ing intimate relationship with a man who was self-employed in the
local area. Because this area contained only one relevant sociology
graduate program, she feared that she might have to move else-
where, thereby jeopardizing her relationship. At her counselor’s
encouragement, she discussed this dual-career dilemma with her
partner. Together the couple worked out a strategy in which she
would apply to graduate programs nationwide but reserve the local
program as her first choice. In the event that she was not accepted
locally, her partner agreed to move with her, feeling that he could
pursue his self-employment in other locations. Although she was
ultimately accepted at the local university, prior discussions helped
her prepare for an important potential barrier to implementing her
preferred career choice.
Developing and Modifying Self-Efficacy Percepts
As our earlier comments suggest, persons with adequate skills but
weak self-efficacy beliefs in a particular performance domain may
prematurely rule out that domain from further occupational or aca-
demic choice consideration. In addition, the basic hypotheses of
our performance model and data testing them suggest that self-
efficacy beliefs may facilitate attainment in a given academic or
career domain as long as an individual possesses at least minimal
levels of requisite ability in that domain. Thus procedures designed
to boost clients’ self-efficacy beliefs may be important treatment
ingredients for many persons experiencing career choice or perfor-
mance difficulties. Such procedures may also constitute a valuable
aspect of developmental interventions, ensuring that children’s and
adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs keep pace with their developing tal-
ents. Although efficacy-enhancing procedures may be valuable at
all developmental periods, they may be particularly so during (or
even prior to) early adolescence—a time when occupational status
aspirations become established (Rojewski & Yang, 1997) and abil-
ity percepts may, increasingly, affect students’ sense of which career
options are viable for themselves (Gottfredson, 1996).
SOCIAL COGNITIVE CAREER THEORY 291