CHAPTER TWOREVIEW OF RELATED LITERATUREIn this chapter, related literature within the context of personality traits and parenting rearing styles as predictors of career choice among undergraduate students will be reviewed under the following headings; Theoretical Framework of the Study Conceptual Framework of the Study The Concept of Personality The Concept of Parenting Rearing Styles The Concept of Career Choice Students Personality traits and Career choice Parenting Rearing Styles and Career Choice Sex and Career Choice Age and Career Choice Summary of Reviewed LiteratureTheoretical FrameworkVarious definitions and perspectives have been assumed in explaining personality and personality theories.
A theory is defined as a set of related assumptions that allows an individual to use logical deductive reasoning to formulate testable hypotheses. A well-developed career development theory consists of either content or process aspect of career development. Content refers to specific and unique characteristics of individuals such as personality, ability, interest, and attitude. Process includes the development of interactions between them. Career development theories can be broadly categorized into theories focusing on content and theories focusing on process (Ngumi, 2008).
Ngumi (2008) further explained that theories that focus on content predict career choices and are based on theories of differential and individual psychology; Frank Parsons and John Holland are the most influential in this regard. While theories that focus on process, emanated from developmental psychology, and view career development as a developmental process, rather than a matching exercise. The theories that focus on process assert that career choice is not a spontaneous or static decision but a dynamic developmental process which involves a series of decisions made over a period of time.
Ginzberg and Super’s theory are the most influential in this area of study. The two broad groupings of theories do not contradict but complement each other, since no one theory encompasses all aspects of career development. This study is concerned with theories focusing on content aspects of career development. In this regard, John Holland and Anne Roe theories of personality are reviewed as they are considered most appropriate and relevant to this study.Holland personality theory of career choiceJohn Holland’s theory of personality and vocational choice can be traced back to his publication on psychology of vocational choice in 1966 which was followed by subsequent edited version on career choice. Each version holds a more comprehensive theory on career counselling and an explanation of new issues that arise due to the complex relationship between students’ personality and their career choice. Holland postulated that vocational environments could be arranged into similar typology which offers a typological framework of an environment that is essential for career counselling and guidance (Njeru, 2016). He maintained that people search for environment and vocation that permits them to exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitude and values, take on agreeable problems and roles and avoid disagreeable ones, and individuals can be better prepared for professional lives if they evaluate their strength and weakness (Egbochuku, 2008). According to this theory, vocational interests (which are an expression of one’s personality) can be expressed into eight typologies and arranged in an octagon in the order of RIASECLN which are Realistic, Investigative, Administrative, Social, Enterprising, Creative, Linguistic and Naturalistic as shown in figure 1 below (Leung, in Njeru 2016). Holland’s theoretical concept of personality and career choice is suitable for the study as it will enable the researcher evaluate and group students into specific or a combination of traits, relate these traits to the students career choice and evaluate if the students have made choices that suits their personality traits. Each of the traits describes people with personal characteristics, tendencies and preference for occupational choice. Realistic traits persons like to work mainly with their hands by making and fixing things, assembling or operating equipment. They sometimes prefer working outdoors and find joy with varying types of manual labor and also work well with tools and machines. They are concerned with practical professions such as being a farmer, truck driver, mechanic, construction work, engineer or surveyor Carpenter, Electrician, Pilot etc. (Whitteberry, 2016).Investigative traits are expressed by people who enjoy puzzles and challenges that require the use of intellect, love learning and are likely to enjoy courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology and other sciences. They enjoy career settings that offer opportunity to apply analytical thinking skills to solving problems like computer programming, physics, mathematics, biologist, science teachers, and research managers (Egbochuku, 2008).Administrative traits are people who enjoy working with data or number, collecting and organizing information in effective and practical way. They often like being part of large companies though not necessarily in leadership positions, enjoy steady routines and follows clearly defined procedures, are dependable and have the ability to follow rules and regulations. This trait enjoys working in an environment where they keep records, files, copy materials, organize report, etc. They are best suited for professions as clerks, court services, banking, administration, auditing, pharmacy, receptionists and management (Woasey, 2015).Social personality traits individuals are motivated more by helping and attending to others. They place a high virtue on doing things ethically and correctly, and basing trust in others and the friendships, relationships and bonds that are formed. They are naturally cooperative and caring, and are teamwork oriented and also enjoy professions such as Community work, charities, medicine, nursing, social