Fall 2026. Summaries of the 31 journal articles assigned in the course, organized by week according to the Course Schedule. Each entry gives the full APA (7th ed.) citation followed by a brief summary of the article’s argument, method, and findings.
Wang, M., & Wanberg, C. R. (2017). 100 years of applied psychology research on individual careers: From career management to retirement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 546–563.
A century-spanning review of career research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, tracing the field from its 1920s origins in career interest inventories through later expansions into career choice, career success, transitions and adaptability, retirement decision-making, and bridge employment. The authors provide a historical timeline, synthesize major theoretical perspectives and findings at each stage, and close by identifying directions for future research on career management and retirement.
Seibert, S., Akkermans, J., & Liu, C. H. (2024). Understanding contemporary career success: A critical review. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 11, 509–534.
A critical review integrating organizational psychology (OP) and organizational behavior (OB) perspectives on career success, comparing their differing strengths and assumptions. The article reconsiders objective and subjective conceptualizations of success, reviews predictor categories drawn from human capital, internal and external labor markets, sponsorship and social capital, individual differences, and career self-management behaviors, and proposes a research agenda addressing sustainable careers, career shocks, marginalized-group experiences, and alternative employment arrangements.
Ng, T. W. H., Eby, L. T., Sorensen, K. L., & Feldman, D. C. (2005). Predictors of objective and subjective career success: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 367–408.
A meta-analysis using contest-mobility and sponsored-mobility perspectives to organize four categories of career success predictors: human capital, organizational sponsorship, sociodemographic status, and stable individual differences. Objective success (salary, promotions) was more strongly tied to human capital and sociodemographic predictors, while subjective success (career satisfaction) was more strongly tied to organizational sponsorship and individual differences; gender and historical time period moderated several relationships.
Bateman, T. S., & Barry, B. (2012). Masters of the long haul: Pursuing long-term work goals. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(7), 984–1006.
Using a theory-elaboration approach grounded in goal-setting theory, the authors interviewed scientists and other professionals pursuing work goals spanning decades or generations to understand how people sustain motivation absent short-term payoff. The qualitative analysis yields a structure of psychological factors that enhance and sustain long-term motivation, culminating in an integrative model of motivating factors and self-regulation processes that extends goal theory beyond its traditionally short-term focus.
Rounds, J., & Su, R. (2014). The nature and power of interests. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(2), 98–103.
This article argues that vocational interests are widely misunderstood and their predictive power underappreciated. The authors describe interests’ key features, present evidence for their ability to predict career and educational choice, performance, and success, and argue that interests show sufficient stability across the lifespan to be considered distinct dispositions rather than mere expressions of broader personality traits.
Nye, C. D., Su, R., Rounds, J., & Drasgow, F. (2012). Vocational interests and performance: A quantitative summary of over 60 years of research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 384–403.
A meta-analysis of roughly 568 correlations from 60 studies testing whether vocational interests predict performance and persistence in work and academic settings, a claim largely ignored in employee selection research. Interests were meaningfully related to both outcomes, and consistent with Holland’s congruence theory, person–environment fit indices (the match between individual interests and occupational environment) predicted performance more strongly than interest scores alone.
Van Vianen, A. E. M. (2018). Person–environment fit: A review of its basic tenets. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 75–101.
A review of the three foundational principles of person–environment (PE) fit theory: that person and environment jointly predict behavior better than either alone; that outcomes are optimal when personal attributes (needs, values) match environmental attributes (supplies, values) regardless of whether those attributes are rated high or low; and that the direction of misfit does not matter. Van Vianen’s review of polynomial-regression studies of person–job and person–organization fit finds mixed support for fit’s explanatory power and outlines directions for future research and practice, including linking fit to individuals’ capacity to adapt.
Funder, D. C. (2008). Persons, situations, and person–situation interactions. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 568–580). Guilford Press.
A chapter addressing the long-running “person–situation debate” over whether behavior is better explained by stable personality traits or by the immediate situation. Funder argues that both dispositions and situations shape behavior, and reviews research on how personality and situational forces interact, including how situational strength constrains or permits the expression of individual differences.
Anni, K., Vainik, U., & Mõttus, R. (2025). Personality profiles of 263 occupations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 110(4), 481–511.
