Week 8 Assignment
Self-Efficacy Beliefs
The attitude that one can act on one’s own behalf, and that it will make a difference, is the core of self-efficacy. Originally proposed by Bandura (1977), self-efficacy theory has become a widely used explanatory system for many behaviors. Career inaction may be attributed to lack of self-efficacy beliefs. It is logical not to act when one believes that it will make no difference. To intervene, therefore, counselors need to help clients develop a sense of efficacy rather than simply exhorting them to try harder. A hallmark of self-efficacy theory, in contrast to self-esteem theory, is that it is situation dependent. A person may have a strong sense of efficacy about his or her ability to relate to people, but poor efficacy beliefs around academic learning. Brown (1992) asserted that self-efficacy expectations are learned and that therefore new expectations can be learned. There are three keys to self-efficacy—action, effort, and persistence. Counselors can help clients develop a better sense of efficacy through empowering experiences, role models, messages, and emotions. How might one, for example, help James develop a better sense of self-efficacy? A counselor might guess that his school experiences have not left him with a strong sense of academic efficacy. He or she might also guess that James is unsure of his ability to do work greatly different from roofing. Brown would suggest that a counselor help James identify empowering experiences from the past. The counselor might also help him develop new empowering experiences that are related to his current challenges. For example, if James is indeed unsure of his scholastic ability, the counselor might have him enroll in an adult education class in an area in which the counselor suspects he will be comfortable, wood-working perhaps. The object is for the class to be difficult enough to help him improve his expectations, but easy enough that the counselor knows he will succeed. To help James identify empowering role models, the counselor may need to enlist his assistance. With whom does he identify who has been successful? Again, it is important that these people be close enough to how James sees himself that he can see himself doing what they do. Group counseling is often an appropriate venue for finding role models; often, someone else in the group either is an appropriate role model or knows someone who can fit that bill. It is well known that empowering messages are useful only when they are believed. The messenger needs to be someone believable, the message has be close enough to James’s ideas that he can accept its truth, and James has to want to absorb this new self-image. If all of these conditions are met, James may enhance his self-efficacy beliefs in a new arena. Fourth, Brown (1992) suggested that emotions also need to be empowering. If James’s stress is overpowering, he will not have the energy to change his beliefs; if he does not care enough, he may not be willing to do the work to change them. Brown says that people need to have dreams—what they want—and turn them into visions—what they will attain. Sometimes the dream itself is an achievement.
Learned Optimism
Seligman (1998, pp. 217–220) has suggested that optimism is a critical life skill and that it can be learned. Seligman proposed teaching skills that trans- form pessimists into optimists. The first skill is distraction, which is a process of shifting focus away from distressing thoughts toward more positive ones. The admonition “Don’t think about it” does not seem to work. The admonition “Think about something positive instead” actually does seem to work. Dr. Sanchez might, for example, change “I am worthless if I am no longer a surgeon” to “I have a renewed opportunity to contribute to developing new physicians through my teaching.” I am reminded poignantly of the scientist in Levinson’s (1978) The Seasons of a Man’s Life. He had given up the image of himself as a youthful hero going out to save the world, but had not yielded to the threatening specter of the dried-up, dying old man. He accepted himself as a middle aged man of considerable achievement, experience and integrity.... He was content to make a modest social contribution as parent, concerned citizen, scientist, teacher, and mentor to the younger generation. He had a sense of well being. (p. 277) One can only hope that Dr. Sanchez can reach such comfort. This kind of reframing, if not used punitively, can help clients learn to be more optimistic. It is punitive if one tries to gloss over the challenges, struggle, and grief that change can bring. It is encouraging if one helps people move on after a time of mourning for what is lost. Reframing can help James Green change the view that “work is simply drudgery. No one in my family likes their work. I don’t expect to either” to “I would like to be the first in my family to have a satisfying career. What can I do to increase the likelihood of that happening?” Seligman’s (1998) second technique is disputation, which is a process of actually arguing with a thought—either internal self-talk or negative statements that have been made by others. Three of Seligman’s suggestions for disputation are 1. Evidence: Encourage clients to ask themselves, “What is the actual evidence that this thought or accusation is true?” Find contrary evidence. For example, if clients are thinking that because they performed poorly on a test, they are terrible students, remind them of all of the tests they have done well on or remind them that they perform better in practical situations. Dr. Sanchez may need to remind himself of what he knows as a medical professional—that Parkinson’s is not something he brought on himself. 2. Alternatives: Encourage clients to ask themselves, “What are the alter- native explanations for this event?” James Green may need to consider that he was young when he dropped out of school and that he is now more mature. 3. Implications: Encourage clients to consider their catastrophic expectations and then examine whether they are really likely. Takesha Jones could find out whether it is true that school districts are not hiring anyone at all. Perhaps certain fields such as mathematics or special education are still good career avenues.
