It may appear that human action sometimes is caused, not by a desire to feel better than we do, but by a desire to maintain the comfortable state that we have already attained. Certainly, the latter desire can provide motivation for action, but only when we feel some concern that our comfortable state may deteriorate if we do not act. We then act to relieve our concern. In relieving our concern, we feel better. Thus, we act in order to feel better.
The client who is unable to face reality may distort information about occupations just as he may distort information about himself. He may accept those facts, which support a course of action that appeals to him, while he rejects those facts which he finds disturbing.
Wishful thinking is a fairly common characteristic of the human race. When people appear not to act rationally in choosing an occupation, their failure to do so may be traced to one of three causes: inadequate information about themselves, inadequate information about occupations, or inability to think clearly. Inability to face reality is one kind of inability to think clearly.
Keep in mind, an occupation is only a name for a group of jobs which have something in common. The specific jobs within one occupation may differ in many ways. They may involve different supervisors, different employers, different locations, different physical surroundings, and/or different associates. Because of these differences, a person may be satisfied in one job and dissatisfied in another job in the same occupation if one of the jobs meets more of his needs than the other.
Needs and values sometimes change. A young person's eagerness for adventure may be replaced in later years by a preference for stability. An occupation which meets the needs of a client at age twenty may no longer meet his needs at age fifty. Participation in an occupation, daily association with the kinds of people who are attracted to it, acceptance of, and conformity to, the mores of the occupational group can in time have a subtle but substantial effect on a person's values. The result may be to make the occupation appear either more or less desirable than it seemed at first. If changes in needs and values are anticipated, they may affect the original choice of an occupation; if they are not anticipated, they may lead a person to change his occupation in later life.
Economic factors affect occupational choice by helping to determine the age at which a person terminates his formal education and enters the labor market on a full-time basis. The economic cycle, moving from periods of prosperity to depression and back again, helps to determine the number and nature of the employment opportunities available at the time a person is looking for a job. Immediate and potential future earnings affect the extent to which a contemplated occupation may be expected to meet one's economic needs.
Education influences occupational choice by opening the doors to some occupations that would otherwise be closed, by making a person aware of occupations of which he had no previous knowledge, by arousing or discouraging his interest in them, or by providing tryout experiences which lead the student to anticipate success or failure in specific activities. For some students, school or college provides a new social group with which they identify and which profoundly influences the social and economic needs which they feel their occupations must meet.
Psychological factors influence occupational choice by helping to determine the extent to which one perceives his own needs, accepts or suppresses them, faces the realities of employment opportunities and of his own abilities and limitations, and thinks clearly about all these facts. The extent to which aptitudes and interests are general or specific will probably be argued as long as there are psychologists to speculate and statisticians to calculate probabilities, but there is little doubt that interests help to determine the occupations that a person will consider and that aptitudes help to determine whether or not he will achieve enough success to get and to hold onto the job that he has chosen.
Sociologic factors affect occupational choice by helping to determine the occupations with which a person is familiar, by virtue of his contacts with family and friends. The cultural pattern of the social group in which a person has been reared and of the social group with which he currently identifies himself helps to determine the occupations which he will consider to be socially acceptable and socially preferred. Social patterns of exclusion or acceptance help to determine the occupations which are available to the individual; thus, a union may admit relatives of members in preference to others, an employer may discriminate on racial or religious grounds, and the qualifications for a job may include social contacts and social skills which are seldom acquired except through family associations.
All these factors affect occupational choice by helping to determine the employment opportunities that will be available to an individual and those which he will consider, by influencing the social needs which he will feel that his occupation must meet and the extent to which he will expect any contemplated occupation to meet these needs.
