Anticipated Multiple Role Management in Emerging Adults

Abstract

Lent and Brown presented a social cognitive career theory (SCCT) self-management process model aimed at understanding how and under what conditions individuals will navigate adaptive career behaviors. The current study tested the self-management model as applied to young peoples’ anticipated multiple role balance intentions, hypothesizing that self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations for balancing multiple life roles would predict intentions to balance multiple life roles. Given that multiple role balancing behaviors require good self-organization capacities, trait conscientiousness was incorporated into the model as a potential person input variable. Gender was also included as a person input. The best fitting model suggested that, consistent with SCCT hypotheses, self-efficacy beliefs related to role balance intentions. Outcome expectation’s relationship to intentions was smaller and did not reach statistical significance. The relation of conscientiousness to intentions was fully mediated by self-efficacy. Gender showed only a direct relation to intentions, suggesting that women have stronger intentions to balance multiple roles than do men, apart from their feelings of confidence and expected outcomes. These results suggest that interventions designed to aid multiple role balance in young women and men may usefully target their self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations for multiple role management.