What You’re Dealt or How It’s Played: ACES,COVID-19,and Ambiguity Response Impacts on Decision-Making

Abstract

Stressors and one’s response to stress play not only a major role in one’s life but also have significant impacts on the career decision-making process. This study, grounded in Cognitive Information Processing Theory, explores the impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the COVID-19 pandemic, and response to ambiguity on career decision-making difficulty and negative career thoughts. Participants included 231 college students. Findings indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic had a greater impact on both career outcomes than ACEs, and one’s ambiguity response had an even greater impact on both career outcomes than the COVID-19 pandemic. These results indicate that recent stressors and one’s response to those stressors play a larger role than distal stressors in career decision-making. Practical application of CIP theory to address these issues and research implications are discussed.

Keywords

adverse childhood experiences COVID-19 ambiguity response stressors negative career thoughts cognitive information processing theory career decision-making

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