An Investigation of the Effects of Agency and Time Perspective Variables on Career Maturity

Abstract

High school and first-year university students (N = 395) completed a package of tests assessing positive temporal attitude, future temporal extensions, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and career attitude. I hypothesized that temporal extensions and self-efficacy would be the most important predictors of career attitude, because self-efficacy has had a proven relationship with career variables in the literature and, as a matter of logic, the degree to which people imagine their careers in the future should influence attitudes toward career formation. The results, however, suggest that the attitude one has toward the future is more important in predicting career attitude than the degree to which one can imagine a proximal or extended future. For older subjects, this relationship was associated with a sense of internal control.