Cultural and Vocational Interest

Section 1

Culture and vocational interests an article authored by Ott-Holland, Huang, Ryan, Elizondo & Wadlington (2013) focus on how individuals decide on their career paths. The article cited that some people freely pursue careers matching their personalities. While also touching on how to some individuals the communities’ and societal expectations restrictive links between individual interests affect their career paths. The article furthermore gives a highlight about the possible gender roles in various social backgrounds having an effect on the choice of career interests. Additionally, the paper reviewed on the past meta-analytic research, which showed that some career interests related to personality traits. Although there has not been sufficient exploration of the cross-cultural differences in career, interests related to personality traits. The article also provided interest and personality data that covered individuals from 20 countries. The data indicated that high in-group collectivism cultures had a less clear connection between personality traits and professional interests. However, gender egalitarianism demonstrated a possibility in wider gender differences in their cultures. 

Section 2

The article provided insight on how the issue of career choice determined by individual and in some cases by the society or the community from which the person originates (Ott-Holland et al., 2013). The article has also explained how personality traits influence an individual’s decision on a career path. The article has made a substantial effect on my understanding of the structural effects of the communities’ influences on people’s career paths. It is also interesting to note that individual’s personal goals are affected by their familial career goals. Individuals from such family setups forego their personal goals to take up the careers determined to them by their community. Understanding of such family related frameworks is vital in my counseling. Knowing about personal choices and their career paths are determination aids my understanding to be able to provide an appropriate counseling framework for them. 

Section 3

The article found that “men displayed lower musical, conventional, and social interests, and higher realistic and investigative interests, compared to women in line with the research findings. I discovered that men were unskilled in the sector of artistic, conventional, and social interests. The article shows the effect culture has on such traits lacked by men studied. Therefore, a woman due to their gender alienation supported by cultural and societal setups has provided such amplified gap in skill between them and men (Hirschi & Läge, 2007). 

Section 4

According to the article, “individuals who did not report gender were excluded from all analyses” should have been all-inclusive for all even though they declined to disclose their gender. The study should have overlooked the issue of gender to gather more information that is also vital for the study. In the study gender, stereotyping should have been understood, as it keeps being the most critical factor that affected people from disclosing their gender. In case the study had considered doing so then the results would be reflecting the different picture of the survey group (Hirschi & Läge, 2007). 

Also, the study should have studied on more countries to arrive at information that is more accurate. Information from a wider area is more credible as compared to the study in 20 countries. Therefore, I believe that the result from the study should have been both inclusive to accept those who declined revealing their gender and it should have covered more countries. 

References

Hirschi, A., & Läge, D. (2007). Holland's secondary constructs of vocational interests and career choice readiness of secondary students: Measures for related but different constructs. Journal of Individual Differences , 28 (4), 205-218.

Ott-Holland, C. J., Huang, J. L., Ryan, A. M., Elizondo, F., & Wadlington, P. L. (2013). Culture and vocational interests: The moderating role of collectivism and gender egalitarianism. Journal of counseling psychology , 60 (4), 569.