Career Development: Self-Concept Theory

The book's central claim is that vocational development is the process of forming, translating, and implementing a self-concept in occupational settings. The first chapter deals with historical questions, the research literature, and the elements necessary to a self-concept theory of vocational choice; the second presents operational definitions . This operationalization is the volume's distinctive contribution: Super's 1957 Psychology of Careers had introduced the self-concept as the linchpin of vocational development, but left it largely abstract. The 1963 monograph, produced as Research Monograph No. 4 of the College Entrance Examination Board, translates the theory into testable terms and models .

Starishevsky and Matlin devised a model to illustrate how people translate their self-concepts into occupational terms. They distinguish between 'occtalk' and 'psychtalk'—statements a person makes about occupations and about himself, respectively. Within this system, the degree to which the self-concept is incorporated into occtalk can be ascertained . Chapter 3 of the volume views occupational self-concept as the incorporation of a person's self-concept and his 'dictionary' or understanding of various occupations . This translation model supplied the operational bridge between the abstract self-concept and the concrete occupational preferences through which Super theorized that self-concept is implemented.

The final essay examines vocational development in adolescence and early adulthood, showing that stages, tasks, and behaviors are identifiable and usable in assessing vocational maturity on three scales: classifying according to life stage, classifying within life stages, and a longitudinal approach that analyzes changes in maturity across two or more adjacent sequential life stages . This three-scale framework represents the volume's most concrete methodological contribution. It operationalizes vocational maturity not as a single score but as a multidimensional assessment that can be applied within stages or tracked across them, providing the foundation for later instruments like the Career Development Inventory.

The volume is described as one outgrowth of the longitudinal Career Pattern Study conducted at Teachers College, Columbia University . The Career Pattern Study followed ninth-grade boys from Middletown, New York, through their career development. This 1963 monograph translates the theoretical insights emerging from that study into operational terms. A companion monograph, Tiedeman and O'Hara's Career Development: Choice and Adjustment, was published by the College Board the same year. Together, these two volumes are described as classics in the career-development literature .

The volume was published in 1963 by the College Entrance Examination Board as Research Monograph No. 4, running v + 95 pages with diagrams . It contains five essays: Super's 'Self-Concepts in Vocational Development' (pp. 1–16) and 'Toward Making a Self-Concept Theory Operational' (pp. 17–32); Starishevsky and Matlin's 'A Model for the Translation of Self-Concept into Vocational Terms'; Jordaan's 'Exploratory Behavior: The Formulation of Self and Occupational Concepts'; and a final essay on vocational development in adolescence and early adulthood . The volume includes bibliographies and is held in major research libraries worldwide .

Subsequent studies tested the theory with varying results. Putnam and Hansen's 1972 study of 375 female high school students found that self-concept was significantly associated with vocational maturity, supporting Super's theory and indicating its applicability to females . A British study of schoolchildren found that self-concepts and concepts of occupational preferences did have a role in career development, though the theory appeared more applicable to more able youngsters and those high in self-esteem. The study also found that agreement between ideal-self-concepts and occupational preference concepts was significantly greater than between actual-self-concepts and occupational preference concepts, suggesting refinements were needed .