Facilitating Emotional Awareness in a Career Counseling Context

Significant research on emotion and career development has transpired in the past few decades. Regrettably, certain aspects of emotional functioning germane to the career decision-making process remain ambiguous. Specifically, kinds and frequency of affective reactions to career options along with helpful ways to assimilate this emotional information in the counseling experience are unclarified. In contrast, this study operationalized an intervention designed to facilitate emotional awareness and tested it with a sample of 451 undergraduates exploring career information. Using a descriptive research design, a frequency distribution of 40,207 affective responses revealed six noticeable recurring emotions resulted from participants’ reflections on career possibilities. This pattern, consistent over a 3-year interval, comprised the majority (59%) of total elicited affect. Moreover, a statistically significant higher percentage of positive emotional responses emerged with college students’ self-assigned occupations relative to computer-generated careers. Practical applications of the affective information for career counseling purposes are also discussed.