Abstract
While the Parsonian framework of career decision-making has provided seminal insights into the research and practice of career decision-making, the recent literature challenges the premises and practice of the Parsonian framework in the psychological, economic, and social contexts of contemporary career decision-making. The new discussions urge the field to rethink career decision-making in terms of its process and content and highlight the importance of constructivist authoring, dynamic adaptation, contextual influence, and intuitive thinking. However, the current career decision-making literature has residual limitations in integrating the merits of the Parsonian framework and the new decision-making perspectives and in facilitating research and practice integration. Therefore, the present article reviews new discussions about career decision-making, discusses residual limitations in the career literature, and proposes a new dual-process framework of career decision-making to facilitate future research and practice of career decision-making. This framework differentiates and integrates the processes of managing state uncertainty and inherent uncertainty in career decision-making and proposes an alternative approach to career decision-making that is characterized by strategic anchoring and adjustment.
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I am grateful for Terry Tracey, Lisa Flores, Ryan Duffy, Eunju Yoon, and Rich Douglas for their valuable feedback on early drafts.
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Xu, H. Career decision-making in an uncertain world: A dual-process framework. Curr Psychol 42, 3978–3990 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01746-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01746-z