John Holland's theory proposes that individuals are attracted to certain careers based on their personalities and backgrounds. He identified six personality types - realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional - that are attracted to matching work environments. Career satisfaction depends on the congruence between one's personality type and their work. Krumboltz's social learning theory emphasizes how genetic, environmental, learning, and skills factors influence career choices over a person's lifespan. Cognitive information processing theories view career choice as involving problem-solving, decision-making, and the interaction of cognitive and affective processes.

1. Theories of Career
Development
By: Maria Jezza C. Ledesma

2. Trait-Oriented Theories
• Trait-and-Factor Theory
• Person-Environment-Correspondence
Theory (PEC)
• John Holland’s Typology

3. John Holland’s Typology
• According to John Holland (1992),
individuals are attracted to a given
career because of their particular
personalities and numerous
variables that constitute their
backgrounds.

4. • Career choice is an expression of, or an
extension of, personality into the world of
work, followed by subsequent
identification with specific occupational
stereotypes.
• Congruence of one’s view of self within an
occupational preference establishes what
Holland refers to as the modal personal
style.
• Central to Holland’s theory is the concept
that one chooses a career to satisfy one’s
preferred modal personal orientation.

5. • If the individual has developed a strong
dominant orientation, satisfaction is
probable in a corresponding occupational
environment. If, however, the orientation
is one of indecision, the likelihood of
satisfaction diminishes.
• The key concept behind Holland’s
environmental models and environmental
influences is that individuals are attracted
to a particular role demand of an
occupational environment that meets their
personal needs and provides them with
satisfaction.

6. • A socially oriented individual, for
example, prefers to work in an
environment that provides interaction
with others, such as teaching position. On
the other hand, a mechanically inclined
individual would seek out an environment
where his or her trade could be quietly
practiced and where socializing is
minimal.
• Occupational homogeneity therefore
provides the best route to self-fulfillment
and a consistent career pattern.

7. • Individuals who do not experience
occupational homogeneity will have
inconsistent and divergent career
patterns.
• Importance of self-knowledge in the
search for vocational satisfaction and
stability.

8. • Holland proposed six kinds of modal
occupational environments and six
matching modal personal orientations.
• Holland proposed that personality types
can be arranged in a coded system
following his modal-personal-orientation
themes such as: R (realistic occupation), I
investigative, A (artistic), S (social), E
(enterprising) and C (conventional).

14. The Four Basic Assumptions Underlying
Holland’s Theory
• In our culture, most persons can be categorized
as one of six types: realistic, investigative,
artistic, social, enterprising, or conventional.
• There are six kinds of environments; realistic,
investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, or
conventional.
• People search for environments that will let
them exercise their skills and abilities, express
their attitudes and values, and take on
agreeable problems and roles.

15. • A person’s behavior is determined by an
interaction between his personality an the
characteristics of his environment.

17. • The hexagonal model provides a
visual presentation of the inner
relationship of personality styles and
occupational environment
coefficients of correlation.
• For example, adjacent categories on
the hexagon (e.g. realistic and
investigative) are most alike, whereas
opposites (e.g. artistic and
conventional) are most unlike.

18. • Holland’s hexagonal model introduces
five key concepts.
• Consistency. He relates to personality
and environment. He suggests that
some personality and environmental
types share some common elements.
• Differentiation. Individuals who fit a
pure personality type will express little
resemblance to other types.
(refer to page 29)

19. • Identity. Describes those individuals
who have clear and stable picture of
their goals, interests, and talents.
• Congruence. Occurs when an
individual’s personality type matches
the environment.
• Calculus. Holland proposed that the
theoretical relationships between types
of occupational environments lend
themselves to empirical research
techniques.

20. • Holland emphasize the importance of
self-knowledge as well as occupational
knowledge in that he believed critical
career judgments are drawn partially
from an individual’s occupational
information.
• Knowledge of both occupational
environment and corresponding modal
personal orientation is critical to
appropriate career decision making.

21. • Intelligence is considered as less
important than personality and interest.
• According to Holland, the stability of
career choice depends primarily on the
dominance of personal orientation.
• Personality development is a primary
consideration in Holland’s career-
typology theory of vocational behavior.

22. • Holland’s theory has proved to b of
more practical usefulness than any of
the other theories. Most of his
propositions have been clearly defined,
and they lend themselves to empirical
evaluations.
• The impact of his scholarly approach to
RIASEC theory has had and will
continue to exert tremendous influence
on career development research and
procedures.

23. Social Learning and Cognitive Theories
• Krumboltz’s Learning Theory
• Cognitive Information
Processing Theory (CIP)
• Social Cognitive Career Theory

24. • This section focuses on a wide range of
variables that affect career choice and
career maintenance over the life span.
• Social conditioning, social position and
life events are thought to significantly
influence career choice.
• Individuals are thought to be influenced
by many factors including genetic
endowments and special abilities,
contextual experiences, learning
experiences, and skills learned in
managing tasks.

25. • Key elements in the career choice
process are problem-solving and
decision-making skills.
• Career choice also involves the
interaction of cognitive and affective
processes.
• Individuals must be able to process
information effectively and think
rationally.

26. Krumboltz’s Learning Theory of Career
Counseling
• A social-learning-theory approach to career
decision making was first proposed by
Krumboltz, Mitchell and Gelatt (1975), followed
by several years later by Mitchell and Krumboltz
(1990).
• Mitchell and Krumboltz (1996) have extended the
earlier social-learning-theory approach to
include Krumboltz’s learning theory of career
counseling and suggests that the entire theory
should be referred as the theory of career
counseling (LTCC).

27. • Part one explains the origins of
career choice, and part two
addresses the important question of
what career counselors can do to
help solve career-related problems.
• The theory is an attempt to simplify
the process of career selection and is
based primarily on life events that
are influential in determining career
selection.

28. • In LTCC, the process of career development
involves four factor: 1) genetic endowments,
2) environmental conditions and events, 3)
learning experiences, and 4) task approach
skills.
• Genetic endowments and special abilities
include inherited qualities that may set
limits on the individual’s career
opportunities. The authors emphasizes that
genetic characteristics and special abilities
should be recognized as influences in the
career decision-making process. (refer to
page 34)

29. • Environmental conditions and events are
factors of influence that are often beyond the
individual’s control. It is emphasized that
certain events and circumstances in the
individual’s environment influence skills
development, activities, and career
preferences.
• Learning experiences includes instrumental
learning experiences and associative learning
experiences.
– Instrumental learning experiences are those
the individual learns through reactions to
consequences, through direct observable
results of actions and through the reactions
of others. (refer to page 34)

30. – Associative learning experiences include
negative and positive reactions to pairs of
previously neutral situations. (refer to
page 34)

31. • Task approach skills includes the sets of
skills the individual has developed, such
as problem-solving skills, work habits,
mental sets, emotional responses and
cognitive responses. These sets of
developed skills largely determine the
outcome of problems and tasks the
individual faces.
• Task approach skills are often modified as
a result of desirable and undesirable
experiences. (refer to page 34)

32. • It is also emphasized that career
decision making is considered to be an
important skill that can be used over
one’s life span.
• The factors that influence individual
preferences in this social learning
model are composed of numerous
cognitive processes, interactions in the
environment and inherited personal
characteristics and traits.

33. • In sum, social learning theory suggests
that learning takes place through
observation as well as through direct
experience.
• Assisting the individuals to understand
fully the validity of their beliefs is a
major component of the social learning
model.