Planned Happenstance
Originally developed by Mitchell, Levin, and Krumboltz (1999), planned hap- penstance proposes that “chance favors the prepared mind” (a quote attributed to Pasteur). Most schoolchildren have heard the story of Archimedes run- ning naked through the streets of Sicily shouting “Eureka,” having discovered specific gravity while in the bath. Deriving inspiration from such stories and others such as the development of Velcro, Post-Its, Wite-Out, and penicillin, Mitchell et al. encouraged counselors to teach their clients to develop their curiosity. Clients are helped to “generate, recognize, and incorporate chance events into their career development” (Mitchell et al., 1999, p. 117). Mitchell et al. (1999) reframed indecision as open mindedness. They sug- gested that counselors teach clients to embrace uncertainty, to see it as part of the process of discovery, and to resist premature foreclosure in decision making. The authors argued that the usual response to indecision is discom- fort and that clients are urged by internal and external forces to have definite plans. I am reminded here of the unconscious conspiracy alluded to earlier— the pressure felt by client and counselor to reduce ambiguity and seek a finite plan. Career counseling is seen as a step in making those plans. The perhaps paradoxical intervention of encouraging indecision can create discomfort in and resistance from clients who want clarity and closure. It requires a leap of faith and trust in both the counselor and the process. Mitchell et al. (1999) proposed five skills to promote using chance events to increase career options:
1. Curiosity: exploring new learning opportunities
2. Persistence: exerting effort despite setbacks
3. Flexibility: changing attitudes and circumstances
4. Optimism: viewing new opportunities as possible and attainable
5. Risk Taking: taking action in the face of uncertain outcomes. (p. 118)
Melissa Winter’s career dilemma provides a good opportunity to demonstrate how one might operationalize these principles. Melissa’s counselor can help her identify how chance has helped her in the past to find satisfying work, and she can be reassured that her anxiety is normal. Let us follow Melissa through the experience of implementing a planned happenstance approach to her decision. First, a counselor can teach her career exploration skills that include practicing curiosity.
In positive uncertainty, Gelatt (1991) influentially proposed a method of fostering career resilience with his series of paradoxes related to career decisions: (a) Be focused and flexible about what you want, (b) be aware and wary about what you know, (c) be objective and optimistic about what you believe, and (d) be practical and magical about what you do (pp. 7–10). His approach is one of “using both [italics added] rational and intuitive techniques” (book cover) to make decisions. How does one implement these paradoxes in working with clients? More recently, (2010) has taken the idea of uncertainty and extended it to beliefs about everything, not just career choices. His thesis is that having tentative beliefs serves people better than certainty because it allows them to admit new information. He extends this philosophy well beyond career development, but the application to career is also important. He states that “the minute you make up your mind that the way you see things makes a difference, it will make a difference in the way you see things and do things” (p. 1). In his process of illumination, he proposed that the way we see the problem IS the problem. If we see the problem is not our problem, or a solution is not possible, or we don’t know what to do, then we ignore it. We don’t seek solutions, or we expect someone else to solve it. We need to make up our minds that the way we see things makes a difference. (http://gelattpartners.com/hbspoi/poiinanutshell.html, 2010) Today’s world requires that people plan for a lifetime of self-managed careers. The mutual loyalty bonds that tied employer and employee are much less strong than perhaps they once were. Individuals leave employment, and employers let people go, with great regularity. It is a rare day that the news- papers do not announce another round of layoffs. Power and Rothausen (2003) suggested that “the flexibility needed by employers has translated into insecurity, financial pressures, overwork, and increased risk to income and quality of work life for many middle class workers and especially for older workers, women, and minorities” (p. 160). As Herr, Cramer, and Niles (2004, p. 69) so eloquently put it, Many persons in the twenty-first century will need to learn how to change with change, accept ambiguity and uncertainty, negotiate job or career changes multiple times in their working lifetimes, be able to plan and act on shifting career opportunities ... and have the motivation to be career resilient—to persist in the face of change and unplanned for problems and difficulties. (from Herr, 2001, p. 208) Power and Rothausen (2003) proposed a new model for working with middle-class, mid-career workers. They stated that this group, about 60% of U.S. workers, is that most affected by these labor market changes (p. 158). The model presumes that people are satisfied in their jobs; if not, they suggested that other career models are more appropriate. The three core concepts are (1) defining work as a set of activities that can provide value for many employ- ers and that provide meaning for oneself, which is distinguished from a tra- ditional definition that includes a specific function for a specific employer, that is, a position; (2) identifying the future requirements to do the work, which assumes self-management of one’s career and therefore of the training and education necessary to maintain or update skills rather than depending on an employer for such training, as well as a commitment to keep up with current information relating to trends to foresee the need for a career transi- tion; and (3) choosing a developmental direction that defines a phase of 3 to 5 years in the future. Power and Rothausen provided a series of questions for use by career counselors for each of these tasks. For example, they would ask a person in the defining work stage, “With what activity or effort at work do you most identify? About what do you feel passionate to learn more? What activities fire your interest and imagination?” (p. 178). In the identifying future requirements stage, they would ask, “What are the future challenges in doing this work? What are the performance benchmarks for this work? What technological changes will have a major impact on this work?” (p. 178). In determining developmental direction, they suggested determining whether the person’s development is job oriented, work maintenance oriented, or work growth oriented and planning accordingly (p. 175). Casto (2003, p. 1) stated, My own concept of career is like a wardrobe, where you “try on” different outfits throughout your lifetime, and continue to check the mirror to see if it still fits and matches your current style and taste. In the modern world of work, you will need to find work that is “suited” to you. Think of your life’s work as your wardrobe. It is ever-changing as you move through life, chang- ing as your styles and interests change. Throughout the process, you will be tailoring yourself to fit different roles, and to meet changing work styles and expectations.