Big-five personality and BIS/BAS traits as predictors of career exploration: The mediation role of career adaptability

Based on career construction theory, the current research examined whether career adaptability mediates the relations of the personality traits (Five-Factor Model personality traits and behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS)) to career exploration behavior. Results from a survey in Chinese university students (N = 264) showed that career exploration correlated negatively with neuroticism, and positively with openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS. Results of regression analyses further showed that openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS served as the strongest predictors for career exploration. In addition, career adaptability was shown to be a key mediator for the relationships between personality traits and career exploration behavior. Career concern and career curiosity were the more important dimensions in the mediation model. These findings advance current understandings on how different personality traits predict career exploration behavio

Differences in Career Decision-Making Profiles Between American and Chinese University Students

The current research examined differences in career decision-making profiles (CDMP) between American and Chinese university students, as well as the mediating mechanisms possibly underlying these cultural differences. The results of a survey among American (n = 929) and Chinese (n = 945) undergraduates showed that Chinese participants scored significantly higher on consulting with others, desire to please others, willingness to compromise, dependence on others, and procrastination, but lower on aspiration for an ideal occupation, internal locus of control, and effort invested in career decision-making than did the American participants. Using a model based on self-construals and subjective cultural norms, we established that interdependent self-construal, independent self-construal, and the perceived individualism-collectivism norm operative in the respondents’ nation served as important mediators of the relationship between culture and endorsement of the dimensions of the CDMP. Moreover, based on the model of cultural tightness-looseness, the results provided partial support for the prediction that individuals’ personal cultural orientations (e.g., self-construals) served as stronger predictors for CDMP among the American participants than among the Chinese, whereas the perceived cultural norm served as a stronger predictor for CDMP among the Chinese participants than the Americans. The current research provides implications for career decision-making in different cultural groups and suggests the operation of differential mechanisms involved in reaching career decisions across societies varying in individualism-collectivism.Department of Management and MarketingDepartment of Applied Social Science