Article

Journal of Career Assessment

2017, Vol. 25(2) 183-202
ª The Author(s) 2015
Strategies for Coping with Reprints and permission:
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Career Indecision: Convergent, DOI: 10.1177/1069072715620608
journals.sagepub.com/home/jca
Divergent, and Incremental
Validity

Yuliya Lipshits-Braziler1, Itamar Gati2, and Moshe Tatar1

Abstract
The goal of the present research was to test the convergent and divergent validity of the Strategies
for Coping with Career Indecision (SCCI) model and questionnaire, which comprises three main coping
styles—Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping—using three samples of young
adults deliberating about their career choice. Study 1 tested the association between the SCCI and
career decision-making profiles, using a sample of 390 young adults. Study 2 tested the relations
between the SCCI and emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties, using a
sample of 454 young adults. Finally, Study 3 tested the associations between the SCCI and career
decision self-efficacy as well as the five dimensions of the Big Five Inventory, using a sample of 451
young adults. All three studies also tested the SCCI’s incremental validity by assessing its ability to
predict individuals’ stages in the career decision-making process over and above the other measures.
The results supported the convergent and divergent validity and partially supported the incremental
validity of the SCCI. The theoretical and counseling implications are discussed and suggestions for
future research are presented.

Keywords
career assessment, career indecision, career coping strategies, career decision-making profiles,
emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties, career decision self-efficacy,
the Big Five personality inventory

Making educational and career decisions is often a complex and demanding task. This decision has
become even more challenging in the 21st-century world of work, which offers a broad range of career
opportunities, a rapidly changing and unpredictable job market, career uncertainty, and economic
instability (Nota & Rossier, 2015). These drastic changes require the individual to become more resour-
ceful and to exercise career adaptive self-management behaviors (Lent & Brown, 2013; Savickas,

1
School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
2
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Corresponding Author:
Itamar Gati, Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.
Email: [email protected]
184 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

2013). Moreover, making a career choice is a particularly challenging process for young adults who
often lack the knowledge or experience required for informed career decisions (Amir & Gati, 2006).
While there are young adults who make career decisions without any apparent problems, many
others experience difficulties prior to or during the decision-making process (Amir & Gati, 2006;
Kelly & Lee, 2002). Career indecision is used to denote problems arising during the career
decision-making process (Germeijs & DeBoeck, 2003). Studies have focused on identifying the
causes of career indecision and assessing the difficulties that people may experience in their attempts
to choose a career (Brown & Rector, 2008; Gati, Krausz, & Osipow, 1996; Kelly & Lee, 2002; Saka,
Gati, & Kelly, 2008). Generally, there is a distinction between career indecision and chronic indeci-
siveness. The former refers to a normative stage in decision making, whereas the latter is defined as a
pervasive inability to make decisions about one’s career, primarily stemming from personality and
emotional factors (Osipow, 1999; Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al., 2008). Locating the causes of
career indecision is an important step in career guidance, as it allows more specific diagnostics and
related counseling (Gati et al., 1996; Germeijs & DeBoeck, 2003).
Career indecision is considered a stressful situation because it involves dilemmas and conflicts that
can be triggered by interpersonal, intrapersonal, and environmental factors (Argyropoulou,
Sidiropoulou-Dimakakou, & Besevegis, 2007). When faced with situations perceived to be stressful,
individuals typically mobilize different coping strategies (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Coping has been
defined as the behavioral and cognitive efforts of an individual to manage the internal and external
demands encountered during a specific stressful situation (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Young adults
who encounter difficulties in making a career decision try to cope with these difficulties in one way or
another. Some of them tend to feel anxious and may use avoidance behaviors (Argyropoulou et al.,
2007; O’Hare & Tamburri, 1986), whereas others tend to use problem-focused coping strategies, such
as planning, taking direct action, or seeking help. Coping has critical importance to psychological
adjustment and well-being (Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003). Therefore, an important
aspect of career counseling is not only to locate the focuses and causes of counselees’ indecision
(Brown & Rector, 2008; Gati et al., 1996; Kelly & Lee, 2002; Saka & Gati, 2007) but also to assess
their actual repertoire of coping strategies and help them cope better with their difficulties.
The importance of coping is well recognized in the career development literature (Argyropoulou
et al., 2007; Larson & Majors, 1998; Larson, Toulouse, Ngumba, Fitzpatrick, & Heppner, 1994; Lee,
2005; Weinstein, Healy, & Ender, 2002). However, previous studies have not clearly presented a
comprehensive theory for the construct of coping with career indecision. According to a
contextual-specific approach to coping, the use of coping strategies depends on the type of stressor,
and individuals often adapt their coping strategies to the demands of each particular problem (Folk-
man & Moskowitz, 2004; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Therefore, it is important to develop a
domain-specific theory that focuses on strategies of coping with career indecision and a correspond-
ing measure. Indeed, Larson and her colleagues (Larson et al., 1994; Larson & Majors, 1998) devel-
oped the Coping with Career Indecision Scale, which consists of four subscales (career distress and
obstacles, problem solving, self-efficacy, and career myths). However, this scale was developed to
distinguish among subtypes of students undecided about their future career and was not guided by, or
embedded in, a comprehensive theoretical model of coping strategies.
Recently, to advance our understanding of how individuals cope with career indecision, Lipshits-
Braziler, Gati, and Tatar (2015a) proposed a theoretically based model of Strategies for Coping with
Career Indecision (SCCI). The major concepts of the model were derived from previous theories
about coping with stress (e.g., Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993; Skinner et al., 2003). This new model,
which was adapted to the context of career decision making, consists of 14 strategies that represent
three major coping styles: Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping. The
first style, Productive coping, includes six strategies that facilitate coping with career indecision:
instrumental information-seeking, emotional information-seeking, problem-solving, flexibility,
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 185

accommodation, and self-regulation. The second style, Support-seeking, includes three strategies of
involving others in coping with one’s career indecision: instrumental help-seeking, emotional help-
seeking, and delegation. Finally, the third style, Nonproductive coping, includes five strategies that
hinder coping with career indecision: escape, helplessness, isolation, submission, and opposition. The
definitions of the 14 specific coping strategies are presented in Lipshits-Braziler et al. (2015a).
This model served as a basis for constructing an assessment—the SCCI questionnaire. The model
and the questionnaire were empirically supported in a cross-cultural study with Israeli and American
samples of young adults (Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015a). Furthermore, the validity of the SCCI in pre-
dicting career decision-making difficulties and career decision status was supported (Lipshits-Braziler,
Gati, & Tatar, 2015b). Nevertheless, there is a need for further research on the convergent, divergent,
and incremental validity of instrument. Therefore, the goal of the present research was to investigate
the construct validity of the SCCI among young adults deliberating about their career choice.
There is a wide range of potential variables for investigating the construct validity of the three
major coping styles (Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping). However,
as discussed earlier, coping should be conceptualized and measured within a specific context, such
as career indecision. We therefore focused on career decision-making variables that are conceptually
related to the construct of coping with career indecision. Osipow (1999) suggested that career
decision-making styles and self-efficacy are both cognitive variables that are significant in consid-
ering career indecision. In addition, he proposed distinguishing between career indecision and inde-
cisiveness. Following these suggestions, we tested the convergent and divergent validity of the SCCI
through its associations with the following characteristics of individuals that may associated with
their coping strategies: (a) career decision-making style or profile (CDMP, Gati, Landman, Davido-
vitch, Asulin-Peretz, & Gadassi, 2010), (b) emotional and personality-related career decision-
making difficulties that underlie career indecisiveness (EPCD, Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al.,
2008), and (c) career decision self-efficacy (CDSE, Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996; Taylor & Betz,
1983). In addition, we tested the associations between coping with career indecision and stable per-
sonality traits, using the big five personality dimensions (Big Five Inventory [BFI], John, Donahue,
& Kentle, 1991), which had previously been found to be empirically associated with coping styles
(see Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007, for a meta-analysis).
Second, we investigated the incremental validity of the SCCI by testing its ability to predict indi-
viduals’ career decision status (as measured by the RCA, which assesses how far individuals have nar-
rowed down the range of occupational alternatives under consideration; Gati, Kleiman, Saka, & Zakai,
2003; Saka et al., 2008), over and above that predicted by the CDMP, EPCD, CDSE, and the BFI.
The present research extends the career development literature by providing new insights into the
relationship between coping with career indecision and various career decision-making constructs as
well as the incremental predictive effect that coping strategies have on career decidedness. Providing
evidence of the construct validity of the SCCI will make it possible to assess potential uses of this
new measure in career counseling research and practice.

Study 1: The Associations Between Strategies for Coping with Career

Indecision and Career Decision-Making Profiles
To investigate the convergent and divergent validity of the SCCI questionnaire, we tested its asso-
ciation with career decision-making styles or profiles (CDMP), which are the way individuals
approach career decision making (e.g., the way they collect, perceive, and process information).
While the CDMP describes how individuals tend to make their career decisions (Gati et al.,
2010), the SCCI assesses how they cope with the difficulty involved in making career decisions
(i.e., ‘‘normative’’ career indecision). One of the distinctions between these two constructs is that,
unlike career decision-making profiles, which are generally stable (Gati & Levin, 2012), coping has
186 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

been defined as a constantly changing cognitive and behavioral process of dealing with situations or
problems perceived as stressful (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Although these two constructs are con-
ceptually distinct, they may be associated empirically. Therefore, in the present study we investi-
gated the associations between these constructs.
The CDMP model has 12 dimensions, derived from earlier conceptualizations of career decision-
making styles (e.g., Harren, 1979; Scott & Bruce, 1995). Each of the 12 dimensions of the CDMP
represents a continuum on a bipolar scale: information gathering (comprehensive vs. minimal),
information processing (analytic vs. holistic), locus of control (internal vs. external), effort invested
(much vs. little), procrastination (high vs. low), speed of making the final decision (fast vs. slow),
consulting with others (frequent vs. rare), dependence on others (high vs. low), desire to please oth-
ers (high vs. low), aspiration for an ideal occupation (high vs. low), willingness to compromise
(high vs. low), and use of intuition (much vs. little).
Previous research (Gadassi, Gati, & Dayan, 2012; Gadassi, Gati, & Wagman-Rolnick, 2013) has
found that for the following 6 of the 12 CDMP dimensions, one of the poles is more adaptive for
career decision making (i.e., better facilitates the career decision-making process) than the other:
comprehensive information gathering, a more internal locus of control, less procrastination, greater
speed of making the final decision, less dependence on others, and less desire to please others. Spe-
cifically, these six dimensions were associated with (a) greater decidedness (Gadassi et al., 2012,
2013), (b) higher levels of career decision self-efficacy (Gadassi et al., 2013), (c) lower levels of
career indecisiveness (Gadassi et al., 2012), and (d) lower levels of career decision-making difficul-
ties (Willner, Gati, & Guan, 2015). On the basis of these six dimensions, Gati and Levin (2012)
defined a measure of Career Decision-making Adaptability (CDA). A higher CDA score represents
a more adaptive career decision-making profile and hence greater ability to make a decision.
In the present study, we hypothesized that significant positive correlations would be found
between Productive coping of the SCCI (including information seeking, problem solving, self-reg-
ulation, etc.) and several theoretically related dimensions of the CDMP—specifically, comprehen-
sive information gathering, analytic information processing, much effort invested, and an internal
locus of control. In addition, we hypothesized that significant correlations would be found between
Support-seeking and the three dimensions of the CDMP which involve others in making decisions—
specifically, consulting with others, dependence on others, and desire to please others. Finally, we
expected significant positive correlations between the Nonproductive coping of the SCCI and the
less adaptive dimensions of the CDMP: high procrastination, slow speed of making the final deci-
sion, a more external locus of control, and minimal information gathering.
Based on the literature reviewed, we also hypothesized that greater career decision-making adapt-
ability would be positively associated with Productive coping and negatively associated with Non-
productive coping. We had no specific hypothesis regarding Support-seeking strategies. Finally, to
assess the incremental validity of the SCCI, we tested its ability to predict individuals’ career deci-
sion status over and above predictions based on the CDA.

Method
Participants
The participants were 390 young adults (aged 18–30) who filled out the questionnaires during their
visit to the Future Directions website (www.kivunim.com)—a free, anonymous, public website in
Israel aimed at facilitating career decision making. The participants filled out the questionnaires on
their own initiative in return for feedback about various aspects of their career decision making. The
data of 47 individuals were excluded from the analyses because (a) they reported that they already
knew what major they would choose (n ¼ 3; see details in Instruments section), (b) their responses to
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 187

the validity items of the SCCI or CDMP were questionable, indicating that they filled out these ques-
tionnaires with less than proper attention (n ¼ 27), (c) they reported that they had no difficulties in
making a decision (i.e., indicated 1 or 2 on the 9-point Likert-type scale [see details in Instruments
section]; n ¼ 2), or (d) they reported a low level of stress (i.e., marked 1 or 2 on the 9-point Likert-
type scale [see details in Instruments section]; n ¼ 15). Of the 390 participants whose data were
included in the analyses, 238 (61%) were women and 152 (39%) were men. The participants’ mean
age was 23.3 (SD ¼ 3.27), and their mean years of education was 12.40 (SD ¼ 1.14).

Instruments
Perceived Decisional Difficulty and Distress. To verify that the analyses are based on the responses of
individuals who indeed had difficulties in making a career decision and felt stressed by it, we pre-
sented the participants with two questions. First they were asked to report their degree of difficulty in
making a career decision (‘‘How difficult is it for you to make a career decision?’’) on a 9-point
Likert-type scale (1 ¼ not difficult at all, 9 ¼ very difficult). Second, they were asked to report their
level of decisional distress (‘‘How stressful do you find the need to choose a major or a career?’’; 1 ¼
not stressful at all, 9 ¼ very stressful). Those who replied ‘‘1’’ or ‘‘2’’ to one or both of these ques-
tions were excluded from the analyses. Our final sample thus included only young adults who felt
that they were coping with a stressful situation.

The SCCI. The SCCI (Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015a) assesses individuals’ strategies for coping with
career indecision and includes 45 items (listed in Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015a): one warm-up item,
2 validity items, and 42 items representing the 14 subscales. Participants were asked to rate how well
each item describes them on a 9-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ does not describe me at all, 9 ¼
describes me very well). Lipshits-Braziler et al. (2015a) reported a median Cronbach a (Ca)
internal-consistency reliability estimate of .84 for the 14 coping subscales (range .70–.90) and Ca
of .86, .92, and .88 for the three major scales (Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproduc-
tive coping, respectively) for the Hebrew version of the SCCI. The median Ca internal-consistency
reliability estimate of the 14 subscales in the present sample was .82 (range .68–.91). The reliabil-
ities of the three major scales were adequate: .85, .91, and .86 for Productive coping, Support-seek-
ing, and Nonproductive coping, respectively. Moderate to low correlations were found among these
scales: r ¼ .16 between Productive coping and Support-seeking, r ¼ .38 between Support-seeking
and Nonproductive coping, and r ¼ .14 between Productive and Nonproductive coping. The low
magnitude of the associations between the three major scales indicates that they tap into different
aspects of coping. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Lipshits-Braziler et al. (2015a)
reported that the SCCI structure was supported for both Israeli (w2/df [2650.16/799] ¼ 3.32, root
mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] ¼ .053, comparative fit index [CFI] ¼ .90, and stan-
dardized root mean square residual [SRMR] ¼ .09) and American (w2 /df [1736.09/799] ¼ 2.17,
RMSEA ¼ .055, CFI ¼ .91, and SRMR ¼ .10) samples. In the present sample, the goodness-of-
fit statistics were similar (w2/df [1774.3 /799] ¼ 2.22, RMSEA ¼ .056, CFI ¼ .89, and SRMR ¼ .10).

The CDMP. The CDMP (Gati et al., 2010; Gati & Levin, 2012) assesses individuals’ career decision-
making profiles and includes 39 items representing the 12 dimensions of the CDMP (3 statements
for each dimension, a warm-up item, and 2 validity items). The participants were asked to rate how
much they agree with each statement on a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ don’t agree at all, 7 ¼
highly agree). The internal-consistency, test–retest reliabilities, 1-year stability, concurrent validity,
and incremental validity of the CDMP were supported (Gadassi et al., 2013; Gati & Levin, 2012;
Gati, Gadassi, & Mashiah-Cohen, 2012). Based on Israeli and U. S. samples of young adults, Gati
et al. (2012) reported a median Ca internal-consistency reliability of .81 and .82 for the 12
188 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

dimensions (range .77 to .92 and .75 to .88). The median Ca internal-consistency reliability estimate
of the twelve dimensions in the present sample was .80 (range .72 to .90).

The CDA. The career decision-making adaptability score (Gati & Levin, 2012) derived from the
CDMP was computed as the mean of the following six dimensions (after reversing the scores of the
last three): information gathering, locus of control, speed of making the final decision, procrastina-
tion, dependence on others, and desire to please others. The concurrent validity of the CDA was
supported by its pattern of correlations with the career decision self-efficacy (Gadassi et al.,
2013), the career decision-making difficulties (Willner et al., 2015), and the emotional and person-
ality-related career decision-making difficulties (Gadassi et al., 2012). Vertsberger and Gati (2015)
reported that the Cronbach a internal-consistency reliability of the CDA was .87. In the present
study, the internal consistency reliability of the CDA was .85.

Range of Considered Alternatives (RCA). The RCA is a self-report measure aimed at assessing how far
individuals have narrowed down the range of occupational alternatives under consideration, reflect-
ing their career decision status (Gati et al., 2003; Saka et al., 2008). The participants were required to
choose the one statement that best described their decision status: (1) ‘‘I do not even have a general
direction’’; (2) ‘‘I have only a general direction’’; (3) ‘‘I am deliberating among a small number of
specific occupations (majors)’’; (4) ‘‘I am considering a specific occupation (major), but would like
to explore other options before I make my decision’’; (5) ‘‘I know which occupation (major) I am
interested in, but I would like to feel sure of my choice’’; and (6) ‘‘I am already sure of the occu-
pation (major) I will choose’’. The RCA has been found useful in measuring advancement toward
making a career decision (Saka et al., 2008) and assessing the effects of career intervention (Gati
et al., 2003). The participants who marked option 6, indicating that they were decided and not delib-
erating, were excluded from the analyses.

Procedure
The participants who chose to fill out the SCCI, one of the self-report questionnaires on the Future
Direction website, were then directed to fill out the CDMP as well. Using this order allowed us to
first discover the participants’ coping strategies and only then elicit their career decision-making
profiles so that introspection on how they make decisions would not affect their report regarding the
strategies they use to cope with career indecision. After completing both questionnaires, the parti-
cipants responded to the RCA question and reported general demographic information. The total
time needed to fill out the questionnaires ranged from 15 to 20 min. Finally, the participants received
personalized feedback about their coping strategies and their career decision-making profile, based
on their responses to the SCCI and CDMP.

Results
The Convergent and Divergent Validity of the SCCI
To test the convergent and divergent validity of the SCCI, we computed the Pearson correlations
between the SCCI and the CDMP. These correlations, as well as the means (and SDs) of the three
SCCI scale scores and those of the 12 CDMP dimension scores, are presented in Table 1. Due to the
large N (¼ 390), which results in statistical significance even for negligible correlations, we regard
only associations with a correlation of r  |.20| as worth attention, while correlations of r  |.30|,
reflecting a substantial association, are presented in bold.
As hypothesized, Productive coping was positively correlated with information gathering, infor-
mation processing, and effort invested. Support-seeking coping was positively correlated with
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 189

Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the SCCI Scales With the CDMP Dimensions and
the CDA.

Mean SD Productive Coping Support-Seeking Nonproductive Coping

IG much 4.38 1.48 .36* .13* .30*

IP analytic 4.24 1.39 .51* .07 .10
LC internal 4.99 1.57 .02 .13* .25*
EI much 4.79 1.34 .41* .20* .09
Pr high 4.16 1.81 .29* .18* .55*
Sp fast 3.01 1.48 .07 .35* .41*
Co frequent 5.08 1.44 .08 .49* .11
DO high 3.25 1.64 .21* .48* .41*
DP high 2.94 1.53 .11 .34* .39*
AI high 5.27 1.28 .12 .01 .07
WC high 3.93 1.49 .15* .13* .15*
UI much 4.32 1.40 .02 .00 .14*
CDA 4.34 0.97 .29* .44* .64*
Mean (SD) 5.77 (1.14) 5.26 (1.84) 4.92 (1.42)

Note. N ¼ 390. Correlations above |.30| are in bold. SCCI ¼ Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision; CDMP ¼ Career
Decision-Making Profiles; CDA ¼ Career Decision-making Adaptability; IG ¼ information gathering; IP ¼ information pro-
cessing; LC ¼ locus of control; EI ¼ effort invested; Pr ¼ procrastination; Sp ¼ speed of making the final decision; Co ¼
consulting with others; DO ¼ dependence on others; DP ¼ desire to please; AI ¼ aspiration for an ideal occupation;
WC ¼ willingness to compromise; UI ¼ using intuition.
*p < .01.

consulting with others, dependence on others, and desire to please others, and negatively correlated
with speed of making the final decision. In addition, as hypothesized, Nonproductive coping was
positively correlated with procrastination, dependence on others, and desire to please others,
and negatively correlated with information gathering and speed of making the final decision. Finally,
as can be seen in Table 1, Productive coping was positively correlated with CDA score (r ¼ .29),
whereas Support-seeking and Nonproductive coping were negatively correlated with CDA score
(r ¼ .44 and r ¼ .64, respectively). These results support the convergent and divergent validity
of the SCCI.

The Incremental Validity of the SCCI

To investigate the SCCI’s incremental validity, we carried out a hierarchical multiple regression
analysis to test the unique contribution of the three major SCCI scales in predicting the RCA score,
over and above that of the CDA. First, the CDA score (which was derived from the CDMP) was
entered at Step 1, and then the three major SCCI scores (for Productive coping, Support-seeking,
and Nonproductive coping) were entered at Step 2, to assess their direct effects on career decision
status. The CDA accounted for a significant 4.9% of the variance in career decision status F(1, 388)
¼ 19.98, p < .001. Young adults who had a higher CDA score also reported a more advanced career
decision status (b ¼ .22, p < .001). Adding the three major SCCI scale scores increased the
accounted-for variance by 4.7%, F(3, 385) ¼ 6.69, p < .001, thus doubling the percentage of the var-
iance accounted for by decision status. Specifically, two of the three SCCI scales contributed signif-
icantly to the prediction of career decision status: young adults who reported using more Productive
coping strategies (b ¼ .21, p < .001) and fewer Nonproductive coping strategies (b ¼ .14, p ¼ .03)
also reported a more advanced career decision status. When the three SCCI scales were entered, the
CDA had no longer a significant contribution to the prediction (b ¼ .07, p ¼ .29). In summary, the
190 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

Productive and Nonproductive coping strategies predicted career decision status, over and above the
CDA score, thus supporting the incremental validity of the SCCI.

Discussion
In the present study, we investigated the associations between the SCCI scale scores (Productive
coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping), on the one hand, and the 12 CDMP dimension
scores and the index of CDA derived from it, on the other. Our results showed that each of the three
SCCI scales is strongly associated with some CDMP dimensions, though not with all of them, thus
supporting the convergent and discriminant validity of the SCCI. This pattern has interesting theo-
retical implications, as it demonstrates the extent of the empirical overlap between two constructs—
coping with career indecision (as measured by the SCCI) and career decision-making profiles
(as measured by the CDMP), showing that they are related but distinct constructs. Specifically,
Productive coping was strongly positively associated with the three dimensions of the CDMP that
focus on the more cognitive aspects of career decision making—more comprehensive information
gathering, analytic information processing, and much effort invested. Interestingly, Ginevra, Nota,
Soresi, and Gati (2012) found that the same three dimensions of the CDMP are associated with the
construct of problem-solving appraisal, which has previously been found to be connected with
productive coping (see Heppner, Witty, & Dixon, 2004, for a review).
However, contrary to our hypothesis, Productive coping was not associated with internal locus of
control. This finding is incompatible with Folkman’s (1984) view that individuals with an internal
locus of control will eventually face and resolve conflicts directly through problem-solving and
other productive coping strategies. In addition, we found that Support-seeking was positively corre-
lated with the three dimensions of the CDMP which involve others in the career decision-making
process—consulting with others, dependence on others, and desire to please others, and negatively
correlated with speed of making the final decision. These results are compatible with the findings of
Vertsberger and Gati (2015) that the inclination to seek help among young adults was associated
with frequent consulting with others and slow speed of making the final decision. However, the pat-
tern of the associations between the three strategies in the Support-seeking style (i.e., instrumental
help-seeking, emotional help-seeking, and delegation) and the CDMP dimensions varied. Specifi-
cally, these three coping strategies are positively correlated with frequent consulting with others.
However, while instrumental help-seeking was strongly associated with adaptive CDMP dimen-
sions, such as much effort invested in the process (Gadassi et al., 2012, 2013), we found emotional
help-seeking and delegation to be strongly correlated with more maladaptive poles of the CDMP
dimensions (Gadassi et al., 2012, 2013), such high dependence on others, high desire to please oth-
ers, and slow speed of making the final decision. These results are compatible with those of Lipshits-
Braziler et al. (2015a), which showed that delegation and emotional help-seeking were associated
with Nonproductive coping, whereas instrumental help-seeking was associated with Productive cop-
ing, in addition to their primary factor, Support-seeking.
We also found that Nonproductive coping was correlated with the more maladaptive dimensions of
the CDMP (Gadassi et al., 2012, 2013), such as high procrastination, high dependence on others, and
desire to please others, minimal information gathering, and slow speed of making the final decision.
Moreover, in the present research, CDA score, derived from the CDMP, was found to have strong,
significant negative associations with both Nonproductive coping and Support-seeking, while it had
a positive but moderate association with Productive coping. These results are consistent with those
reported in the literature on coping with stress, which indicate that avoidant strategies are consistently
associated with detrimental psychological outcomes, whereas support-seeking and problem-focused
forms of coping are associated sometimes with positive outcomes, sometimes with negative ones, and
sometimes with neither, depending on the characteristics of the stressful encounter (Folkman &
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 191

Moskowitz, 2004; Skinner et al., 2003). Finally, the regression analysis showed that more use of Pro-
ductive coping strategies and less use of Nonproductive coping strategies predicted a more advanced
career decision status, more so the CDA, thus supporting the incremental validity of the SCCI.
Furthermore, while previous research found the CDMP to be highly stable over a 1-year period
(Gati & Levin, 2012), research using the SCCI found that young adults who were deliberating about
their career choice changed their coping strategies over a 6-month period (Lipshits-Braziler et al.,
2015b), indicating that this construct is more situational than stable (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004;
Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Therefore, it could be argued that the way individuals make career deci-
sions affects their repertoire of coping behaviors. However, as our study was cross-sectional, future
research is required to determine whether there is a causal relationship between these two constructs.

Study 2: The Associations Between Strategies for Coping with

Career Indecision and Emotional and Personality-related Career
Decision-making Difficulties
To further the investigation of the convergent and incremental validity of the SCCI, we tested its
associations with the emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties that
underlie career indecisiveness (EPCD, Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al., 2008). Saka and her col-
leagues (Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al., 2008) developed a theoretical model, and the EPCD ques-
tionnaire based on it, to locate the causes of career indecisiveness. The EPCD, which focuses on the
more pervasive, chronic career decision-making difficulties, comprises three major scales: Pessimis-
tic Views, Anxiety, and Uncrystallized Self-concept and Identity. The Pessimistic Views scale
involves negative cognitive biases and perceptions associated with the decision-making process and
the world of work, as well as pessimistic views of individuals’ control over the process, the choice,
and the outcome. The Anxiety scale describes individuals’ anxiety about the decision-making pro-
cess and its outcomes. The Self-concept and Identity scale describes difficulties in forming a stable,
independent vocational identity.
Previous research showed that high levels of emotional and personality-related difficulties hinder
the career decision-making process (Gati et al., 2011; Saka & Gati, 2007). Therefore, we hypothe-
sized that having more emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties would
be associated with greater use of Nonproductive coping strategies and less use of Productive coping
ones. We had no specific hypothesis regarding Support-seeking strategies. In addition, to assess the
incremental validity of the SCCI, we tested its ability to predict individuals’ career decision status,
over, and above the EPCD.

Method
Participants
The participants were 454 young adults (aged 18–30) who filled out the questionnaires on the Future
Directions website, on their own initiative, in return for feedback about various aspects of their
career decision-making process. The data of 42 additional individuals were excluded from the anal-
yses because: (a) they reported that they already knew what major they intended to choose (n ¼ 5),
(b) their responses were questionable, based on their responses to the validity items of the SCCI or
EPCD (n ¼ 24), or (c) they reported a low level of stress or claimed that they had no difficulties in
making a decision (their responses to the Perceived Decisional Difficulty and Distress questions
were 1 or 2 [see Study 1]; n ¼ 13). Of the 454 participants whose data were included in the analyses,
280 (61.7%) were women and 174 (38.3%) were men. The participants’ mean age was 23.13 (SD ¼
2.95), and their mean years of education was 12.44 (SD ¼ 1.22).
192 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

Instruments
Perceived Decisional Difficulty and Distress. These scales were described in the Method section of
Study 1.

