Expanding the Dual-Process Theory of Career Decision Making: Ambiguity Management Under Environmental Adversity

Abstract

The dual-process theory of career decision making (DTC) offers unique insights into how people’s responses to inevitable decision ambiguity affect career choice and outcomes as well as how to cope with such ambiguity. While the DTC advances career decision research by incorporating key findings from decision science, it remains largely focused on people’s psychological processes; consequently, how contextual challenges influence the ambiguity management process remains unclear. To enhance the DTC’s utility in explaining career choice and outcomes and to be more inclusive of marginalized populations, the present conceptual article draws on the science of environmental adversity to articulate mechanisms through which environmental adversity affects career choice and attained career, particularly with respect to career pursuits that facilitate resource accumulation and upward mobility. The discussion features ambiguity management as a key explanatory mechanism, given the inherent ambiguity about the outcomes of pursuing careers outside of socially prescribed norms. Seven propositions are offered centering on how environmental adversity influences career choice and attained career through ambiguity management. In general, the current article holds that environmental adversity could thwart resource accumulation through inducing ambiguity about the goodness of resource-accumulating careers and activating a need to prioritize short-term goals. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.