care and education (Jackson, 2014).Enterprising traits are expressed by people who manage and persuade others in other to attain organization or personal goals. They tend to be self-confident, sociable and assertive. They love working in environments where promotion, power, persuasion and sales take place. They are very social but value convincing and persuading others rather than helping them. They are skilled with identifying a good deal and opportunities. They enjoy occupations like sales rep, business management, politics, real estate, stock market, insurance, lobbying or any working environment that provides opportunity for power, wealth and status (Egbochuku, 2008).Creative personality traits individuals like opportunity to express themselves in a free and unsystematic way. They enjoy working environment that encourage personal and emotional expression rather than logical expression. They manipulate tools to express themselves and are suited for occupation like musicians, fine artist, freelance writing. They excel in occupations like writing, panting, music, drama coach, music teacher, graphic design, advertising, fashion, interior decoration, photography, journalism, cosmetology, architecture, museum curators, cartographers, dance instructor, entertainers and other similar occupations.Linguistic personality traits persons love words and enjoy reading and writing, lectures, and taking notes. They are gifted at learning languages and they appreciate the complexities of sentence structure, word structures, meaning and sounds. They love twisted or convoluted words and are quick at learning them. They can teach others and communicate complex concepts. They enjoy writing, good at editing, zealous readers, enjoy word game, like speaking of what they read, they remember quotes, love puns and rhymes and like foreign language. They enjoy careers as editors, copywriters, courts reporter, broadcasting/ news casting, speech pathology, translators/ interpreters (Gardner, 2010).Naturalistic personality traits individuals are sensitive to and appreciate nature. They have the ability to discover natural patterns, learn through natural contact, upset by pollution, comfortable with animals, good at gardening, appreciate plants and appreciate scenic views, enjoy outdoor activities like walking, climbing, camping, swimming, fishing, hiking and are inspired and rejuvenated by nature. They have special ability to grow plants, vegetables, fruits and have affinity for animals and are good at training and understanding them. They find fulfillment and satisfaction in occupations like breeding animals, farming, fishing, park ranger, geology, horticulture, landscaping, marine biologist, veterinary medicine, arborist, and any similar occupations (Hoekstra, 2014).The octagonal model describes that lots of people could posse more than one traits and in some cases a varying degree of all traits. However, traits that are adjacent (side by side) to each other in the octagon have the highest degree of similarities in terms of their personality characteristics and vocational choice, traits that are opposite have the least degree of similarities while traits that are separated by one interval has a moderate degree of similarities (Holland in Njeru 2016).The 1st, 2nd and 3rd categories in the octagon describes the degree of resemblance of a person which can be assessed so as to generate a three letter code e.g. SIA (Social, Investigative, and Administrative), RIA (Realistic, Investigative Administrative) to denote and summarize one’s personality and career interest. The first letter of the code is a person’s primary interest type (most dominant traits), which would likely play a major role in a person’s career choice and satisfaction (Leung in Njeru 2016). The 2nd and 3rd specifications play a lesser but significant role in the personality and career interest of the individual. Some personality traits are important for a successful performance in certain profession which ensures certain consistency in the behaviour of individuals in different situations.Anne Roes Need Theory of personality development and Career ChoiceAnne Roe is a trained clinical psychologist who developed a theory that relates peoples’ needs and career choices to the psychological and emotional climate they grow up in through observing artists and research scientists. Roe (1957) assert that occupational choice could be predicted both by individual differences and by psychological needs that develop in response to parent-child relationships (Corey, 2015). For more clarification, Roe in 1956 turned to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which depends on conscious or unconscious need pattern that include; Physiological needs (food, shelter, and safety), need to belong and to be loved, need for self-esteem (importance, respect, independence), need for information, need for understanding, need for beauty and a need for self-actualization (Onyekuru, 2010) . Maslow’s theory indicated that people feel more urgency to satisfy the basic needs of food, shelter, and safety before they can express needs on the higher levels (Mung’ara, 2012). Consequently, these other needs remain unachievable to the average individual until those basic needs are satisfied. She explained that Maslow’s hierarchy was evident in our society and that there is hardly a single situation that can give some satisfaction at all levels of basic needs as the occupation they are involved in. Roe conceptualized that the way parents relate to their children influence the children as adults to enter into a career field with an orientation to interact with people or shy away from them (Hagen in Stromberg, 2008). She categorized parenting rearing styles into three major categories with two subtypes each; Emotional concentration on the child (over protective and over demanding parenting), Avoidance of the child (neglected and Rejected parenting), and Acceptance of the child (loving acceptance and casual acceptance parenting) and explained that theses parenting