The Relation of Career Maturity to Personality Type and Social Adjustment

Abstract

Models of career maturity, first formulated at midcentury, have been criticized for not incorporating innovations in personality and developmental psychology. This isolation from general models of and debates about personal maturity has kept career maturity from receiving widespread acceptance in mainstream psychology. The present study investigated whether Super’s model of career maturity could be linked to Gough’s three-dimensional model of personality organization. To explore relations between the two structural models, 200 college students responded to Gough’s California Psychological Inventory and Super’s Career Development Inventory. Results showed that planful competence in career development related to greater realization of one’s potential and a higher degree of social adjustment. Furthermore, the results indicated that more mature attitudes toward career planning and exploration related to an adjustment style characterized by extroversion in interpersonal relationships and by a positive orientation to social norms.