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Two studies were designed to explore whether a meta-analytically derived four-factor model of career indecision (Brown & Rector, 2008) could be replicated at the primary and secondary data levels. In the first study, an initial pool of 167 items was written based on 35 different instruments whose scores had loaded saliently on at least one factor in the Brown and Rector meta-analysis. These items were then administered to a sample of undergraduate college students and the resultant inter-item correlation matrix was subjected to principal axis factoring with oblique rotations. A four-factor solution was uncovered that resembled the four-factor meta-analytically derived solution but with a few theoretically and practically interesting exceptions. A second study used two existing correlation matrices derived from Gati and colleagues’ cognitive and personality/emotional models of career indecision. Exploratory factor analyses of these matrices revealed that the current four-factor model could, in part, be uncovered from these matrices as well. The theoretical and counseling implications of the results are discussed and future research directions are articulated.

Black young men who have sex with men (BYMSM) are the group most disproportionately impacted by HIV in the United States and most in need of efficacious interventions to address community-level factors that increase their vulnerability to HIV. The House Ball Community (HBC) is a distinct social network within the larger BYMSM community that may be particularly vulnerable to social norms and stigma around HIV. This study tailored an evidence-based, community-level popular opinion leader (OL) intervention for use within the HBC. The intervention, called POSSE, was then piloted to evaluate feasibility, acceptability and preliminary efficacy. Recruiting opinion leaders from the community and training them to deliver risk reduction messages was found to be feasible and highly acceptable. Community-level surveys (n=406) were completed over 5 waves of data collection. Overall exposure to the intervention increased across waves. Statistically significant (p < .05) declines were observed for multiple sexual partners, condomless anal intercourse with any male partners and with male partners of unknown HIV status. HIV stigma declined as well, but the trend was not statistically significant.

Given the potential for negative psychosocial and medical outcomes following an HIV diagnosis, Project ACCEPT, a 12-session behavioral intervention, was developed and pilot-tested for youth (aged 16–24) newly diagnosed with HIV. Fifty participants recently diagnosed with HIV were enrolled from 4 sites selected through the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network (ATN). The majority of participants identified as African American (78%). Feasibility and acceptability data demonstrated high rates of participation and high levels of satisfaction with the intervention program from both participants and staff. Exploratory outcome data demonstrated improved levels of HIV knowledge that were sustained over time (Cohen’s effect [d] d = .52) and improvements in peer (d = .35) and formal (d = .20) social support immediately postintervention. Gender differences emerged over time in the areas of depressive symptoms, family social support, self-efficacy for sexual discussion, and personalized stigma. Project ACCEPT appears to be an acceptable and feasible intervention to implement in clinical settings for youth newly diagnosed with HIV.

Interest in the roles of environmental supports and barriers in career and educational development has increased steadily over the past few decades, enough to warrant a meta-analysis of this vast and still growing literature. The current study presents the results of a meta-analytic investigation, employing 276 samples drawn from 249 published articles ( N = 104,440), on the relationships of supports and barriers to nine different career and educational outcomes. Employing a random effects meta-analytic model and sampling and measurement error-corrected effect size estimates, the study found that supports tended to account for more variance ( M = 10%) across all outcomes than did barriers ( M = 3%). Several moderators were also found, suggesting that (a) men’s self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations are more strongly related to supports than women’s, (b) Latino(a) students’ levels of school engagement and performance are more weakly related to supports than White students, and (c) supports (and perhaps barriers) seem to be more highly related to elementary school students’ levels school engagement than high school students. The implications of the results are discussed as well as potential avenues for future investigation suggested by some gaps in the literature uncovered in this meta-analysis.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the potential preventive implications of career development interventions, focusing primarily on how school dropout might be prevented and school performance might be promoted. We first use social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a template by summarizing SCCT’s models of interest development, choice, performance, and satisfaction and outlining how these models can be used to design preventively oriented career interventions. We then introduce a social cognitive model of vocational hope that integrates SCCT with other relevant literatures (e.g., causes and consequences of school dropout, multicultural psychology). We define vocational hope, present hypotheses about how it might be promoted, and outline the types of short and long-range outcomes that might be associated with changes in vocational hope.

Gender differences in predicting subjective well‐being (SWB) were examined in 168 urban adolescents. School satisfaction predicted life satisfaction for boys; for girls, family satisfaction predicted life satisfaction and neighborhood satisfaction predicted negative affect. Self‐esteem predicted positive affect for both genders, but friends satisfaction and ethnic identity failed to predict SWB. Se examinaron las diferencias de género al predecir el bienestar subjetivo (SWB, por sus siglas en inglés) de 168 adolescentes urbanos. La satisfacción escolar predijo la satisfacción vital en los chicos; en las chicas, la satisfacción familiar predijo la satisfacción vital, y la satisfacción en el vecindario predijo los sentimientos negativos. La autoestima predijo sentimientos positivos en ambos géneros, pero la satisfacción con los amigos y la identidad étnica no fueron predictores del SWB.