466 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT
The primary objective of this chapter is to partially address the
neglect of cultural issues by career development theorists. Here I set
forth a theory of occupational choice, success, and satisfaction that
will be applicable to cultural and ethnic minorities as well as to
white European Americans. The approach used in the development
of the propositions set forth in this chapter is not unlike the one
employed by Super (1953) and by Holland (1959), in that the re-
search and theoretical positions of others serve as the primary foun-
dation for the ideas that are advanced. I hope that the proposals
presented here will be provocative enough to generate empirical
tests of their value.
Assumptions of the Theory
All theories are based on certain assumptions, and the theory pre-
sented here is no exception. The basic assumptions here are as follows:
- Many occupational choices (perhaps most) are uninformed,
that is, they are the result of chance or external variables and cir-
cumstances that have little to do with the nature of occupations or
the individuals’ self-evaluations (D. Brown & Minor, 1992; NCDA,
1999; Hoyt & Lester, 1995). - An informed occupational decision is one in which individu-
als engage in a conscientious process of exploring their personal char-
acteristics, the rewards that may accrue if various occupations are
chosen, and the environmental variable that may influence the out-
comes of their decisions. The result of this process is the formulation
of expectations about the outcomes of the choices being considered.
Outcomesare defined here as the accumulation of positive outcomes
and avoidance of negative outcomes. Expectancies(Vroom, 1964) are
beliefs that choices can be realized and involve estimates of abilities,
as well as the potential impact of factors such as discrimination and
short- and long-term occupational trends on the chances of imple-
menting the choices being considered.