Disengaging From Unattainable Career Goals and Reengaging in More Achievable Ones

Abstract

Participants were 181 university students who completed measures of career development (self-efficacy, perceived barriers, distress, planning, and exploration) and goal adjustment capacity (disengagement and reengagement). We expected (a) that when contemplating unachievable goals, those with a higher capacity to adjust their goals (i.e., to disengage and reengage) would report less distress, more career planning, and more exploration; and expected (b) that the relationships between goal adjustment and the outcome variables (distress, planning, and exploration) would be moderated by self-efficacy and perceptions of barriers. We found that those with a higher capacity to adjust their goals by disengaging and reengaging reported more exploration. Less distress was associated with disengagement, but not reengagement, whereas more planning was associated with reengagement, but not disengagement. Additionally, we found moderating effects for self-efficacy and perceptions of barriers; that is, having higher levels of efficacy and perceiving fewer barriers protected when goal adjustment capacity was lower.

Relationship Among Team Temporal Leadership, Competency, Followership, and Performance in Taiwanese Pharmaceutical Industry Leaders and Employees

“…Career development is the process of matching one's abilities, values, and interests with occupations that can accommodate these personal qualities and meet individual needs (Creed & Hood, 2014). After obtaining employment through education and training, employees often receive further job-specific training, to gradually achieve their career goals.…”

Capturing Serendipity in Careers: An Evaluation of the Planned Happenstance Career Inventory With Lithuanian Undergraduates

“…In theory, the two goal adjustment processes can function independently: Individuals may engage with new goals without disengaging from old ones and vice versa (Wrosch et al, 2003). In line with this, some authors maintain that career planning and exploration primarily refer to Goal Reengagement and individuals do not necessarily need to disengage from existing unattainable goals in such cases (Creed & Hood, 2014).…”

How Does Negative Career Feedback Affect Career Goal Disengagement? The Mediating Roles of Career Planning and Psychological Well-Being

“…In a sample of Australian university students, Hu et al (2017) reported a Cronbach's a of .82 for the goal disengagement scale. Career goal disengagement was negatively correlated with career planning (Creed & Hood, 2014).…”

“…Career feedback refers to information related to goal-directed activities of career (Hu, Creed, & Hood, 2017b), an essential kind of learning experience. Individuals review and integrate feedback from multiple sources, internal sources such as selfreflection and external sources such as supervisors, family, friends, and use this information to assess progress relative to goals to identify potential performance discrepancies (Creed & Hood, 2014). Lent and Brown (2013) in their social cognitive model of career self-management postulated that positive feedback will lead to goal reengagement whereas negative feedback will lead to goal disengagement.…”

“…Career goal disengagement could be a self-protective strategy to avoid future disappointment and failure (Creed & Hood, 2014) or could actually be the practically right decision to make, given available resources and constraints. Consistent with predictions of Lent and Brown (2013), in a study conducted with Australian university students, Hu et al (2017) reported that career negative feedback was positively related to career goal disengagement.…”