Using self-reports from 68,540 individuals and informant ratings from 19,989 individuals, the authors mapped Big Five and narrower personality “nuances” across 263 occupations, controlling for age and gender. Occupation accounted for 2%–7% of Big Five variance and up to 12% of variance in specific personality nuances; most occupational personality profiles were intuitive, replicated across self- and informant-report methods, and aligned with O*NET work-style ratings, with occupations that had higher-performing incumbents also tending to be more homogeneous in relevant personality traits.
Levine, J. D., & Oswald, F. L. (2012). ONET: The Occupational Information Network. In M. A. Wilson, W. Bennett Jr., S. G. Gibson, & G. M. Alliger (Eds.), The handbook of work analysis* (pp. 281–301). Routledge.
A chapter describing ONET, the U.S. Department of Labor’s federal occupational database established in 1998, which profiles more than 800 occupations across knowledge, skills, abilities, work activities, work styles, and other dimensions. The authors detail ONET’s hierarchical classification structure, its web-based tools for occupational exploration and career guidance, and its use by researchers, practitioners, job seekers, and government agencies as a resource for vocational counseling and workforce analysis.
Sekiguchi, T., & Huber, V. L. (2011). The use of person–organization fit and person–job fit information in making selection decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 116(2), 203–216.
Two policy-capturing studies examine how hiring decision-makers weight and combine person–organization (PO) fit and person–job (PJ) fit information, and how position characteristics shape this process. The authors find a nonlinear, conjunctive decision rule in which low PJ fit draws disproportionate attention, PO and PJ fit interact, and candidates with moderate levels of both are sometimes preferred over those with uniformly high or low fit; PO fit is weighted more heavily for permanent positions, and PJ fit more heavily for fixed-term or knowledge-intensive roles.
Wrzesniewski, A., & Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 179–201.
This foundational theoretical article introduces the concept of “job crafting,” the physical and cognitive changes individuals make to the task or relational boundaries of their work. The authors propose that employees actively shape the meaning and design of their jobs regardless of formal job description, and develop a model of the individual motives, dimensions, and outcomes of job crafting behavior.
Dierdorff, E. C., & Jensen, J. M. (2018). Crafting in context. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(5), 463–477.
Challenging the field’s near-exclusive focus on the benefits of job crafting, this study proposes and finds a U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship between job crafting and performance effectiveness (managerial ratings of proficiency and peer ratings of citizenship behavior), such that moderate crafting is associated with worse performance outcomes. Task context (autonomy, ambiguity) and social context (interdependence, social support) moderated these curvilinear effects, while crafting retained a positive linear relationship with job satisfaction and affective commitment.
Strauss, K., Griffin, M. A., & Parker, S. K. (2012). Future work selves: How salient hoped-for identities motivate proactive career behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(3), 580–598.
Across three studies, the authors introduce the construct of the “future work self,” an individual’s hoped-for representation of themselves at work in the future, and show that its salience is distinct from established career constructs and predicts proactive career behavior, including in a longitudinal design with a lagged effect. A third study shows that elaboration (detail and vividness) of the future work self motivates proactive behavior only when its salience is also high, positioning future work selves as a motivational resource for career self-management.
Blustein, D. L., Lysova, E. I., & Duffy, R. D. (2023). Understanding decent work and meaningful work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 289–314.
A conceptual and empirical review connecting two constructs that have largely developed in isolation: decent work (baseline workplace conditions to which all employees are entitled, per the International Labour Organization) and meaningful work (work experienced as significant and holding positive meaning). Drawing on psychology-of-working theory, the authors argue that need satisfaction is the primary link between the two constructs, that societal context, organizational conditions, and individual practices promote access to each (in that order of effectiveness), and they call for research integrating macro-level and psychological factors.
Thompson, J. A., & Bunderson, J. S. (2019). Research on work as a calling…and how to make it matter. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 421–443.
A review of the calling literature identifying four issues limiting its impact on mainstream organizational research: definitional inconsistency, poor differentiation from related constructs, weak generalizability, and unclear practical relevance. The authors propose an integrative “transcendent calling” framework that combines the inner requiredness of passion and enjoyment with the outer requiredness of duty and destiny, offering a path forward for future calling research.
Douglass, R. P., & Duffy, R. D. (2015). Calling and career adaptability among undergraduate students. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 86, 58–65.
