Attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts: how attachment style can affect the career counseling process.

This article examines the relationship between attachment style, measured by Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (R C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), and dysfunctional career thoughts, measured by the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. J. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1994a). Two hypotheses related to attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts were tested with 46 adult immigrants (17 men, 29 women). Results show that both attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly related to scores on the CTI; increased attachment avoidance also significantly correlated with decision-making confusion and external conflict. Implications of the relationship between attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts for the career counseling process are discussed.

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Bowlby (1969/1982) reasoned that a child's emotional connection to his or her parent(s) creates a blueprint that informs responses to essential relationships later in life. Ainsworth (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) provided further evidence that a person's attachment response pattern can be secure, avoidant, or preoccupied. A securely attached person feels able to explore, yet is also ready to recognize and respond to attachment system activation by giving or seeking care. The person with avoidant attachment, often called "dismissing" attachment, tends to deactivate the anxiety associated with attachment activation (caregiving/careseeking) by focusing on self-sufficiency instead. The person with anxious attachment, also called "preoccupied" attachment, maximizes caregiving/careseeking concerns, being unsure whether attachment needs will be rebuffed or met with concern (Bowlby, 1988).

Although the construct of attachment status is generally associated with developmental psychology and attachment style with social psychology, Bowlby (1988) saw the defensive exclusion that occurs with insecure attachment as being rooted in cognitive psychology when he described how deactivation of attachment stress occurs:

 
  Amongst such else that is clinically congenial, this revolution in 
  cognitive theory not only gives unconscious mental processes the 
  central place in mental life that analysts have always claimed for 
  them, but presents a picture of the mental apparatus as being well 
  able to shut off information of certain specified types and of doing 
  so selectively without the person being aware of what is happening. 
  (p. 34) 

The construct of dysfunctional career thoughts (Borders & Archadel, 1987; Corbishly & Yost, 1989; Dorn & Welch, 1985; Dryden, 1979; Hornak & Gillingham, 1980; Krumboltz, 1983, 1990; Lewis & Gilhousen, 1981; Nevo, 1987; Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1994b; Strawser & Figler, 1986; Thompson, 1976) is also based in cognitive theory and related to a lower sense of coherence (Lustig & Strauser, 2002). This construct is also related to nearly all areas of career development, such as career exploration, commitment (Serling & Betz, 1990), decision making (Luzzo, Hitchings, Retish, & Shoemaker, 1999; Sampson et al., 1994b; Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1998), career progress factors such as performance quality (Erez & Arad, 1986), willingness to relocate (Brett & Reilly, 1988), workaholic tendencies (Burke, 2001), and job satisfaction (Judge & Locke, 1993). Even avoiding the stress of looking for a job may hide latent career thought dysfunction (Keim, Strauser, & Ketz, 2002). Fouad and Keeley (1992) found significant correlations between the career maturity construct of decisiveness and measures of accepting authority and responsibility. A case study by Whiston (1990) illustrates the importance of analyzing adult clients' self-efficacy perceptions as they affect career decisions. Perception of barriers to and facilitators of career goals influences career choice. For example, Perrone, Sedlacek, and Alexander (2001) found that intrinsic interest influenced choice for Caucasians, whereas anticipated earnings did so for African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

Most researchers accept that romantic relationships for an adult are also attachment relationships, but Hazan and Shaver (1990) found that individuals with avoidant attachment use work to avoid social interaction, individuals with preoccupied attachment permit relationship issues to interfere with work, while securely attached people value relations more than work without letting them interfere in their work lives. Secure attachment among young adults is shown to support career commitment and greater career exploration while protecting against premature decision formation (Ketterson & Blustein, 1997; Lee & Hughey, 2001; Wolfe & Betz, 2004). Tokar, With-row, Hall, and Moradi (2003) concluded that insecure attachment most likely has a greater effect on measures of chronic indecisiveness than on informational indecision. Preoccupied attachment is linked to worry and emotional dependence, and dismissive attachment to emotional distance (Dozier, Cue, & Barnett, 1994; Dozier, Lomax, & Tyrrell, 1996). Avoidant people argue at home over time spent at work (Hardy & Barkham, 1994) because, presumably, they find work more important than relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1990). To summarize, research links a secure attachment to a healthier balance between work and personal life and more confident decision making, avoidant attachment to a greater emphasis on work, and preoccupied attachment to a greater focus on personal life.