Personalidades vocacionais e desenvolvimento na vida adulta : generatividade e carreira profissional

Abstract

This research investigated the relations between vocational interests, psychosocial development and career development in adult life. Holland’s vocational interests typology is hegemonic in the field of vocational psychology and considers career choice as a direct expression of personality. The model proposes six interest types or vocational personality factors: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional. Holland suggested that vocational preferences are related to differences in capabilities and dispositions to make career transitions. The present work market requires professionals to be adaptive and to manage their own careers. These behaviors can be described through the concepts of career commitment and entrenchment. Career commitment includes the identification with work and career planning. Entrenchment is the immobilization of the individual in an occupation because of a lack of career alternatives and fear of change. Adults in mid-age are prompted to career entrenchment because of career growth restrictions in this period. Generative concerns also emerge in this phase of life. Generativity is the individual’s involvement with the welfare of the next generations and his desire to be remembered for posterity. Personality differences have been associated with career adaptability and generativity. This research investigated relations between vocational personalities, career behaviors and generativity in adult life. The participants were 733 professionals (415 men and 318 women) with ages ranging from 25 to 65 years and with a minimum of 5 years of professional career. The subjects answered measures of vocational interests, generativity, career commitment and career entrenchment. Generativity showed positive correlation with career commitment and negative correlation with career entrenchment. Conventional types revealed lower generativity compared with artistic, enterprising and social types. In middle adulthood the investigative personalities showed higher entrenchment compared to realistic and enterprising. The enterprising personalities showed more career planning than realistic and social types. The results showed that career adaptability and generativity are related to vocational interest types, confirming the importance of personality factors for the understanding of adult development. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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