Social Status Identity: Antecedents and Vocational Outcomes

Abstract

This study extended the literature on potential antecedents and outcomes of perceived social status, or differential status identity (DSI). Fouad and Brown's DSI was used as a conceptual lens for examining the relation of supports and barriers to an individual's perceived social status and subsequent career indecisiveness and career decision self-efficacy. Results from a path model using 299 diverse undergraduate students provided general support for the hypothesized model, which included self-reported race/ ethnicity, social class, experiences with racism and classism and primary caregiver support as antecedents of DSI, and indecisiveness and career decision self-efficacy as outcomes of it. Differential status identity was tested as a mediator of the relations between the antecedents and vocational outcomes. Overall, the model was determined to fit the data well, but some paths were unsupported. Implications for research and practice using DSI as a conceptual framework are discussed.

College Student Psychological Distress: Relationship to Self‐Esteem and Career Decision Self‐Efficacy Beliefs

“…Our exploratory analysis of mean differences based on these participant characteristics demonstrated that students from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds had significantly higher levels of distress and lower levels of self‐efficacy for making career decisions. These findings are concerning and are consistent with those from prior research that have highlighted disparities in vocational development between White European Americans and individuals from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds (e.g., Fouad & Kantamneni, 2013; Thompson & Subich, 2011). Therefore, scholars and practitioners are encouraged to closely attend to race/ethnicity as an important person variable that has implications for students’ experiences of distress and their ability to be successful in their career development.…”

Development and Exploration of the Experiences With Classism Scale

“…The two factors revealed, therefore, make both conceptual and empirical sense and offer a multidimensional assessment of classism that may prove useful in advancing research on this phenomenon. Supporting this suggestion, results from a prior analysis of the larger data set from which the present data were derived (Thompson & Subich, 2011) indicated that correlations among self-reported childhood income levels and scores on the EWCS subscales for these college students were in the expected direction; self-reported income was negatively related to reported experiences of personal (r ¼ À.19, p < .01) and systemic (r ¼ À.30, p < .01) classism. Further, results from t tests indicated that individuals who self-identified as lower and lower middle class reported significantly greater 23.…”

“…Blustein's (2006) psychology of working perspective and his related research agenda is a notable exception to this oversight as he and his colleagues have worked diligently to extend the explanatory power of vocational theories and research to the experiences of an audience beyond middle-and upper-class college-bound youth. A few other vocational scholars have begun to attend to social class and classism in empirical research (e.g., Ali, McWhirter, & Chronister, 2005;Metz, Fouad, & Ihle-Helledy, 2009;Navarro, Flores, & Worthington, 2007;Thompson & Subich, 2006, 2011, and in a recent conceptual article, Diemer and Ali (2009) reviewed evidence to support the inclusion of social class and classism as central constructs in vocational development. They pointed to the relative dearth of vocational literature that centralizes classrelated constructs and called for increased attention to the interrelated constructs of social class, social status, SES, and classism.…”

A Multiple-Group Path Analysis of the Role of Everyday Discrimination on Self-Rated Physical Health among Latina/os in the USA

“…Evidence suggests that Latino blacks generally experience higher levels of discrimination (10) and are more likely to rate their health as fair/poor (56) than Latino whites. Likewise, discrimination and racialization influence self-identity (15), and thus is plausible that they too may influence one’s perceived social status (17). Whenever possible, future studies should also aim to account for racial heterogeneity in order to better explain the differential and paradoxical health profiles that exist among Latinos.…”

“…For example, discrimination can convey to individuals that they are devalued in society and are different, since perceptions of discrimination among racial/ethnic minorities are typically viewed and experienced as rejection from the majority (16). Although these studies have primarily focused on discrimination’s influence on racial/ethnic identity, perceptions of discrimination may also influence an individual’s perceptions of their social status, since it is also a part of one’s identity (17). In fact, research shows that members of stigmatized groups are keenly aware of how others perceive and evaluate them (14, 15).…”