Working at a time when few women were active as researchers, Anne Roe provided a different perspective on career choice and adjustment and is now credited as being the forerunner of a psychodynamic perspective. Roe was particularly interested in individual psychological differences between people and utilized research and statistical methods. From the 1930s, she engaged in a range of clinical psychology research, for example, in investigating intelligence and learning disability, the correlates of alcoholism, the personality of artists, and the psychology of creativity. This diversity and working separately from the mainstream of counseling psychology enabled her to approach the topic of career choice in a fresh way.

In 1956, she wrote The Psychology of Occupations, which outlined her understanding of the role of occupations in both society and individual lives, early experiences and their influence on career patterns, and occupational groups. This work evolved from a systematic study of well-known research scientists and artists, where she gathered extensive retrospective developmental accounts to enable her to identify factors involved in career choice. The book publicized the two main strands of her theorizing about careers: the classification of occupations and the origins of career needs and interests.

Roe sought a scheme for categorizing occupations and was dissatisfied with those in existence because they were lists rather than being underpinned by an organizing rationale. She therefore considered research that had used factor analysis and developed eight occupational groups titled service, business contact, organization, technology, outdoor, the sciences, general culture, and arts and entertainment (labeled as groups I-VIII). Roe postulated that the first three and last two groups were careers orientated toward people, whereas groups IV, V, and VI were more orientated away from people. She arranged these eight groups into a circle rather than into a list. She developed this work further by suggesting six levels of occupation depending on level of responsibility, aptitudes, and skills, which she represented as layers below the circle (in a cone shape). Level 6 (the lowest) represented unskilled jobs that she believed were less differentiated than the higher levels, with level 1 representing professional and managerial jobs. Her classification groups were used both in many practical applications (e.g., to develop interest tests, group college programs, and as a basis for careers education) and generated research into a number of aspects (e.g., career aspirations of high school pupils, occupational change, and sex-role stereotyping).

Roe’s ideas about the links between occupational choice and developmental (especially parental-family) determinants have led to extensive debate in the field, with limited research support. Roe focused on the influence of personal experiences of varied parental attitudes in the early years to propose the individual channeling involuntary attention toward people or toward other phenomena. She believed that the degree to which parents concentrated emotions on the child (being overprotective or overdemanding), accepted (in either a loving or casual way), or avoided the child (via emotional rejection or neglect) determined the way in which the child’s subsequent needs and interests would be channeled and affected communication and organizational skills.

Anne Roe's career development theory was based on the work of. Asked Apr 28, 2017 in Counseling by Jahkoy. Anne Roe's (1956) proposed a theory based on Maslow's Classic theory of basic. Of personality development that trace different career paths to formative experiences in those well known early years of development (e.g. Attempting in the formulation of the experiential learning theory of adult development. ADVANTAGES  Anna Roe developed a classification system of career counselling that relies on early childhood experiences in determining career. This theory is helpful to choose the career of pattern learners.  Roe has contributed thoughts on the selection of work. Anne Roe's Theory Anne Roe’s major work on occupational choice was her book Psychology of Occupations (1956): In predicting occupational selection, Roe was very individually focused. An individual’s biology, sociology, and psychology are limiting factors in a person’s career choice.

Over a number of years, Roe and her associates developed two versions of the Personal-Child Relations Questionnaire to enable parental attitudes to be investigated, leading to scores on scales (two bipolar and one unipolar): loving-rejecting, casual-demanding, and overt attention. The complexity of differences in influence between two parents, differences over time, differences depending on sex of parent and child, and the limitations of retrospective accounts have all had an impact on the challenges of using this approach in career counseling. Roe herself acknowledged that her theories were less applicable to the complexities of women’s and minority groups’ career development. Many career counselors credit Roe with highlighting of familial determinants and considerations of life history in career choice processes. In her later work, she devised a formula that was inclusive of a wider range of variables that enter career choice processes and allowed for the shifted weighting of these over the life span.

References:

Anne Roe Theory Of Career Choice And Development

1. Brown, M. T., Lum, J. L., & Kim, V. (1997). Roe revisited: A call for the reappraisal of the theory of personality development and career choice. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 51, 283-294.
2. Roe, A., & Lunneborg, P. W. (1990). Personality development and career choice. In D. Brown & L. Brooks (Eds.), Career choice and development (2nd ed., pp. 68-101). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
3. Sharf, R. S. (2007). Applying career development theory to counseling. Belmont, CA: Thomson.
4. Simpson, E. L. (1980). Occupational endeavour as life history: Anne Roe. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 5(1), 116-126.
5. Wrenn, R. L. (1985). The evolution of Anne Roe. Journal of Counseling and Development, 63(5), 267-275.

Anne Roe Career Theory Concepts

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Anne Roe Career Theory Assessment

