The Study On College Students' Attachment And Career Development

According to the "continuity of adaptation hypothesis" of attachment theory, attachment relationship refers to the intimate and enduring emotion bond between individual and attachment figures. This bond can provide emotional support, sense of intimacy and sense of security, which continue impact individual's adaptability and development of every stages of life. And career development is one of important tasks for college students. Based on these two things, the purpose of this study was to investigate Chinese college students' attachment to their parents and peers and career development, as well as to examine the relationship between attachment relationships and college students' career development which can offer a new view to career counseling for college students. This study included two parts. One is compiling Career Development Sale for college students and another is quantitative study of attachment relationships and career development.Based on the Super' career development theory and pertinent literature, this study compiled Career development Scale for Chinese college students including career exploration and career decision. In this scale, career exploration comprised work-exploration, interpersonal enquires, system-exploration and self-exploration, and career decision includes degree of career decision, emotional comfort and factors of career indecision which contains six dimensions.For quantitative study, 346 samples from freshmen to senior students completed the revision of Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) and Career Development Scale. The results indicated (a) the level of attachment relationship in Chinese college students was moderate, and attachment to parents was better than to peers, in addition, mother attachment was preferable. (b)Chinese college students had moderate Career development, and they mainly got career exploration from interpersonal enquires and self-exploration. Upperclassmen engaged more exploration activities. Besides, boys' career decision and emotional comfort degree were better than girls'. (c)Career exploration was significantly correlated with career exploration. The canonical correlation pattern was characterized by strongest loading between career exploration and a few factors of career indecision, such as lack of knowledge, decision anxiety and career believes. (d)Canonical correlation analysis indicated that attachment to parents and peers associated positively with college students' career development, such as career exploration, degree of career decision and emotional comfort, and the results validated continuity of adaptation hypothesis" of attachment theory. For college students, attachment to parents and peers played a significant role in their career development.