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John Holland Theory Of Personality

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Assignment 1: Theory Selection Career and work have varying meaning for most individuals. Some view their careers as part of their identity and status. For others, work is a means to support themselves and enable them to pursue other interests. Still others seek careers that are satisfying and provide them with an opportunity to express their personalities and values. People change careers often for a variety of reasons in today’s society. Some transitions are due to job displacement while others are voluntary. Furthermore, American’s are retiring at later ages than in years past. In order to assist individuals in obtaining careers that match their values and meet their needs, counselors must utilize a variety of evidence based …show more content…

By identifying an individual’s personality type and corresponding work environments, they are able to determine which careers are most congruent for them; resulting in more personal job satisfaction, stability, and increased job performance. To simplify the process of identifying congruent work environments, Holland created a hexagonal model to illustrate the relationships between personality types (Nauta, 2010; Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2013). Using this model, the career counselor can easily assist the client in identifying those careers that more congruent, somewhat congruent, and incongruent. It is believed that those work environments which directly correlate to one’s personality type provide the most congruence, while those that are adjacent are less congruent, and those on the opposite side of the hexagon will provide the least congruence. Once the levels of congruence are identified, the client may explore groups of careers that fit each within these types. Other key concepts of Holland’s theory include differentiation, which refers to the level in which a person resembles a particular personality or environment; and consistency, or the extent that each type is related (Niles & Harris-Bowlsbey, 2013). Holland typically focused on the three personality or environment types that most closely characterized the individual. However, some people or environments are more differentiated, or defined, while others may be consistent with several types.

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