Super’s Self-concept theory: transcript
Slide 1
Classic Career Theory, Part Two continued: Super’s ‘Self-Concept’ Theory
Slide 2
The self-concept segment of Super’s overarching theory is designed to account primarily for the individual’s subjective experience of life-span, life-space development.
Super adopted the term self-concept in order to focus on:
‘the personal meaning of abilities, interests, values, and choices, as well as how they coalesce into life themes’ (Super, et al, 1996, p.139)
Slide 3
In contrast to ‘Self-Concept’, Super utilised the term vocational identity to denote the observable and measurable traits of the individual.
Thus, according to Super, vocational identity constitutes the self-as-object, whereas self-concept constitutes the self-as-subject (Super, et al, 1996).
Slide 4
In elaborating his view of the latter, self-as-subject, Super defined a self-concept as:
‘a picture of the self in some role, situation, or position, performing some set of functions, or in some web of relationships.’ (Super, 1963, p.18). The significance of this statement will be explored later.
Slide 5
According to Super, the individual’s conception of self in a particular role serves to integrate aspects of their subjective experience of life-span, life-space development.
Furthermore, given the nature of the life-span-life space, it follows that the individual’s self-conceptions will be multiple and changeable over time.
Slide 6
Super therefore made a distinction between a self concept and a self-concept system- the latter denoting the interrelationship between a variety of role self-concepts – note the use of role here.
Super extended his formulation to include what he called metadimensions for both self-concepts and self-concept systems.
Slide 7
For example, Super regarded self-esteem to be a metadimension of self-concept and proposed that individuals with high self-esteem would be well positioned to make career choices (Super, 1982).
Self-esteem has been defined in the educational literature as the individuals subjective measurement of the distance between ‘self’ and ‘ideal self’ – the greater the distance between self and ideal self, the lower the self-esteem of the individual.
For example, I may have an ideal sense of myself as a patient parent, but find myself at a distance from this ideal when losing patience with the kids.
With regard to the metadimensions of the self-concept system, Super was concerned with delineating the system’s internal structure; this included the degree of scope, consistency, flexibility, and regency of the self-concepts within the system
Slide 8
From this Super speculated that, for example, individuals with inconsistent self-concepts would experience difficulty in making career choices/adaptations.(Super, et al, 1996).
Slide 9
Super described the relationship between self-concepts and career choice and development as follows:
‘Life-span, life-space theory conceptualizes occupational choice as implementing a self-concept, work as a manifestation of selfhood, and career development as a continuing process of improving the match between self and situations.’ (Super, et al, 1996, p.139)
Slide 10
It is important to note that Super conceptualised the implementation of a self-concept as a series of approximate matches between a changing self and changing situations.
Super described this as a process of ‘translating one’s idea of oneself into occupational terms’ (Super, et al, op cit, emphasis added). In this sense, an occupational self-concept is defined as:
‘the constellation of self attributes which the individual considers vocationally relevant; these may or may not have been translated into a vocational preference.’ (Super, 1963, p.19)
Slide 11
It is also important to note that Super used the term ‘self-attributes’ to denote the individual’s conception of their own personality traits (Super, ibid). Thus, as Walsh (1996) has suggested, Super’s notion of self-concept formation and implementation can be regarded as implicitly a trait-oriented perspective.
Slide 12
According to Super, self-concepts are formed and implemented through role-play, vicarious or otherwise. Furthermore, this is regarded as a process of compromise:
‘The process of synthesis or compromise between individual and social factors, between self-concepts and reality is one of role-playing.’ (Super, et al, 1996, p.125)
Slide 13
The formulation of the self-concept, which Super designated as the product of person-environment interaction, is portrayed in the ‘Archway of Career Determinants’.
Super described the ‘Archway’ as follows:
‘The Self (the Person) and his or her Role Self-Concepts are the culminating products of the interaction of the person and of the environment: these are concepts of self as family member, as pupil and student, as athlete, as friend, as worker, etc.’ (Super, 1992, p.41, original emphasis)
Here, self-concept is located in the various roles that are played out in the life-space.
Slide 14
In this slide we will look at Super’s ‘Archway of Career Determinants’.
The Archway has two features – a descriptive feature, to be found in the columns of the archway; and, a conceptual feature, to be found in the arch itself.
Looking first at the columns, here Super maps out the territory of the personal and social worlds – what he calls the ‘biographical’ and ‘geographical’ aspects of person-environment interaction.
On the left, needs, values, interests, intelligence, attributes, and special abilities are used as categories to describe the person. Note that personality and achievement are also identified as descriptive categories.
On the right hand column, community, school, family, peer group, the economy, society, and the labour market are used as categories to describe the social world. Note that employment practices and social policy are also included.
One interpretation of the right hand column is that it identifies elements of the social system – indeed, as we shall see in later presentations, this has similarities with Patton’s and McMahon’s systems theory approach to career.
Taking both columns together, the archway could be seen as an articulation of a career development curriculum – for example, a career development curriculum could usefully engage not only with the personal values of learners, but also how social policy and employer practices impact on career.
Moving on to the archway itself, here the ‘self’ is presented as the keystone – as Super states, self is the culminating product of person-environment interaction. Either side of the keystone of the self we can see the following: developmental stage and role self concepts. This serves to reiterate the use of role as a means of integrating the personal and social worlds. It also serves as a reminder of development – once again, in curriculum terms the archway provides a useful map of possibilities. For example, in the exploratory stage of career development, how might learners be helped to explore values (the biographical column) in the context of communities (the geographical column)?
Slide 15
To summarise, the comprehensive and systematic nature of Super’s theory has been widely acknowledged (Brown 1990; Hackett, Lent & Greenhaus, 1991; Osipow & Fitzgerald, 1996).
A wide range of instruments have been designed to measure the various theoretical constructs outlined thus far. Examples include the Salience Inventory, the Career Development Inventory and the Adult Career Concerns Inventory
Slide 16
With regard to the measurement of self-concepts, an eclectic range of assessment methods have been reported in the literature. These include the use of card sorts, adjective checklists and autobiographical techniques
Slide 17
Finally, Super was significantly influenced by personal construct psychology (Kelly, 1955). Indeed, he subsequently described the entire caucus of his work as being ‘held together by self-concept or personal construct theory’ (Super, 1990, p.199).
Slide 18
From theory to practice……..
Super acknowledges that each individual hasa plurality of self-concepts – that our conceptionof ourselves, of who we are and who we want to be are multiple, not singular.
Our self-concepts are experienced in the form of social roles – by adopting various social roleswe can experiment and trial our conceptions of self in the social, public world.
Slide 19
Furthermore, Super’s view of the self-concept as ‘seeing oneself in a social context
is significant.Here, he draws on the symbolic interactionism of George Herbert Mead.
In so doing, he borrows from Mead the concept of ‘visualisation’.‘Visualisation’ has an immediate practical application…
For example, when working with clients, questions such as: ‘How do you see yourself as a teacher…?’ and ‘How do you see yourself using a Masters in Educational Management…?’ ……provide the basis for anticipating and trialling possible selves in possible futures.
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