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The Family as a Social Support Buffer during Career Decisions

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Families have traditionally served as competence-training grounds for young children, but, as Murphy and Frank (1979) observed, there are now fewer children in each family, and thus correspondingly fewer opportunities for older children to observe younger siblings and learn child-rearing skills to use when they have their own children. Natural protective devices that traditionally assisted families have weakened. A study of the buffering effects of work and family support on stress (Billings & Moos, 1982) revealed that social support had a significant ameliorative effect on stress, especially for men; similar studies by Osipow and Spokane (1984) and Osipow and Davis (1988) confirmed this finding. Families provide this social support in several ways. First, they offer the financial resources that pay for education and vocational expenses. Second, families provide for the transmission of values and interests, and for the inheritance of traits or dispositions that most likely help an individual in the pursuit of certain careers.

Exciting breakthroughs in genetic psychology in the second last decade, for example, suggest that a specific chromosome can be assigned to some mental disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and bipolar depression (Loehlin, Willerman, & Horn, 1988). The scientific community generally agrees that we have overestimated the environmental and underestimated the genetic contribution to many psychological traits (Bouchard, 1983). Koshland (1987) concluded that part of the brain is "hard-wired" and part is malleable under environmental influences. The relative weight placed on the inheritability of traits, especially abilities in areas such as music or athletics, is increasing after a period of decreased attention. Moderate genetic contributions to personality, temperament, and ability are routinely found (Loehlin et al., 1988).

Although the idea that occupational interests might be genetically determined is difficult for most career psychologists to accept, two studies suggest that this may, to a certain extent, be true (Grotevant, Scarr, & Weinberg, 1977; Vandenberg & Stafford, 1967). Vandenberg and Stafford studied 124 pairs of fraternal twins (50 percent of the same genes) and identical twins (exactly the same genes). Since identical twins develop from the same egg, any differences between them are attributed to environmental influences. Differences between fraternal twins are considered to be a combination of genetic and environmental effects. Vandenberg and Stafford found differences between fraternal and identical twins on nine interest scales, and concluded that genetic influences on interests probably work indirectly through temperament, personality, and aptitude.



Similarly, Grotevant et al. studied 223 biological and adoptive families using the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, or SCII (Hansen & Campbell, 1985). Whereas biological families were similar in interests, adoptive families were found to be unrelated. Their study supported previous work on the heritability of interests, and added that the "patterning" of interests was probably as heritable as separate interests. Grotevant et al. found that only the investigative and artistic Holland themes correlated with intelligence, which thus argued against the notion that the heritability of interests is simply an artifact of the heritability of aptitudes. The authors concluded, as did Vandenberg and Stafford (1967), that temperament probably influences an individual's prework activities and thereby moderates genetic influences. Any discussion of the impact of family on careers must consider the possibility that several specific interests, and even the pattern of general interests, may be genetically influenced. Heritability may be stronger in mathematics, science, artistic, musical, and athletic ability, since they overlap with aptitude inheritance.

The third type of family influence on careers rests in its role as a forum for the discussion of aspirations and the construction of exploratory experiences. Maternal encouragement, which plays a significant part in the transmission of aspirations, may be given in diverse ways, including having quiet one-on-one discussions, providing role models (Krumboltz, 1976), and offering specific job leads or contacts (Becker, 1977). Repeated studies have suggested that parents are the resource most often consulted by adolescents in their job search (Otto, 1984). The family intervention programs reviewed by Palmer and Cochran (1988) reinforced the importance of the family as a setting for the exploration and crystallization of interests and values. Another recent study (Young, Friesen, & Pearson, 1988) used a critical incident technique based upon a model of activities, relations, and roles to examine the nature of parental influence on children's careers.

Their comprehensive research elicited more than 1,500 incidents from 207 parents that reflected the parents' attempts to facilitate their children's career development. Table 7-1 shows twenty-four categories of incidents in a sub-sample from Young et al. The most frequently reported general categories of parental activities were structuring the environment (22.8 percent of parents) and providing instrumental support (16.6 percent).

Several substantial differences were found in the parental interventions used with boys and girls: Boys were given more information, challenging, and interest than were girls. This study reinforces the belief that parents and children do interact around career choice, but that many of these interactions may be stereotyped, an observation made earlier by Birk (1979) in a module for parents and children.

A final way in which families may interact on career issues is in the intergenerational support and transmission of career values and other, everyday assistance. For example, a grandmother may provide day care while a young mother continues her career, or a son may act as a sounding board for a father approaching retirement who is considering a second career. The interactions across generations may not always be positive, however. L. S. Gottfredson (1986) has argued that having abilities and aspirations that are either higher or lower than those of one's immediate social group may put an individual at risk for subsequent choice problems. The family thus is the potential source of stress around career issues, but can be very effective in both treating and preventing career problems if it is considered and included in career interventions. Although career discussions may engender considerable anxiety in parents and children alike, systematic attempts to intervene both within and across generations to help parents and children support and assist one another during career transitions appear to be quite effective and deserve much future attention. Such an approach, however, presumes the following:
  1. Parents and children will be experiencing career concerns simultaneously and should be seen together in interventions whenever possible.

  2. Children will learn from close participation in parental career decisions and should not be shielded from them. Adolescent and adult children will benefit particularly and may contribute to successful parental outcomes.

  3. Measures of family process should be included in studies of career intervention, and models of career development theory should pay more attention to parental and familial variables.

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