Conflict in Career Decisions

This article was retrieved from American Counseling Association on 7/26/2010.

Cochran, L. (1995). Conflict in Career Decisions, ERIC Digest.

1995 EDO-CG-95-68
Conflict In Career Decisions
Larry Cochran
significance. First, studies of midlife career change
(Osherson, 1980) indicate the presence of intense and unresolved
conflicts from earlier decisions, conflicts so significant
that one can speak of a lost self. One value or set of
values is realized at the expense of a core value or set of
values, a loss that can eventually lead to crisis. Second, as
Taylor (1977) has argued, a person’s identity is defined by
fundamental evaluations of what ideals should prevail in
life. Becoming a person requires a capacity to articulate one’s
position with the depth necessary to determine compatible
courses of action. In this sense, resolving conflict helps one
become a stronger agent in shaping a desired life.
Solving Career Value Conflicts
Conflict directs attention and motivates individuals toward
a solution. According to Janis and Mann (1977), if the
conflict is significant, solvable, and if there is time, a person
is apt to be motivated (e.g., vigilant) to explore options,
gather information, weigh values, and strive for a solution.
Below are seven strategies that counselors might consider
as they counsel clients. The first four strategies emphasize
dissolving conflict (making it disperse) while the last three
strategies emphasize resolving conflict (settling it by resolution).
Correcting Judgments
Conflict is based upon judgments of options. Often,
these judgments are faulty or too extreme. In these cases,
conflict might be dissolved if misjudgments are corrected.
For example, the artist who is noted in the introduction might
find that commercial art allows more creativity than originally
thought. Corrections of judgments typically arise
through further exploration of options, gathering information,
and gaining experience. Corrections might also occur
through the consideration of temporal changes in occupations.
Beginning commercial artists might work largely under
the direction of others, but over time, they may become
responsible for creative projects. By suspending static judgments
of occupations and by considering how occupations
change over time, conflict can sometimes be realistically dissolved
and converted into anticipated challenges (e.g., to
perform well enough to earn more responsibility).
Expanding Options
Ordinarily, a conflict is limited to a range of options.
For example, creativity and security might conflict with one
another, but only within a particular set of options. By
searching more broadly, a person might discover options
accompanied by little or no value conflict. One should also
consider how a value might be satisfied in other outlets, such
as recreational pursuits, volunteer work, or civic participation.
Examining Influences
A variety of transient and extraneous influences can
make a particular value unjustifiably prominent. A peer
group, family, television, or a romantic relationship, can render
a salient value, upon closer examination, as not pronounced
at all. In these cases, it is important to trace the
basis for a value and try to determine whether it will be an
enduring desire or a momentary urgency.
Overview
A value conflict arises when one value can only be realized
at the expense of another value. For example, an artist
might believe that commercial art provides security, but little
creativity. By contrast, independent artists lack security, yet
enjoy opportunities for creativity. Across the artist’s range
of options, realizing one value seems to require foregoing
another value. In stronger cases of conflict, a person’s whole
set of values can be divided into groups that clash with one
another. In weaker cases, conflict might be limited to a few
values. This digest describes the scope of career value conflict,
its developmental significance, and some strategies of
conflict resolution.
Scope of Conflict
In three studies of conflict in career values, Cochran
(1977, 1983, 1986) found that approximately one of every
three significant relations among values was conflicting. In
one study, 84 senior high students rated 10 personally selected
options on 10 common values (Cochran, 1986). For
every pair of values, at least one student demonstrated a
conflict. Values that were particularly prone to conflict included
salary, freedom in job, security, leisure time, and challenge.
For example, the promise of higher salary might tempt
persons to sacrifice their free time or fear of insecurity might
frighten persons away from challenges. The diversity of conflict
was striking.
Even without evidence from the above studies, it seems
that conflict within decision making is common. Conflict
prompts a decision. If an option existed that met all of one’s
values, a decision would be unnecessary. Whatever option
is examined, there are apt to be gains and losses, and it is
this struggle between what to realize and what to neglect
that calls for a decision.
Developmental Significance of Conflict
Individuals typically embrace career values as means
or vehicles of value, not values in themselves. For example,
salary may forward other values (intangible constituents of
the good life), but it has no value in itself. The immediate
implication is that conflicts between career values cannot be
adequately resolved or understood in themselves. Rather,
career values are concrete ways to pose fundamental value
issues of a person’s vision of a good life. For example, can
one best attain a good life by increasing one’s capability of
acquiring goods and services (salary), by avoiding calamities