Anne Roe (1904–1991) was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Upon graduating from the University of Denver, she attended Columbia University, following the recommendation of Thomas Garth. At Columbia, Roe worked in the office of Edward Lee Thorndike, graduating with her Ph. D. in experimental psychology under the supervision of Robert S. Woodworm. The publication of The Psychology of Occupations would introduce Roes theory of personality development and career choice, her most enduring scientific contribution. Roe had no experience of careers or vocational guidance and counseling but was originally interested in personality theory and occupational classification (Roe, 1956, 1957). Much of her early research was focused on the possible relationship between occupational behavior and personality (Roe and Lunneborg, 1990). Ann Roe suggested a personality approach to career choice based on the premise that a job satisfies an unconscious need but Some refer to her work as the Person-environment theory which is primarily psychoanalytic, though it also draws on Maslows hierarchy of needs. THE PURPOSE OF ANNE ROE’S THEORY 1. To focus on the psychological needs that develop between the interaction of parent and child as it affects career choice. 2. To guide by attempts to understand, make meaning of, and utilize individual motives, purposes and drives to support career development. 3. To predict occupational selection based on individual differences, which are biological, sociological, and psychological. ROE’S THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Roes theory was based on Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs in the sense that in terms of career choice, lower order needs take precedence over higher order needs (The job meets the most urgent need). According to Onyekuru (2010), Roe employed Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs which depends on conscious or unconscious need pattern as follow: 1. Physiological needs 2. Safety or belongingness and love need 3. Need for self-esteem 4. Need for information 5. Need for understanding 6. Need for beauty, and 7. Need for self-actualization. This hierarchy of basic needs as proposed by Abraham Maslow (1954) became a useful framework, as it offered Roe the most effective way of discussing the relevance of occupational behavior to the satisfaction of basic needs. Maslow considered these needs to be innate and instinctive but (apart from physiological needs) modifiable, and proposed that the lower the potency of need in the hierarchy, the more it is suppressible (Maslow, 1954). Roe in kemjika (2008) maintained that the origin of these needs can be traced from the parental attitudes toward the child in the child’s formative experience. ANNE ROE’S PROPOSITIONS Anne Roe’s (1957, p. 213) propositions can be divided into two and they are as follows: 1. That occupation is potentially the most powerful source of individual satisfaction at all levels of need; and 2. That social and economic status depend more on the occupation of an individual than upon anything else. Roe, based on the above propositions is of the view that individual’s satisfaction and his socio-economic status in life is determined by his occupation. ANNE ROE’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO VOCATIONAL OR OCCUPATIONAL GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING Roes theory can be separated into two key areas: theoretical aspects of personality and classification of occupations. Anne Roe inspired by Maslows hierarchy of needs, incorporated the psychological needs that develop out of parent-child interactions in her conceptualization of personality. PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS Roe emphasized that early childhood rearing practices influence later career choices. Roe classified parent-child relationship patterns into three categories, each with two subcategories. According to Kemjika (2008) parents relate or interact with their children in one of the following ways: 1. Emotional Concentration on the child 2. Avoidance of the child, and 3. Acceptance of the child. EMOTIONAL CONCENTRATION ON THE CHILD (a). Over-protective Parents: parents who engage in this type of interaction are very warm, affectionate, caring and also tend to encourage dependence in the child and restricts curiosity and exploration. The child does not enjoy any privacy because the parents are over concerned with the child’s well-being. (b). Over-demanding Parents: this group of parents requests perfection from the child, asking for excellent performance and setting high standards of behavior. The parents’ love for the child is based on the child’s achievement and conformity. It is a conditional love. AVOIDANCE OF THE CHILD (a). Rejection Parents: parents in this category may be overly critical of the child or punish the child excessively. Every little mistake by the child attracts severe punishment from the parents. However, they only provides for the child’s physiological needs (food, shelter, clothes etc. ) and safety needs. (b). Neglect of the child: parents who adopt this parenting style Ignores the child for many reasons, such as parents concern with their own problems, other children, or work. They are cold and show no love. The physical care they provide is minimal. ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHILD (a). Causal acceptance Parents: Parents have a low-key attitude, offering minimum amount of love. The child’s needs are attended to when they are not busy. (b). Loving acceptance Parents: Here parents show a warmer attitude toward the child, while not interfering with the child’s resources by fostering dependency. Parents encourage independence rather than dependence and do not ignore or reject their child, creating a relatively tension-free environment. From the above, loving, demanding and protecting homes would produce children that are person-oriented in occupation (service). While homes that are rejecting, neglecting and casual will produce individuals that are non-person in orientation in vocational choice. These developed attitudes, interest and capacities can be modified later in life. OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION Roe,(1957) propounded eight occupational groups when she saw that occupations could be arranged along a continuum based on the intensity and nature of the interpersonal relationships involved in the occupational activities and in an order that would have contiguous groups more alike than non-contiguous ones. The eight occupational groups she posited were: 1. service 2. business contact 3. organization 4. technology 5. outdoor 6. science 7. general culture, and 8. arts and entertainment. OCCUPATIONAL LEVELS Roe considered the levels of difficulty and responsibility involved in each occupation and identified six occupational levels based on degree of responsibility, capacity and skill. The Six levels of Occupations identified by Roe (1956 1957) are: 1. Professional managerial: Independent Responsibility 2. Professional Managerial: less independence 3. Semi professional small business: Moderate responsibility for others 4. Skilled: Training is required 5. Semi skilled: On-the -job training or special schooling 6. Unskilled: Little special training is required. Individuals only need to follow basic directions. IMPLICATIONS OF ANNE ROE’S THEORY TO VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING Anne Roe’s theory has several implications to vocational guidance and counseling. Some of these implications are as follows: 1. The theory made it clear that the attitude of parents toward their children has great influence on the children’s choice of career later in life. 2. The environment created by parents at home can affect their children’s vocational choice and life in general. 3. Early childhood experience has great psychological effects on career choice and success in life. 4. The theory gives career guidance counselors insight into the patterns of relationship prevalent between the parents and their children at the home front. 5. It helps career counselors in assisting students from disturbed families on career choice. 6. It also helps the career counselor to make parents understand the effects of their behavior toward their children and the kind of environment they create at home on their children’s career choice and success. 7. Roe’s classification of occupation provided information on the various classes of occupation and the levels of responsibility as well as the capacity, abilities, and skills associated with each class of occupation. 8. This theory reveals that individual’s needs and interest at a particular time can be a determining factor for a career choice. 9. It shows that a person’s satisfaction and socio-economic status in the society is related to his or her occupation. 10. It facilitates career guidance and counseling relationship. CONCLUSION The relevance of Roe’s theory cannot be over-emphasized judging from the immense contributions made to vocational guidance and counseling and career development.