Farnia dissertation 2017

THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN PREDICTING CAREER INDECISIVENESS AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS A Dissertation by FOROUZAN FARNIA Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Fredrick M. Nafukho Committee Members, Helen M. Paetzold Ben Zoghi Head of Department, Mario Torres December 2017 Major Subject: Educational Human Resource Development Copyright 2017 Forouzan Farnia ABSTRACT The study examined the role of emotional intelligence, personality traits and positive and negative affect in relation to career indecisiveness. The primary purpose was to investigate whether emotional intelligence could predict a significant proportion of incremental variance in career indecisiveness beyond the variance accounted for by the personality traits and positive and negative affect among male and female undergraduate university students across Colleges of Engineering and Education at a research one university in Southwest, USA.

Data were collected from 582 participants who completed four survey questionnaires including the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (TEIQue), Emotional and Personality-Related Career Decision-Making Difficulties Scale-Short Form (EPCD), Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) and the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted and the results revealed that emotional intelligence added a significant percentage of incremental variance in career indecisiveness compared to the variances explained by the personality traits and affectivity. The study also sought to investigate the moderation effect of gender and academic major on the prediction of career indecisiveness by emotional intelligence. A moderated moderation analysis revealed a significant three-way interaction effect of gender and academic major on the prediction of career indecisiveness by one of the emotional intelligence dimensions, self-control.

According ii to the results, significant proportions of variance in career indecisiveness were predicted by self-control for men in engineering, men in education, and women in education. However, for women in engineering, self-control could not significantly predict career indecisiveness. The results were thoroughly discussed, implications for practice were explained and future research ideas were suggested. iii DEDICATION Dedicated to the lovely people of College Station who made me feel at home during my five years of stay in the USA.

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Fredrick Nafukho, Ramona Paetzold, Helen Muyia and Ben Zoghi. To my adviser, Fredrick Nafukho, you are the true example of mentorship, leadership and scholarship. Thank you for guiding me throughout this path, believing in me from the very first day, empowering me in every step I took, and offering your help any time I needed it. To Ramona Paetzold, thank you so much for all your scholarly input, critical insights and invaluable feedback, which developed this research beyond my expectations.

Learning advanced statistics began in your classes and continued afterwards in our countless meetings. Thank you for helping me become a better researcher and for being such an awesome person, scholar, and teacher. To Helen Muyia, you were a true mentor to me during the PhD program, not only in terms of research but also in teaching and above all, in life. Thank you for spending so many hours reviewing my work and for supporting me in every aspect.

I had my best moments of life when I was working under your supervision. Thanks for everything! To Ben Zoghi, collecting data from the College of Engineering made this research a lot more interesting and meaningful. Although it would have been absolutely impossible without your help, your support of me went well beyond data collection. Every time I came to your office, I left with a brighter mind and stronger motivations to move forward.

Thanks for being such an inspiring professor! v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES Contributors This work was supervised by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Fredrick M. Nafukho and Professor Helen Muyia of the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development, Professor Ramona Paetzold of the Management Department and Professor Ben Zoghi of the Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution Department All work for the dissertation was completed independently by the student. Funding Sources Graduate study was supported by a dissertation fellowship from Texas A&M University and Graduate Assistantship from the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development. vi NOMENCLATURE EI Emotional Intelligence EPCD Emotional and Personality-related Career Decision-Making Difficulties BFI Big Five Inventory PANAS Positive and Negative Affect Scale TEIQue Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.

v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES.vii TABLE OF CONTENTS. viii LIST OF FIGURES. xi LIST OF TABLES .xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. 1 The Role of Emotions, Affects and Personality Traits in Predicting Career Decision-Making Difficulties.

3 Statement of the Problem. 6 Purpose of the Study. 10 Operational Definitions of the Key Terms. 12 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE.

16 Career Decision-Making. 16 Emergence of Developmental Theories. 17 Career Decision-Making as a Process. 20 Conceptualization of Individual Differences in Career Decision-Making.

20 The Assessment of Career Decision-Making. 22 Measuring Career Indecision. 24 Measuring Career Indecisiveness. 25 Emotions and Career Decision-Making.

31 viii Leading Models of Emotional Intelligence. 32 Categorization of EI Models. 35 The Fallacy of Ability EI. 37 Theory of Trait EI.

37 Big Five Personality Factors. 40 Positive and Negative Affect. 41 Empirical Evidence on the link between EI and Career Decision – Making Difficulties. 50 CHAPTER III METHOD.

53 Purpose of the Study. 54 The Sample and the Population. 59 Data Collection Procedures. 64 CHAPTER IV RESULTS.

68 Assumptions for Interpretation of OLS Regression. 68 Variance Inflation Factors (VIFs). 71 Results for Research Question One. 74 Results for Research Question Two.

78 Results for Research Question Five. 84 Results for Research Question Three. 85 Results for Research Question Four. 86 Further Exploration on the Moderation Effect.

91 Summary of the Study. 101 Implications for Practice. 103 Research Limitations and Delimitations. 105 Suggestions for Future Research.

136 x LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Histogram for the Normality Assumption. Normal P-P Plot for the Linearity Assumption. Scatterplot for the Homogeneity and Homoscedasticity Assumptions.

