Cross-cultural comparison of the effect of optimism, career decision-making autonomy, and family support on vocational identity

The purpose of this study was to investigate similarities and differences in the development of vocational identity and the role of its antecedents between Western and Eastern Culture. To examine the impact of optimism / Pessimism, career decision-making autonomy, and family support on vocational identity and to compare the interrelatedness of variables across cultures, structural equation modeling was used. American (N = 164) and Korean college students (N = 183) completed the web-survey that included questionnaires: (a) Career Decision-Making Autonomy (Guay, 2005); (b) Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994); (c) My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980) and (d) The Family Environment Scale-Form R (Moos, 1989). Optimism was an important contributing factor to vocational identity formation positively and intrinsic motivation was a significant mediator between optimism and vocational identity for both American and Korean students. Only with American, pessimism was a significant predictor of vocational identity formation. With Korean, extrinsic motivation fully mediated the association between pessimism and vocational identity. Family support was a significant moderator which strengthened or weakened the link from optimism / pessimism to vocational identity through career-related motivation across the culture but there were cultural differences in the moderation role of family support. Specifically, Family Relations (e.g., cohesive relationships with open emotional expressiveness and limited conflict) strengthened the relation between optimism and intrinsic motivation with American students and buffered the link from pessimism to extrinsic motivation with Koreans. Family Support Orientation Index (e.g., sharing various social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual interests and activities) moderated the relation between optimism/pessimism and vocational identity via both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation only with American college students. Last, Family Maintenance (e.g., emphasizing on organization and control to run family life) was a unique moderator with Korean students to strengthen the effect of pessimism on extrinsic motivation. Results indicated that optimism / pessimism, career decision-making autonomy, family supports are significant antecedents on forming vocational identity regardless of culture, but different mechanisms in interacting between individual (e.g., optimism / pessimism and motivation) and contextual factors (e.g., family support) exist in developing vocational identity with American and South Korean college students. The primary implication of this study is the importance of integrating the systemic and cross-cultural approach to address the different layers of contextual factors, (e.g., personality, motivation, family, culture) that contribute to vocational identity development. Further implications, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed