Emotional and Personality-Related Aspects of Career Decision-Making Difficulties: Facets of Career Indecisiveness

Abstract

The current study investigated the Emotional and Personality-related Career decision-making Difficulties model and questionnaire (EPCD) by studying its associations with various personality measures in three samples: (a) 691 deliberating individuals who entered a career self-help website, (b) 197 students in a university preparatory program, and (c) 286 young adults from the general population. As hypothesized, higher levels of emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties, as measured by the EPCD, were associated with higher levels of neuroticism, agreeableness, perfectionism, and need for cognitive closure, and lower levels of extraversion, openness to experience, and career decision self-efficacy. In addition, higher levels of these difficulties were associated with a more external locus of control (LoC), and with being less advanced in the career decision-making process.