اکتشاف شغلی در نوجوانان: نقش اضطراب، وابستگی و شیوه های فرزندپروری

The aim of the study was to examine the role of parent–adolescent attachment, adolescent anxiety and parenting style in the career exploration process and in career satisfaction. Three kinds of anxiety were considered: general trait anxiety, fear of failing in one’s career and fear of disappointing one’s parents. The participants were 283 French high school students on the threshold of one of the most important school transitions. The results varied by gender. For girls, general anxiety and neglectful style were negatively related to career exploration; secure attachment and fear of failing were positively related to it. For boys, fear of disappointing parents was positively related to career exploration. Attachment to parents, authoritative style, general anxiety, and fear of failing were related to some career exploration satisfaction scores, though differently for boys and girls. The differences between boys and girls in the roles played by anxiety, attachment and parenting style are discussed.

School transitions are frequently perceived by adolescents as threatening situations (Larose & Boivin, 1998). The relationship between parents and adolescents may provide emotional support to cope with these situations. According to Bowlby, 1978 and Bowlby, 1982, secure attachment provides a secure base from which one can explore with self confidence. The provision of felt security might facilitate exploratory activity (EA) by reducing the anxiety, emotional stress, and feelings of depression and loneliness which are aroused by the school transition and the planning for a future career which are specific to adolescence (Blustein et al., 1995, Larose and Boivin, 1998 and Papini and Roggman, 1992). The last year of high school is one of the most important transitions in the French educational system. At the end of the year, students take an exam to obtain a national diploma. This diploma guarantees them entrance to college and permits them to choose the academic or vocational training which will be decisive for their future careers. This is therefore a stressful period for French youth, as they must choose the type of university education they want, and the type of work they want to do. The exploration of educational and vocational environments is an adaptive way to cope with that situation. Previous studies have shown that attachments to mother, father or peers were associated with greater levels of EA directed toward both self and environment in late adolescence (e.g., Felsman and Blustein, 1999 and Ketterson and Blustein, 1997). The secure attachment of French adolescents to mother or father would be expected to facilitate their exploration of their educational and vocational environments. Another aspect of the influence of parents on the exploration process is parenting style. Four parenting styles have generally been defined in terms of the interaction of two independent dimensions: warmth-hostility and controlling–uncontrolling (Baumrind, 1971 and Maccoby and Martin, 1983). The first dimension refers to the parents’ responsivity and the amount of affection they display. The second dimension refers to the degree of supervision parents undertake with their children. On the basis of adolescents’ ratings of their parents on these two dimensions, four parenting styles have generally been proposed: authoritative (warm and controlling), authoritarian (hostile and controlling), permissive (warm and uncontrolling), and neglectful (hostile and uncontrolling). Adolescents from authoritative families have the highest adjustment scores in many areas, while adolescents from neglectful families have the lowest (e.g., Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991). Kracke (1997) showed that authoritative style is positively associated with exploration of self and environment in middle adolescence. As far as we know, no research has studied the effect of parenting styles on EA of late adolescents. Because authoritative parents show warmth toward and interest in their adolescents as well as laying down rules, they should stimulate the late adolescent to search for educational and vocational information, in order to foster the adolescent’s autonomy. Conversely, neglectful parents, who show no interest in the adolescent’s school and career plans, and do not lay down rules, would discourage their adolescent’s EA. We did not formulate any hypotheses about the other styles because each theoretically involves underlying processes whose effects on career exploration and satisfaction counteract each other. Anxiety is another factor which influences career exploration (Blustein & Phillips, 1988). According to the classical distinction made by Spielberger (1966), anxiety was considered either a state or a general personality trait. The former is defined in reference to a situation perceived as threatening. The latter emphasizes individual differences in the tendency to perceive situations as threatening. General trait anxiety is defined as a personality trait referring individual differences in the likelihood of experiencing state anxiety in most stressful situations. The specifics of the situational context are not taken into account in measures of the trait. However, some theorists argue for a “person-in-context” perspective in the domain of vocational psychology ( Savickas, 2000) and personality traits ( Endler, Parker, Bagby, & Cox, 1991). From this perspective, individual differences in anxiety can be conceptualized in relation to a specific threatening situational context, such as the vocational context. The tendency to experience anxiety in one type of threatening situation is relatively independent of the tendency to experience anxiety in other types ( Endler et al., 1991). The tendency to experience anxiety in relation to the vocational context was considered a form of social anxiety, since it concerns the individual’s position as a student or professional in the society as a whole (Mallet, 2002). This position may be more or less validating and more or less secure. Mallet (2002) showed that career trait anxiety progressively increases in adolescence. At least three different forms of career trait anxiety were identified in this period (Mallet & Vignoli, 2005): fear of failing in one’s academic or professional career, fear that one’s parents might be disappointed in one’s career choice, and fear of moving away from family and intimate relationships as a consequence of job or academic requirements. The effect of state anxiety—anxiety aroused by career decision making and environmental exploration—on the career exploration process of late adolescents was examined by Blustein and Phillips (1988). Contrary to the authors’ hypothesis, state anxiety aroused by exploration was found to promote late adolescents’ vocational EA. The effect of the contextual state anxiety aroused by exploration was interpreted as being less salient than anxiety aroused by the career choices to which this EA contribute. As far as we know, no study has yet explored the influence of anxiety as a personality trait, with or without reference to a context, on the exploration process. Yet the relation between trait anxiety and vocational exploration remains unclear. Trait anxiety might be expected to inhibit some types of EA, because trait anxiety is related to cognitive hypervigilance (Eysenck, 1992). According to Eysenck’s theory, hypervigilance is a crucial characteristic of anxious individuals that can express in several ways. In one of these ways, anxiety reduces the breath of attention and increases attentional selectivity, especially when threatening or relevant information is localized. Conversely, when it is not known which aspect of the environment might contain a threatening stimulus or relevant information, anxious individuals increase breadth of attention to facilitate detection of any threatening stimuli. According to this theory, adolescents with high contextual trait anxiety (career anxiety) should focus on vocational information which is easily discerned to be significant, and then should display more EA. Because academic and vocational information is not relevant information for adolescents with high general trait anxiety, those adolescents should expand their breadth of attention to take in an environment wider than the educational and vocational environments alone, to maximize the detection of significant threatening information. The search for diversified information which is aroused by general trait anxiety could interfere with the search for academic and vocational information. This study examined the relation between the three previous factors and career exploration satisfaction (CES), that is, satisfaction with the EA that an individual carried out several months before the transition. Given the previous definitions, we specified the following hypotheses: H1: General trait anxiety relates negatively, and career trait anxiety relates positively, to the frequency and diversity of adolescents’ EA. H2: Attachments to mother and father relate positively to the frequency and diversity of adolescents’ EA. Attachments to mother and father, in addition to the hypothesized effect of anxiety, account for the frequency and diversity of EA. H3: Authoritative style relates positively, and neglectful style relate negatively, to the frequency and diversity of adolescent’s EA. Authoritative and neglectful styles, in addition to the hypothesized effect of anxiety and attachments, account for the frequency and diversity of EA. H4: General trait anxiety relates negatively, and career trait anxiety relates positively, to CES. H5: Attachments to mother and father relate positively to CES. Attachments to mother and father, in addition to the hypothesized effect of anxiety, account for CES. H6: Authoritative style relates positively, and neglectful style relates negatively, to CES. Authoritative and neglectful styles, in addition to the hypothesized effect of anxiety and attachments, account for the CES.