Premium
Let the decision maker decide!: A case against assuming common occupational value structures
Author(s) -
WOOLER STUART
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of occupational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0305-8107
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8325.1985.tb00197.x
Subject(s) - value (mathematics) , matching (statistics) , set (abstract data type) , psychology , decision maker , social psychology , empirical evidence , cognitive psychology , positive economics , epistemology , computer science , economics , mathematics , statistics , management science , philosophy , programming language
In this paper a hypothesis underlying much of the current work on occupational values, in particular many computer‐based occupational matching systems, is identified and tested. This hypothesis, here termed the ‘commonality hypothesis’, states that there exists a fixed set of occupational values which career decision makers commonly or typically seek to realize. It is argued that empirical evidence for the hypothesis is far from conclusive. Two kinds of evidence against the hypothesis are presented. Firstly, it is argued that the case for the hypothesis is undermined by evidence from the recent value elicitation literature showing that people's values are often ill‐defined, changeable and prone to distortion by the means used to elicit them. Secondly, data are presented suggesting that when commonality of values is not assumed but instead career decision makers are encouraged to generate their own subjective values, the occupational values which emerge are idiosyncratic and labile rather than stereotyped and stable as implied by the commonality hypothesis. The implications of this for occupational matching systems which prescribe the value dimensions by means of which person is matched with occupation are discussed.