In a sample of 330 undergraduates, the presence of a calling was weakly to moderately correlated with the four components of career adaptability (concern, control, curiosity, confidence). A moderated mediation model showed that concern and confidence significantly mediated the calling–career decision self-efficacy relationship, and that strengths use moderated the role of curiosity, with curiosity becoming a significant mediator only among students high in strengths use.
Berg, J. M., Grant, A. M., & Johnson, V. (2010). When callings are calling: Crafting work and leisure in pursuit of unanswered occupational callings. Organization Science, 21(5), 973–994.
Based on interviews with 31 employees across varied occupations, this qualitative study explores how people experience and pursue “unanswered callings,” distinguishing between missed callings and additional callings. The authors propose that individuals pursue unanswered callings through five techniques of job crafting (task emphasizing, job expanding, role reframing) and leisure crafting (vicarious experiencing, hobby participating), which produce pleasant states of enjoyment and meaning but also unpleasant states of regret and stress.
Dobrow, S. R., & Heller, D. (2015). Follow your heart or your head? A longitudinal study of the facilitating role of calling and ability in the pursuit of a challenging career. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(3), 695–712.
An 11-year, five-wave longitudinal study of 450 amateur high school musicians tracked how early callings (in adolescence) relate to later career pursuit (in adulthood) via perceived and actual musical ability. Regardless of actual ability, participants with stronger early callings perceived their abilities more favorably, and this perceived (not actual) ability predicted subsequent pursuit of music as a profession, highlighting a disconnect between calling-driven self-perception and objective competence in career decision-making.
Zhou, S., Aitken, J. A., & Kuykendall, L. (2024). Callings can take different shapes: Scope, proximity and duration as new complexifications of calling. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 97(1), 27–46.
Responding to research characterizing calling as a “double-edged sword,” this article proposes that calling varies not just in degree but in shape, along three facets: scope (narrow to broad), time proximity (immediate to distal), and duration (short-term to lifelong). The authors present a new model of these shapes of calling and offer propositions for how this conceptualization advances understanding of individuals’ lived experience of pursuing a calling, beyond existing degree-based measures.
Wiernik, B. M., & Kostal, J. W. (2019). Protean and boundaryless career orientations: A critical review and meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 66(3), 280–307.
A meta-analysis of 135 samples (45,288 individuals, 35 countries) testing the structure and predictive validity of protean and boundaryless career orientations (PBCO). Contrary to traditional theoretical distinctions, the authors find that protean self-directed, protean values-driven, and boundaryless psychological mobility orientations all load onto a single general factor (proactive career orientation), which is only weakly related to boundaryless physical mobility preferences; PBCO predicts career self-management and satisfaction but is less related to objective career success or actual mobility.
Rudolph, C. W., Lavigne, K. N., & Zacher, H. (2017). Career adaptability: A meta-analysis of relationships with measures of adaptivity, adapting responses, and adaptation results. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 98, 17–34.
Grounded in the career construction model of adaptation, this meta-analysis of 90 studies examines how career adaptability relates to adaptivity (e.g., cognitive ability, Big Five traits, proactive personality, optimism), adapting responses (career planning, exploration, self-efficacy), and adaptation results (e.g., career and life satisfaction). Career adaptability was significantly associated with measures across all three categories, supporting its role as a central psychosocial resource for managing career tasks, transitions, and setbacks.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Kossek, E. E. (2014). The contemporary career: A work–home perspective. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 361–388.
This article proposes a work–home (WH) perspective on careers that recognizes the interdependence of work and home domains across the life course. The authors elaborate on economic, organizational, and workforce changes affecting contemporary careers and apply the WH lens to four research streams: career self-management, career success, global careers, and sustainable careers, concluding that gender norms shape how work and home domains are prescribed and sanctioned.
Hirschi, A., Steiner, R., Burmeister, A., & Johnston, C. S. (2020). A whole-life perspective of sustainable careers: The nature and consequences of nonwork orientations. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 117, 103319.
Across two studies (five samples, total N = 2,679), the authors investigate nonwork orientations (NWO), the degree to which individuals prioritize nonwork roles relative to career. Study 1 found personality (agreeableness, extraversion, openness) and self-transcendence work values predicted NWO; Study 2 used latent profile analysis to identify five work–nonwork profiles, finding that individuals with a “whole-life” profile (high in both NWO and work role commitment) reported more work–nonwork enrichment and less conflict than those focused predominantly on either domain alone.
