1. Adolescents’ profiles in preparedness against
setbacks in future its relation to wellbeing
and future career pathways:
A person-oriented approach
Elina Marttinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
elina.marttinen@nyyti.fi
Katariina Salmela-Aro, University of Helsinki,
University of Jyväskylä
the 7th European conference on positive psychology,
ECPP 2014
Amsterdam, July 2nd

2. Resilience
Capacity of a dynamic system to adapt
successfully to disturbances that threaten
system function, viability, or development
(Ann Masten, 2014)

3. Resilience in career
development
• adaptation
– support seeking self-efficacy
– career self-efficacy
– preparedness against career setbacks
• challenging circumstances
– the school transitions
Lent, R.W. (2013). Career-Life Preparedness: Revisiting Career Planning and Adjustment in the New Workplace.The career
Development Quarterly, 61, 2-14.
Salmela-Aro, K., Mutanen, P. & Vuori, J. (2012). Promoting career preparedness and intrinsic work-goal motivation: RCT
intervention. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 67-75.

4. The research questions
explorative, person oriented
1. Can there be found latent profiles of career development
adaptation?
2. How many latent profiles would describe the data best?
3. What kinds of latent profiles can be found from adolescents’
support seeking self-efficacy, career self-efficacy, and
preparedness against career setbacks?
4. How these profiles are related to intrinsic motivation
towards career goal, and subjective well-being?
Hypotheses:
1. high self-efficacy and preparedness -> high intrinsic goal motivation
and good well-being
2. low self-efficacy and preparedness -> low intrinsic goal motivation and
poor well-being

5. Context for adolescents’
development in Finland
16 years
old
17 years
old
18 years
old
…
23 years
old
TRANSITION
TRANSITION
N=697
girls 47,2 %
FinEdu
ongoing longitudinal
research project

6. Methods: measures
Measures (items, range) Cronbach α T1 Mean (sd)
Adaptation
Support seeking self-efficacy
(3 items, 1-7)
.73 5.01 (1.20)
Career self-efficacy
(3 items, 1-7)
.82 4.98 (1.14)
Preparedness
(4 items, 1-7)
.74 3.64 (1.28)
Engagement
Intrinsic motivation towards career goal
(4 items, 1-7)
.72 5.64 (0.93)
Well-being
Self-esteem
(5 items, 1-7)
.76 4.64 (1.12)
Satisfaction with life
(5 items, 1-7)
.88 4.57 (1.39)
Depression
(10 items, 0-3)
.92 0.59 (0.59)
Burn-out
(9 items, 1-7)
.85 2.46 (0.88)

7. Can there be found uniquely
different subgroups?
• Person orientation
• Latent path analysis (LPA)
• Mplus 7.11

8. LPA fit indices
grou
ps
log-likelihood (df),
scaling correction
AIC BIC Entropy VLMR
(p-value)
LMR
(p-value)
BLRT
apr. p-
value
lowest
class
probabilit
y
2 -3208.566 (10) 1.2166 6437.132 6482.600 0.623 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.848 (1)
3 -3163.436 (14) 1.1921 6354.872 6418.527 0.734 0.0002 0.0003 0.0000 0.862 (2)
4 -3148.944 (18) 1.1616 6333.889 6415.731 0.763 0.0504 0.0556 0.0000 0.775 (2)
5 -3135.521 (22) 1.2718 6315.042 6415.071 0.766 0.2324 0.2468 0.0000 0.851 (6)
6 -3119.180 (26) 1.3408 6290.360 6408.576 0.742 0.3997 0.4128 0.0000 0.754 (3)
7 -3109.202 (30) 1.2566 6278.404 6414.807 0.792 0.2489 0.2567 0.0000 0.770 (3)

9. Profiles of 6 groups solution
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
"problematic"
(N=12)
"low prepared and
low efficacious"
(N=125)
"support seekers"
(N=22)
"go, don't think
too much" (N=25)
"moderate"
(N=331)
"prepared and
efficacious"
(N=182)
preparedness career self-efficacy support seeking self-efficacy

10. Results, group differences
ANOVA, p<.05
• SES, GPA ns.
• gender differences were found between groups
• Well-being:
• ”the prepared and efficacious” group
– appraised their career goal the most intrinsically
motivated
– highest satisfaction with life
• ”the go don’t think too much” group
– highest self-esteem
• ”the support seekers” and ”problematic” group
– highest amount of depressive symptoms as well as burn-
out symptoms

11. Conclusions
• Limitations
– Three of the groups are very small in size
– Longitudinal approach is needed to investigate
the development over the transitions
• Conclusions
– Individual differences in resilience need to be
studied also with person oriented approach