Listen to Your Heart? Calling and Receptivity to Career Advice

Abstract

This study explores calling in the context of career decision making. Specifically, the authors examine receptivity to advice that discourages individuals from pursuing a professional path in their calling’s domain. The authors hypothesize that people with a strong calling will be more likely to ignore negative career advice. In Study 1, a four-wave, 7-year longitudinal study following 450 amateur musicians across career stages, the regression analyses showed that those with a stronger calling toward music reported being more willing to ignore the discouraging career-related advice of a trusted mentor. These results held over time, such that an early calling predicted the degree to which young people were willing to ignore career advice equally strongly 6 weeks, 3½ years, and 7 years later. In Study 2, the authors replicated these findings in a cross-sectional study of 131 business students. The authors discuss the implications for research on calling, as well as for counseling strong-calling individuals.