Instinct and Identity in Career Decisions Dr Julia Yates Senior Lecturer City, University of London

Traditional approach - theory self awareness + occupational knowledge ------------------------------------------------------ = the ideal job rational decision making

Traditional approach - practice Decision making Opportunity Awareness Transition Skills Self-awareness

Latest thinking - theory = the ideal job

Latest thinking - practice

Latest thinking- practice Decision making Opportunity Awareness Transition Skills Self-awareness

Decision Making System 1 and system 2 – thinking fast and slow.

What’s the best decision you’ve ever made? How did you make it? Head or Heart? What if I asked you about bad decisions?

System 1 System 2 Unconscious Involuntary Fast Includes emotions Images Conscious Voluntary Slow Avoids emotions Words

Rational Decision Theory Problem definition / identification of goals Generation of options Rigorous evaluation of options Choice based on utility So, there are lots of different conceptualisations of rational decision making. Just a brief aside here about where these theories and this evidence have come from. This theory is an economics one – there has been a lot of work on decision making within the field of economics – used for economic modelling, and some of the ideas that I’m talking about today have come from or are echoed within behavioural economics. A lot of the work comes from cognitive psychology, and some of it has been specifically applied to career decisions – it’s a bit piecemeal within the career literature. So this one is a classic economic theory of rational decision making. This is a Spock theory… Guidance? Link to guidance interview model

Flawed assumptions in rational decision making More options are better Other people’s involvement leads to worse decisions There is lots of evidence out there that having a choice improves how we feel about an outcome. Our satisfaction about a course of action is considerably higher if we have chosen it from a range of alternatives. So, choice is good. But what’s interesting is that this only holds when there are just a handful of options. There is good evidence that as soon as we have more than around 6 or 7 options to choose from, we start finding the decision making process more stressful, we are likely to feel less satisfied with the choice we make, and we may even find ourselves paralysed into inaction. So whilst having a choice is good, having too much of a choice can be a problem. So that’s the first problem – more choice is not always better. This research, as far as I know, has not been applied to a career choice, (although with the reckoning that school leavers have around 10,000 choices open to them, it’s no great lead of faith to suggest that this might apply in that arena). but the second illustration of this point has. Have you come across the notion of maximisers and satisficers? The next issue here is about other people. It has always been assumed in career literature and career practice that a decision should be your own. You shouldn’t be swayed by what your parents think, or how impressed your friends are going to be, or by your Uncle Bob, who swears that the army would make a man out of you. But the more we find out about this field, the more we see that the involvement of others is not only inevitable, but a good thing as well. 94% of us, and we’re influenced by all sorts of people – family, friends, peer groups, there is even evidence that we’re influenced by relatives from beyond the grave. And broadly, it’s all positive. The more supportive people involved in our decisions, the happier we end up. So that’s rational decision making – lots of flawed assumptions in these theories which might lead us to make worse decisions. But perhaps even more relevant and compelling… Happier with insinctive decicision: posters – asking people to analyse their reasons before making choices More options: jam and posters

‘No evidence of any kind of rational decision making process at all’ And perhaps most powerfully, it’s just not how we make career decisions. . Greenbank and Hepworth 2008

Strengths of the gut instinct It can process enormous amounts of data quickly It’s much better at thinking creatively It’s good when there is no definitive right answer

Flaws in our instincts Instincts aren’t very thoughtful about data sources Instincts are subject to biases We tend to be over-confident in our instincts There is lots of evidence out there that having a choice improves how we feel about an outcome. Our satisfaction about a course of action is considerably higher if we have chosen it from a range of alternatives. So, choice is good. But what’s interesting is that this only holds when there are just a handful of options. There is good evidence that as soon as we have more than around 6 or 7 options to choose from, we start finding the decision making process more stressful, we are likely to feel less satisfied with the choice we make, and we may even find ourselves paralysed into inaction. So whilst having a choice is good, having too much of a choice can be a problem. So that’s the first problem – more choice is not always better. This research, as far as I know, has not been applied to a career choice, (although with the reckoning that school leavers have around 10,000 choices open to them, it’s no great lead of faith to suggest that this might apply in that arena). but the second illustration of this point has. Have you come across the notion of maximisers and satisficers? The next issue here is about other people. It has always been assumed in career literature and career practice that a decision should be your own. You shouldn’t be swayed by what your parents think, or how impressed your friends are going to be, or by your Uncle Bob, who swears that the army would make a man out of you. But the more we find out about this field, the more we see that the involvement of others is not only inevitable, but a good thing as well. 94% of us, and we’re influenced by all sorts of people – family, friends, peer groups, there is even evidence that we’re influenced by relatives from beyond the grave. And broadly, it’s all positive. The more supportive people involved in our decisions, the happier we end up. So that’s rational decision making – lots of flawed assumptions in these theories which might lead us to make worse decisions. But perhaps even more relevant and compelling… Happier with insinctive decicision: posters – asking people to analyse their reasons before making choices More options: jam and posters

Training young people to make better instinctive decisions Acknowledging instincts but combine with rational logic: ‘What is your instinct telling you. Where did your instinct get that information from? Do you think it’s giving you good advice?’ Harnessing the value from others’ opinions: ‘What does your mum / brother / late grandmother think? And what has led them to that conclusion? What do you think of their ideas’ Using images and words to access ideas: ‘Could you see yourself doing that? When you close your eyes and imagine that, what do you see?’

Latest thinking- practice Decision making Opportunity Awareness Transition Skills Self-awareness

Self-awareness

‘Who do I want to be?’ ‘What do I want to do?’

Who am I? Values Interests Skills Personality Self-awareness

Identity awareness What has influenced me? Who am I? Family Friends Community Culture Race Ethnicity Media School Who am I? Values Interests Skills Personality Who do I want to be? Lifestyle Definition of ‘success’ Identity awareness

Identity awareness What has influenced me? Who am I? Family Friends Community Culture Demographics Media School Who am I? Values Interests Skills Personality Who do I want to be? Lifestyle Definition of ‘success’ Identity awareness

Identity awareness What has influenced me? Who am I? Family Friends Community Culture Demographics Media School Who am I? Values Interests Skills Personality Who do I want to be? Jobs Occupational identity Lifestyle Definition of ‘success’ Identity awareness

Possible Selves “Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves in a hypothetical future situation” (Erikson 2007)

Possible Selves – three stage model Step 1: identify a range of different possible future selves

Possible Selves – three stage model Step 1: identify a range of different possible future selves Step 2: imagine one of these possible selves in some detail, thinking about all different kinds of features

A possible selves intervention Picture in your mind’s eye, yourself in two years time Where are you working? What’s the atmosphere like? Who are you working with? What are your relationships like? When you arrive in the morning, what’s the first thing you do? What do you wear to work? How do feel about going into work in the mornings? When you tell people what you do, how do you feel? What are your weekends like these days? What do your family think about your new job?

Possible Selves – three stage model Step 1: identify a range of different possible future selves Step 2: imagine one of these possible selves in some detail, thinking about all different kinds of features Step 3: discuss what this means from a careers perspective

Latest thinking - conclusions Career decisions are influenced by a wide range of factors Lifestyle and identity matter The gut instinct is powerful and pervasive We are never going to train people to make rational choices So we need to embrace identity and instincts Latest thinking - conclusions

Thank you! Julia.yates.1@city.ac.uk