Visual Representation of the Conditional Effect of Self-Control on Career Indecisiveness Total (TCareer) as a Function of Gender and Academic Major. 89 xi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. TEIQue Factors and Facets. Major*Gender Cross Tabulation….

Data Analysis Procedures Broken by Research Questions…. Variance Inflation Factors …. Simple Correlation Matrix of the Variables in the Study……………………. Summary of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis of Variables Relating to Career Indecisiveness Total ………….

Summary of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis of Variables Relating to Anxiety………. Summary of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis of Variables Relating to Self-Concept and Identity…. Summary of the Hierarchical Regression Analysis of Variables Relating to Pessimistic Views. 83 xii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Career decision-making is one of the most challenging stages of life for the young adults who are preparing to join the workforce as they often “struggle to plan their professional future in the face of practically endless possibilities they can realize” (Gati & Levin, 2014, p.

Such difficulties are experienced by a wide range of individuals, including college students, who have already made a choice on their major (Gati & Tal, 2008; Super 1980). The research into college students’ career decision-making suggests that even senior students do not necessarily believe that their “undergraduate degree binds them to a related career” (Lichtenstein, et al. As Lichtenstein, et al. (2009) further explained: Throughout the undergraduate years, students continue to struggle with career decisions—not merely job decisions— often contemplating professional options with no direct relationship to their undergraduate major.

For example, a student with a pre-med degree might choose a graduate program in law while a student with an engineering degree might choose a job in investment banking. Students can wrestle with job and career decisions late into their senior year—and beyond (p. As a well-researched topic in career psychology, career decision making difficulties are defined as “the difficulties encountered by individuals while making career related decisions. (They) refer(s) to all problems and challenges that need to be 1 addressed prior to, during, or after the decision-making process” (Saka, Gati & Kelly, 2008, p.

In a broad sense, career decision-making difficulties are categorized as either temporary and developmental, or chronic, long lasting and pervasive. Temporary and developmental difficulties, which are often called career indecision, are experienced by many college students and are part of the normal development process. Career indecision is not a sign of personality problems and is usually resolved easily by the individuals themselves or with the help of career counselors. The second category, which is often referred to as career indecisiveness, is an aspect of “more chronic and pervasive difficulties, mainly stemming from emotional problems or personality-related characteristics” (Gati et.

Indecisive individuals may have identity conflicts, anxiety about decision-making and dependence on other’s approval when making decisions. According to Salomoneh (1982), these individuals are unable to “make a vocational choice no matter how carefully they are led through a decision-making process” (p. Given the fact that the sources of career decision-making difficulties are diverse, several assessment tools have been created to diagnose the type of career decision- making difficulties among individuals. For instance, Gati et al.

2 Career indecisiveness is the focus of one of the CDDQ dimensions (under Readiness category), but the dimension “does not indicate the specific issues that contribute to its prevalence” (Gati &Levin, 2014, p. To identify these issues, Saka et al., 2008 introduced a taxonomy of the possible sources of career indecisiveness that “integrat(ed) previously identified prominent emotional and personality-related factors underlying indecisiveness” (Gati & Levin, 2014, p. It is referred to as the Emotional and Personality –related Career Decision-Making Difficulties (EPCD) and includes 11 categories grouped into three major clusters (Pessimistic Views, Anxiety, and Self-Concept and Identity). The Role of Emotions Affects and Personality Traits in Predicting Career Decision- Making Difficulties Individual characteristics could predict career decision-making difficulties.

According to Walsh and Osipow (1988), traits make people act differently in “the manner in which decisions are approached, responded to, and engaged in” (p. According to a recent meta-analysis study, there is a statistically significant relationship between the five-factor traits (Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness) and career decision-making difficulties, with neuroticism having the highest positive correlation and consciousness having the highest negative correlation with career decision-making difficulties (Martincin & Stead, 2015). People’s emotions affect the process of career decision-making as well. Emotions work in close cooperation with the cognitive system involved in the decision-making 3 process, and their adaptive use can lead to decisions that would bring more satisfying results (Emmerling & Cherniss, 2003).

As Emmerling and Cherniss (2003) noted: Emotions experienced during the career decision-making process may influence the number of career options under consideration, tolerance for risky career decisions, the amount and kind of self-exploration individuals will engage in during the choice process, how much effort to invest in the process, and how information related to career choice is processed” (p. The adaptive use of emotions, or being aware of one’s emotions and being able to express them appropriately and regulate them constructively to assist the thought process, is generally referred to as emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Although there are several EI models in the literature, two mainstream approaches to EI are recognized depending on the type of measurement used in a model (Petrides & Furnham, 2000, 2003). The ability EI is conceptualized as cognitive-emotional abilities in the domain of intelligence, measured through performance-based tests like IQ.

Trait EI “concerns emotion related dispositions and self-perceptions measured via self-report” assessment tools (Petrides, Pita, & Kokkinaki, 2007, p. Theory of trait EI (Petrides & Furnham, (2001)“posits that individuals differ in the extent to which they attend to, process, and utilize affect-laden information of an intrapersonal (e., managing one’s own emotions) or interpersonal (e.