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Journal
of
Counseling Psychology
1990, Vol.
37, No. 4,
399-406
Copyright 1990
by the
American Psychological
Association,
Inc.
0022-0167/90/S00.75
A
Choice Dilemma Approach
for
Examining
the
Relative Importance
of Sex
Type
and
Prestige Preferences
in
the
Process
of
Career Choice Compromise
S.
Alvin
Leung
and
Barbara
S.
Plake
Department
of
Educational Psychology
University
of
Nebraska—Lincoln
This study examined Gottfredson's
(1981)
postulation that individuals
are
more
likely
to
sacrifice
prestige than
sex
type
preference
when career compromise
is
needed. College students
(151
women
and 95
men) responded
to a
forced-choice questionnaire called
the
Occupational Choice
Dilemma Inventory. Occupations were paired together
to
represent
3
choice dilemma situations
or
systematic variations
in
prestige
and sex
type
levels
between
the 2
occupations.
For
each pair
of
occupations,
the
respondent
had to
either sacrifice
a
certain degree
of
prestige
or sex
type.
Overall,
prestige
was
more
often
used
as the
preferred
factor
than
sex
type,
but
career compromise
behavior
was
jointly
affected
by
gender
and the
degree
of
contrast
in
prestige
and sex
type levels
that characterized
the 3
choice dilemma situations. Implications
for
Gottfredson's framework
and
career counseling were discussed.
Compromise
has
often
been recognized
as an
important
component
in the
career development literature.
For
example,
Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad,
and
Herma
(1951)
regarded
compromise
as the
ending phase
of the
career choice process
in
adolescent years,
and
internal needs (e.g., interests
and
capacities) have
to be
sacrificed
to
meet external reality. Super
(1953,
1984) maintained that compromise
is a
synthesis
be-
tween
individual
and
social factors
and
between self-concept
and
reality. Therefore, compromise involves giving
up
certain
aspects
of
one's career goals that
are of
lesser importance
to
retain those aspects that
are of
higher priority
to the
individ-
ual. However, theories
and
research
were
rather vague
on how
and
what
an
individual would compromise
in the
process
of
making career-related decisions.
In
this study, certain postu-
lations
on
career choice compromise, derived
from
a
theory
of
career aspirations
by
Gottfredson
(1981),
were examined.
Gottfredson
(1981)
suggested that
the
development
of ca-
reer
aspirations
is
associated with
a
process
of
examining,
eliminating,
and
retaining occupational alternatives, which
she
called circumscription. Individuals examine occupations
on
the
basis
of
three salient criteria:
(a) the
prestige
of the
occupations,
(b) the sex
type (masculinity
and
feminity)
of
the
occupations,
and (c) the
field
of
work (e.g., sales, engi-
neering, medicine). Gottfredson postulated that individuals
are
motivated
to
only explore occupations that
are
within
This article
was a
reanalysis
of
data collected
by S.
Alvin Leung
as
part
of a
dissertation study (Leung, 1988) conducted
at the
University
of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
A
version
of
this article
was
presented
at the
98th Annual Convention
of the
American Psychological
As-
sociation
in
Boston,
MA,
August,
1990.
We
would like
to
thank David
Ivey
for
coding occupations.
Correspondence concerning this article should
be
addressed
to S.
Alvin
Leung,
120
Bancroft
Hall, University
of
Nebraska, Lincoln,
Nebraska 68588-0345.
their acceptable levels
of
prestige
and sex
type (i.e.,
the
zone
of
acceptable alternatives).
It was
maintained
that
compro-
mise
of
one's
career goals
are
always needed because
of an
inevitable
discrepancy between what
one
wants
and
what
is
available
in
reality. When
an
individual
is
faced with
a
situa-
tion
in
which
a
career choice compromise
is
necessary,
Gottfredson
hypothesized that
one's
preference
for a
certain
field
of
work would most likely
be
sacrificed
first,
followed
by
the
preference
for
prestige.
Sex
type preference
was
least
likely
to be
compromised. Such
an
order
of
priority
is
related
to a
developmental sequence outlined
by
Gottfredson
in
which
the
development
of sex
typing occurs
at an
early age,
followed
by
the
development
of
social valuation
(or
concept
of
pres-
tige),
and
then
followed
by the
development
of a
sense
of
self
based
on
one's
interests, skills,
and
capacities.
The
principles
of
compromise proposed
by
Gottfredson
(1981)
have
not
been adequately examined.
A
major reason
is
the
methodological problem involved
in
studying
the
three
dimensions (sex type, prestige,
and field of
interest), which
are
potentially confounded (Hesketh, Elmslie,
&
Kaldor,
1990;
Leung, 1988; Stevens
&
Hoisington,
1987).
For
exam-
ple,
high-prestige occupations
are
more likely
to be
male
dominated,
and
occupations
in
many science
and
technical
fields are
more
likely
to be
high
in
prestige
and
male domi-
nated.
Such
an
interrelationship between
the
three dimensions
makes
it
very
difficult
to
single
out
which factor
is
being
compromised.
Research studies examining Gottfredson's
(1981)
postula-
tions
on
compromise
can be
classified
into
two
groups, based
on
the
methodological approaches being used.
The first ap-
proach involved eliciting actual career options considered
by
subjects.
Taylor
and
Pryor
(1985) asked Australian high
school graduates
who
were
in the
process
of
preparing
for a
university
entrance examination
to
indicate their
first
choice
of
university course
and
their planned compromise (choice
of
employment
area
if not
admitted). While only
35% of the
399
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