Perrigino, M. B., Dunford, B. B., & Wilson, K. S. (2018). Work–family backlash: The “dark side” of work–life balance (WLB) policies. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 600–630.
A conceptual synthesis of the fragmented literature on “work–family backlash,” defined as negative attitudes, emotions, and behaviors directed at WLB policies such as on-site provisions, leave policies, and flexible work arrangements. The authors identify four mechanisms operating at multiple levels of analysis, an inequity mechanism, a stigma mechanism, and a spillover mechanism at the micro level, and a strategic mechanism at the macro (organizational/societal) level, and develop an original conceptual model integrating them.
Flores, L. Y., Settles, I., McGillen, G. G., & Davis, T. M. (2021). Critical contributions to scholarship on women and work: Celebrating 50 years of progress and looking ahead to a new decade. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 126, 103490.
Marking 50 years of scholarship on women and work, this review traces the evolution of vocational and I/O psychology research from early group-difference approaches to contemporary theory incorporating gender-specific cultural and environmental variables. Using an intersectional and multicultural feminist lens, the authors describe the context of women’s labor force participation and synthesize contributions on workplace climate, work–family issues, multiple roles, interpersonal mistreatment and mentoring, and job quality.
Kossek, E. E., Su, R., & Wu, L. (2017). “Opting out” or “pushed out”? Integrating perspectives on women’s career equality for gender inclusion and interventions. Journal of Management, 43(1), 228–254.
This article integrates literatures on career preference, gender bias, and work–family explanations for women’s underrepresentation in leadership, which diverge on whether women “opt out” of or are “pushed out” of advancement opportunities. The authors define women’s career equality as encompassing equal access to career opportunities and equal work/nonwork outcomes, and develop an integrative multilevel model bridging individual and organizational, and micro and macro, explanations to clarify directions for research and organizational practice.
McWhirter, E. H., & McWha-Hermann, I. (2021). Social justice and career development: Progress, problems, and possibilities. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 126, 103492.
Using a critical psychology lens, the authors propose a definition of social justice for vocational and I/O (VIO) psychology and assess the field’s progress, finding that its historical focus on higher-income settings and relatively privileged workers reflects an implicit neoliberal orientation. They identify five macro-level marginalizing conditions, group bias, forced movement of people, poverty, unemployment, and lack of decent work, and offer recommendations for social justice praxis across multiple ecological levels.
Arthur, N. (2024). Culture-infused career counselling: Exploring narratives for context and social justice. In M. McMahon & P. Abkhezr (Eds.), Narrative career counselling: From theory to practice in diverse cultures and contexts (pp. 166–176). Routledge.
This chapter examines how cultural narratives, transmitted through family, institutions, and media, shape people’s meaning-making about work and career. Arthur presents Culture-Infused Career Counselling (CICC) as a framework for reflexive practice that attends to culture and context in exploring clients’ identities and social locations, critiques the Western, individualist assumptions embedded in many mainstream career theories, and closes with reflection questions for practitioners.
Wang, M., Henkens, K., & van Solinge, H. (2011). Retirement adjustment: A review of theoretical and empirical advancements. American Psychologist, 66(3), 204–213.
A review integrating theoretical perspectives on retirement adjustment and proposing a resource-based dynamic perspective to explain heterogeneity in how individuals experience retirement over time. The authors synthesize empirical findings addressing two core questions, the general psychological impact of retirement and the factors that shape adjustment quality, and outline future research directions for the field.
Duffy, R. D., Torrey, C. L., England, J., & Tebbe, E. A. (2017). Calling in retirement: A mixed methods study. Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(4), 399–413.
A mixed methods study of 196 retired adults first qualitatively identifies the activities retirees experienced as a calling, with “Helping Others” the most common category, and the barriers they perceived to living that calling, with “No Resources to Live Calling” most frequently endorsed. A subsequent quantitative analysis found that perceiving a calling in retirement related to life meaning and life satisfaction, with structural equation modeling showing that life meaning and living a calling fully mediated the relationship between perceiving a calling and life satisfaction.
Note: This document summarizes only the peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters assigned in the Readings folder (31 total). It does not include the accompanying popular press book chapters (Todd, 80,000 Hours; Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?) or podcast episodes listed on the syllabus.