test, consolidate, and reveal their interests, values, and other ends-
specific traits.
Perhaps the most important thing they could both learn is that
when they shape and shift the environments they experience, they
are engaging in acts of self-discovery and self-creation. It is in grasp-
ing these many small, daily opportunities that they take the power—
and the responsibility—to create better lives and selves from the raw
materials that circumstance provides them.
Summary
The theory of circumscription and compromise described here tries
to explain what might seem to be a paradox. On the one hand, chil-
dren of different genders and social class backgrounds tend to aspire
to careers that are typical of what they perceive as their gender and
social class. This apparent cross-generational transmission of in-
equality suggests that many young people are influenced by social
stereotypes or other restrictions on personal choice. On the other
hand, individuals often respond differently to the same external
forces, as seen in the fact that even same-sex siblings tend to differ
greatly in their career-relevant aptitudes, interests, and choices.
That is, although constrained by circumstance, young people are
not simply creatures of it. Rather, they are ceaselessly active agents
who, working with the raw materials that God, nature, and social
circumstance have blessed or burdened them, have (or could have)
a strong hand in creating who they become. Behavior genetic
research helps to explain this interplay between nature and nurture,
between the inner compass and external forces that influence be-
havior. It also shows why each of us is unique, for both genetic and
environmental reasons.
Circumscription and compromise in career choice are especially
important in this partly self-directed development process, because
both reflect individuals selecting and rejecting some life paths rather
than others. Their choices, however, are conditioned by genetic
proclivities and cultural forces of which they are generally only
144 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT