Social cognitive career theory at 25: Empirical status of the interest, choice, and performance models

By Robert W. Lent, Steven D. Brown. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2019

494 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) consists of five interrelated models. Its original models focus on the determinants of educational and occupational interest, choice, and performance (including persistence) (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). A fourth model is aimed at satisfaction and other aspects of well-being in academic and career-related settings (Lent & Brown, 2006a, 2008), and the fifth model highlights processes whereby people manage common developmental tasks and uncommon challenges across the career lifespan (Lent & Brown, 2013). Each of the models seeks to integrate relevant streams of inquiry, with the larger goal of producing a unifying perspective on educational and career behavior. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of SCCT's introduction, we consider the empirical status of the original three models as well as inquiry on the sources of self-efficacy and outcome expectations, which undergird the three models. Drawing primarily on meta-analytic findings, we examine the tenability of each of the models, observe the roles of particular social cognitive variables within and across model tests, note moderators of model relationships and anomalous findings, point to hypotheses that have been understudied, and suggest additional directions for future inquiry.

Subfields: Education, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/03052254b6a0be3b980cdaf2a8ec703bdff51138

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Citations in the corpus

Research self-efficacy: A meta-analysis (2021, background): “Both are lower than the maximal estimates reported for the various SCCT models in some studies focused on specific populations, such as STEM students (Lent & Brown, 2019).”
Pandemics: Implications for research and practice in industrial and organizational psychology (2020, background): “Specifically, the consequences of the pandemic crisis could negatively affect outcome expectations (Lent & Brown, 2019) regarding some careers (e.g., service industry, tourism), in that such careers become less attractive due to their risk of being significantly negatively affected by potential…”
Social Cognitive Career Theory at 25: Progress in Studying the Domain Satisfaction and Career Self-Management Models (2019, methodology): “Email: sbrown@luc.edu article (Lent & Brown, 2019), we revisited the meta-analytic literature on the original SCCT models of interest, choice, and performance.”