(security), or by becoming a better person (cultivation
of talent)? Now, when one career value conflicts with another,
fundamental questions arise with some urgency. Is it
better, for example, to have the goods most worth having or
to become the kind of person most worth being (Feinberg,
1970)? Conflict provides a natural entrance to fundamental
questions and meanings concerning a person’s implicit vision
of life, providing an exploratory depth that might help
persons establish stronger priorities and make wiser adjustments.
While there are many reasons for encouraging greater
depth in career counseling (e.g., preparation for coping with
conflict and compromise), two reasons furnish immediate
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Reconceptualization
Values might clash because they have been conceived narrowly,
vaguely, or in a distorted manner. In these cases, values
can be conceived more broadly, more sharply, or with more balance.
By helping clients to refine, extend, and elaborate meanings,
conflict due to faulty conception can often be reframed and
minimized. Also, a more adequate set of indicators (i.e., how
one could determine if an option had the quality desired) can be
identified.
Personal Change and Development
Consider a conflict between confidence and challenge. The
person feeling confident in jobs that lacking challenge, might
lack confidence in challenging jobs. In a case such as this, conflict
could be dissolved if the person became more capable of
undertaking challenges without excessive discomfort. Numerous
difficulties (lack of esteem, shyness, etc.) call for personal
development in order to realize other values (see discussion of
meta-cognitions in Peterson, Sampson, & Reardon, 1991).
Seeking Complementarity
As ends in themselves, two values might be at odds. However,
if considered as means to fulfill one’s vision of a good life,
incompatible values can sometimes be made complementary. For
example, salary and time-off might conflict with one another,
but each might also be important in forwarding a common end
such as the quality of family life. By seeing how each value
complements the other as means toward a common end, a conflict
is placed in perspective. A client can consider each value in
preparation for evaluating options and making wise compromises.
Common ends can be explored by asking clients why
they prefer, for instance, higher salary.
Setting Priorities
Perhaps the most natural way to resolve conflict is to determine
which value is most important. Suppose a client was faced
with a choice between a job that was interesting but low in salary,
and a job that was uninteresting but high in salary. Such a
conflict might be resolved by whether or not salary was more
important than interest. Sometimes, a priority is obvious. At
other times, a person must decide which value should prevail in
an envisioned course of life. The peculiarity of this decision is
that a client does not decide between options, but between values,
weighing their relative advantages and disadvantages for
the future. Occasionally, clients can transcend a conflict by considering
their priorities. For example, a client might find that
the conflicting values are relatively unimportant when they are
compared to other core values.
Conclusion
The techniques chosen in career counseling largely determine
the contents of awareness. Some contents are apt to become
visible while others remain invisible. Unfortunately, traditional
techniques of career counseling tend to make value conflict
invisible. For example, conflict is not apparent in interpreting
an interest test or a test of work values. Conflict can, however,
be made apparent through a career grid (Cochran, 1983)
and through some forms of discussion. In short, recognizing
and dealing with conflict requires a change in career counseling
practice. The immediate question, then, is whether or not it
would be worthwhile to make value conflict a part of career counseling.
In cases where conflict can be dissolved, it need not become
a focus of attention: future experiences might stimulate the necessary
corrections. However, if strategies are constructive (e.g.,
there is nothing wrong with searching for better options), conflict
in such cases need not hamper counseling with irrelevant
and negative content. In cases where conflict must be resolved,
it seems necessary that conflict be recognized, understood, and
dealt with in some way. Resolving conflict is crucial because the
clashing values have such strong developmental implications.

References
Cochran, L. (1977). Difference between supplied and elicited considerations
in career evaluations. Social Behavior and Personality,
2, 141-147.
Cochran, L. (1983). Conflict and integration in career decision
schemes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 23, 87-97.
Cochran, L. (1986). Conflict in the career decision schemes of
high aspiration youth. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 20,
136-145.
Feinberg, J. (1970). Moral concepts. London: Oxford University
Press.
Janis, I., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision making. New York: Free Press.
Osherson, S. (1980). Holding on or letting go. New York: Free Press.
Peterson, G., Sampson, J., & Reardon, R. (1991). Career development
and services: A cognitive approach. Pacific Grove, CA:
Brooks/Cole.
Taylor, C. (1977). What is human agency? In T. Mischel (Ed.),
The self: Psychological and philosophical issues (pp. 103-135).
Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.
Larry Cochran is a professor in the Department of Counselling Psychology
at the University of British Columbia.