rearing styles have peculiar characteristics and diverse influence on the career attraction of the child later in life (Woasey, 2015).1. Parental Emotional concentration: Parents of this style are either over protective or over demanding. Over-protective parents provide an atmosphere with excessively protection that is very warm, affectionate, caring and also tend to encourage dependence in their children and restricts curiosity and exploration. The over-protective environment does not usually help the children to adapt to different types of people and experiences. Over protected children lean on their parents for every of their needs and grow up to become self-centered and dependent upon the approval of others for self-esteem which leads them to choose people oriented jobs (Igbaji, 2014). Over-demanding Parents request perfection from their children by asking for excellent performance and setting high standards of behaviour. The parents’ love for their child is based on the child’s achievement and compliance to rules. In this kind of environment, the child’s needs are met depending on whether he/she behaves in prescribed ways or not and the children must meet up to the standards these parents have set to receive approval. These children grow to become a perfectionist and also choose occupation that enables them to get other people’s reward and feedback for satisfaction. Emotional concentration parenting style will likely produce people who are self-centered and people-oriented who choose careers in service such as business contract, organization, general culture, arts and entertainment where they consciously or unconsciously demand for approval from others for self-esteem ( Ebifa, 2014).2. Parental Avoidance: Parents that use this method are more focused on their own affairs. They range from parents who neglect their children to those who reject them. These children tend to believe that they lack value that’s why their needs are ignored. Rejected Parents punish their children excessively and every little mistake attracts severe punishment. These children grow up without experiencing love and affection only criticism. The parents only provide for their physiological needs (food, shelter, clothes etc.) and safety needs. The children who experience this parenting style shy away from people and end up in careers that are oriented toward data, things or tools like in the sciences, technology, and engineering etc. Neglected parents ignore the child for some reasons like a concern with their own problems, other children, or work. They are cold with no affection or love and provide minimal care. These parents fulfill their children’s basic needs but are generally detached from their children’s life. In extreme cases, these parents may even neglect the needs of their children. In some cases, these children were difficult in behavior as babies and their parents tried everything to satisfy them without being really successful. These individuals tend to choose jobs that keeps them from relating with people, they prefer job that enable them interact with data, objects (technology), animals (outdoor life occupations), or ideas (science) (Roe, 1957). 3. Parental Acceptance: These are parents who provide a warm and accepted atmosphere for their children. They are either casual acceptance parents or loving acceptance parents. Causal-Acceptance Parents consisted of those parents who did not ignore their children but offered minimum displays of love (Sharf in Corey, 2015). The child’s needs are attended to when they are not busy. These parents prefer a child who is going on well because they are not committed to the proper upbringing of the child and consequently, the child grows up to be close minded. He/she tends to withdrawal from people but with a little motivation the child can adapt and orient towards people (Ebifa 2014). Loving acceptance Parents are relaxed and accept their children just the way they are, they provide a loving atmosphere for growth and meet both the physical and psychological needs. These children are accepted completely, made to have a feeling of belonging in the family and are treated as an important member among equals where their independence is encouraged. With this background they can balance their personal and non-personal interest with the need to remain isolated from people or to seek approval from them (Igbaji, 2014). These parents encourage their children to be independent, but also set limits and boundaries. Discipline is applied, but in a supportive, non-punitive way. An individual nurtured by loving parents would likely choose a job that involved either working with people or thing as they can cope comfortable wither either situation.Within these two broad categories of job orientations (i.e. People and thing), Roe (1956) constructed several jobs that these categories of individuals can fit into. For example, in the thing-oriented category are found jobs in the sciences, technology or outdoor. On the other hand, service, business contact jobs, organization, general culture, arts and entrainment jobs are people-oriented (Woasey, 2015). This ideal made it easy to fit an individual into either of these two job orientations based on the kind of early childhood experiences they might have had. However, not all individuals in either category reach similar levels of attainment in their jobs. For instance, several levels of jobs exist for each job. These include from the topmost to the professional and managerial, small business, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled levels. What determine the level one attains, up to a point, are one’s genetic endowments especially their aptitudes as well as environmental experiences. Though, her major emphasis seems to be on need satisfaction. Roe (1956) agreed that traits of interest, ability and achievement are also important to choose a job so that all these factors should be taken into consideration in helping an individual to choose an occupation.
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