Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Goal Instability and Superiority scales and other measures of career development. The two self-report rating scales were constructed by Robbins & Patton (1985) corresponding to Kohut's central developmental constructs of gradiosity and idealization. The Goal Instability and Superiority scales, and Career Development Test (CDT) consisting of occupational profile and career maturity scale were administered to 225 junior high school students, 274 senior high school students and 287 college students. The results of Pearson product-moment correlations indicated that both scales significantly related to some items and scales of career development. Regarding to career maturity, main results were as follows. The Goal Instability scale predicts the low level of career maturity. This suggests that a general instability or absence of orienting goals interrupt the spontanity, independence, and deliberateness of occupational choice. On the other hand, the Superiority scale could not always predict the immaturity of career development. At the younger stage, higher superiority can promote the career maturity. But it was also found that superiority was independent of career maturity or had partially negative correlation with it, in case of college students. These findings suggested that the ideas from Kohut's Self-Psychology, gradiosity and idealization, were useful to explain the process of career development and vocational behavior.
