The Relationships among Calling, Religiousness, and Dysfunctional Career Thoughts in Public University Students

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among calling, religiousness, and dysfunctional career thoughts. Though the cognitive processes in the career decision-making process have been a focus of research in recent years, the relationship between career thoughts and calling has only been studied once and career thoughts' relationship with religiousness has never been studied. In addition, calling has only recently been studied as having religious and secular components. Study participants were students from a large, public university in the southeastern United States. Results showed that presence of a calling had a significant, negative relationship and search for a calling had a significant, positive relationship both with dysfunctional career thoughts (all CTI subscales and CTI total score). Also, religiousness (both RCI-10 subscales and RCI-10 total score) was found to have a significant, negative relationship with dysfunctional career thoughts (all CTI subscales and CTI total score). Religiousness (total of RCI-10 subscales) was found to mediate the relationship between search for a calling and dysfunctional career thoughts (total of CTI subscales, not CTI total score), but not between presence of a calling and dysfunctional career thoughts (total of CTI subscales, not CTI total score). In addition, religiousness (intrapersonal, interpersonal, and total) was found to have a significant positive relationship with calling (presence of and search for), except for the relationship between search for a calling and interpersonal religious commitment, which was found to be nonsignificant. Regarding the sample subpopulations, females were found to have higher levels of intrapersonal and total (RCI-10 total score) religious commitment and participants in social service majors had higher levels of presence of a calling. No significant differences were found between the majority and minority ethnic groups and underclassmen and upperclassmen. Regarding significant differences in variable relationships among the sample subpopulations, females who were searching for a calling had higher levels of intrapersonal and total (RCI-10 total score) religious commitment than males who were searching for a calling. In addition, males who were searching for a calling had higher levels of commitment anxiety and total dysfunctional career thoughts (CTI total score) than females who were searching for a calling. Underclassmen who scored higher on presence of a calling had higher levels of intrapersonal and total (RCI-10 total score) religious commitment than upperclassmen who had lower scores on presence of a calling. Lastly, upperclassmen who scored high on searching for a calling had higher levels of commitment anxiety than underclassmen who had lower scores on searching for a calling. No significant differences were found in the study's variable relationships between the social service and nonsocial service majors and the minority and majority ethnic groups. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]