, L. 64 STRONG, E. K JR. 2, 82
LINTON, R. 53 Strong Vocational Interest Blank 4,
6-7,11,37-39,64,89
MAC LEAN, M. S. 43 Subtypes ( see Personality pattern
MIERZWA, J. A. 13 SUPER, d. e. 2
MURRAY, H. A. 52
Theoretical concepts 18-19, 52—54
NACHMANN, B. 5, 90 aptitude 13
background concepts 2—7
Personal development 50, 70, 84-86
definitions 37, 41, 60
Personal Survey 37-38, 89
intelligence 13
Personality pattern (subtypes) 10-
origins 8, 15
11,44-50
sex 13
consistent 44
summary 8-12
definition 10-11, 16, 37-38, 40-
Type see Personality type
(
41
inconsistent 44
VANCE, 44
f. l.
subtypes 40
Vocational achievement 47, 67- 68,
Personality types (models) 9-10,
85-86
16-39, 42-50
Vocational choice 42-44, 73-78
assessment 10-11, 36-39
change in 80-83
change 87-88
direction of 63
descriptions 16-35
interclass change 80-81
dominant type 36
intraclass change 80
homogeneity 76
primary direction of 42
influences 44—47
process of 11-12
interrelationships 39-40
secondary direction of 43
origins 10, 15
stability of 43, 66-67, 80
predispositions 10
Vocational Preference Inventory 4,
PIERSON, r. r. 82
8,11,36-38,39,89
Realistic environment 54-55 VOLSKY, T. C, JR. 44
Realistic type 19-22
roe, a. 5, 89
WARREN, J. R. 82
rosenberg, m. 82 WEISSMAN, M. P. 50
WILENSKY, H. 79
sanford, n. 73 Work history48, 68, 79-80, 85-86
SEGAL, S. I. 5, 90 Work satisfaction 48, 68, 86

ABCDEFGHIJ 7069876
 DEAN OF STUDENTS
OFFICE OF THE
GOLDEN WEST COLLEGE
TOPICS IN EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

The Psychology
of Vocational Choice
JOHN L. HOLLAND
A new theory of vocational behavior. Integrates the burgeoning
literature in the field and outlines practical applications of our cur-
rent knowledge. Examines personality types and environmental
models from a fresh point of view, and avoids the truisms and
cliches that have hitherto marred contributions to the subject. In-
tended for students and professional audiences and as a help to
the intelligent reader.

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I N PREPARATI ON
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