Adolescents' and young adults' reasoning about career choice and the role of parental influence

Adolescents' and young adults' evaluations of reasons used by adolescents for making career decisions, and the role of parental influence, were examined in interviews with 72 high school and college students evenly divided by gender and age (16, 19, and 22 years old). Adolescents' evaluations of career decisions were contrasted with acts involving prudential, moral, and social-conventional consequences. The results showed that adolescents and young adults supported adolescents' career choices for reasons of personal growth and rejected their choices when their decisions were based on interpersonal relationships or hedonism. Furthermore, career decisions were judged to be distinct from moral, social-conventional, and prudential issues. Parental influence was judged to be most important when the adolescents' decisions had negative moral consequences or focused on short-term goals; however, the use of bribery and threat of punishment were rejected as appropriate methods of parental influence across all types of decisions, with the exception of prudential concerns.