Applying the Five-Factor Model of personality to undergraduate career attitudes and beliefs: Maturity, decision-making self-efficacy, and control

This study examined the relationship between the personality constructs in the Five Factor Model and the constructs of career maturity, career locus of control, and career decision-making self-efficacy in the undergraduate population. Two hundred fifty-one American undergraduate students (164 female, 87 male) completed self-report inventories that included the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996), the Career Locus of Control Scale (Trice, Haire, & Elliot, 1989), the Attitude scale of the Career Maturity Inventory-Revised (Crites & Savickas, 1995), and the Personality scales from the Comprehensive Personality and Affect Scales (Lubin & Van Whitlock, in press). 6 multiple regression analyses (2 for each sex) were conducted to analyze relationships between the personality and career variables.;The results indicated that Conscientiousness was predictive of all three career-related variables for both sexes. Together with conscientiousness, Openness to Experience was a predictor of career decision-making self-efficacy for females. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness also predicted career maturity for females. Support was found for the hypothesis that higher Conscientiousness would be positively associated with higher career decision-making self-efficacy, greater career maturity, and an internal career locus of control. For females only, support was found for the hypothesis that Openness to Experience would be positively associated with career decision-making self-efficacy. An additional finding was that Agreeableness was negatively associated with career maturity for female undergraduates. Hypotheses regarding relationships between Extraversion and Neuroticism and the career constructs were unsupported. The results were interpreted in terms of theoretical and research implications and for their counseling applications.