The Role of Personality Using the Millon College Counseling Inventory in Explaining a Variety of Career Decision-Making Variables

In vocational research, the Five Factor Model (FFM) is one of the most popular theories of personality used when evaluating the role of personality in career development. However, thus far, few other personality theories have been used in vocational research, such as Millon’s theory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how Millon’s theory, operationalized using the Millon College Counseling Inventory (MCCI), may explain career development constructs, above the FFM traits, in a college student sample. Results indicated that the MCCI explained additional variance beyond FFM traits in several different career variables (i.e., profile elevation, negative career thinking, career decision self-efficacy, and emotional and personality career difficulties). The MCCI “needy” scale explained the largest amount of variance in Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) scores. Additionally, the MCCI career confusion scale was most highly correlated with Emotional and Personality Career Difficulties Scale scores and with CTI scores, which illustrates convergent validity. Overall, the findings from this study suggest that Millon’s theory is another conceptualization of personality that can explain career decision making constructs and that the MCCI may be a useful measure in college and career counseling settings in identifying problematic personality traits that are most associated with vocational concerns