The SCCI. Details about the SCCI are reported in Study 1. The median Ca internal-consistency relia-
bility estimate of the 14 subscales in the present sample was .84 (range .74–.91). The Ca reliabilities
of the three major SCCI scales were high: .85, .92, and .89, for Productive coping, Support-seeking,
and Nonproductive coping, respectively. As in Study 1, moderate to low correlations were found
among the three major scales, namely, r ¼ .15 between Productive coping and Support-seeking, r
¼ .37 between Support-seeking and Nonproductive coping, and r ¼ .30 between Productive and
Nonproductive coping. The results of a CFA showed that the model adequately fits the data (w2/df
[1917.54 /799] ¼ 2.40, RMSEA ¼ .056, CFI ¼ .90, and SRMR ¼ .10), as in Study 1.

The EPCD. The EPCD is a self-report questionnaire aimed at finding the causes of individuals’ per-
vasive career decision-making difficulties (Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al., 2008). The original ver-
sion of the EPCD included 53 items (Saka et al., 2008). For each statement, participants were asked
to rate how well the statement describes them on a 9-point scale (1 ¼ does not describe me at all, 9 ¼
describes me very well; a higher rating indicates a higher level of difficulty). The 53-item version has
good internal-consistency reliability (.95 for the total score, and .85, .95, and .88, for Pessimistic
Views, Anxiety, and Self-concept and Identity, respectively; Saka & Gati, 2007). We used the short,
38-item version of the EPCD (Gati & Wilner, 2015). The Ca internal-consistency reliabilities of the
38-item version in the present study were .93 for the total score, and .82, .89, and .88 for Pessimistic
Views, Anxiety, and Self-concept and Identity, respectively.

RCA. The RCA was described in Study 1.

Procedure
Participants who chose to fill out the SCCI, one of the self-report questionnaires on the Future Direc-
tion website, were then directed to fill out the EPCD as well. Using this order allowed us to avoid the
potential effect of introspection about the causes of their pervasive difficulties when they reported
which strategies they use to cope with career indecision. After completing both questionnaires, the par-
ticipants responded to the RCA question and reported general demographic information. Then the par-
ticipants received personalized feedback about their coping strategies and the causes of their pervasive
career decision-making difficulties, based on their responses to the SCCI and EPCD. The total time to
fill out the questionnaires and receive the feedback ranged from 16 to 22 minutes.

Results
The Convergent and Divergent Validity of the SCCI
To test the SCCI’s convergent and divergent validity, we computed Pearson correlations between
the three major scales of the SCCI, on the one hand, and the three major scales and total score of
the EPCD, on the other. These correlations, as well as the scores’ means and SDs, are presented
in Table 2, which shows, as hypothesized, that the correlation between the Nonproductive coping
score and the total EPCD score was positive and high (r ¼ .74). In addition, the Support-seeking
score was positively correlated with the total EPCD score (r ¼ .39). As hypothesized, the Productive
coping score was negatively correlated with the total EPCD score, but the correlation was low
(r ¼ .25). These correlations support the convergent and divergent validity of the SCCI.
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 193

Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the SCCI Scales With EPCD Scales.

Productive Support- Nonproductive

Mean SD Coping Seeking Coping

Pessimistic views 5.07 1.48 .21* .26* .58*

Anxiety 6.29 1.61 .16* .33* .62*
Uncrystallized self-concept and identity 5.11 1.67 .28* .41* .68*
EPCD total 5.49 1.35 .25* .39* .74*
Mean (SD) 5.67 (1.20) 5.42 (1.95) 5.23 (1.57)
Note. N ¼ 454. Correlations above |.30| are in bold. EPCD ¼ Emotional and Personality-related Career decision-making
Difficulties; SCCI ¼ Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision.
*p < .01.

Next we conducted a stepwise multiple regression analysis, with the total EPCD score as the
dependent variable, and the three major SCCI scale scores as the predictors. This analysis revealed
that three of the SCCI scale scores predicted the EPCD score, adjusted R2 ¼ .56, F(3, 450) ¼ 194.98,
p < .001. Specifically, Nonproductive coping accounted for most of the variance, DR2 ¼ .542, b ¼
.65, F(1, 452) ¼ 534.60, p < .001, whereas Support-seeking, DR2 ¼ .018, b ¼ .17, F(1, 451) ¼ 18.18,
p < .001, and Productive coping, DR2 ¼ .006, b ¼ .08, F(1, 450) ¼ 5.78, p ¼ .017, accounted for a
small additional variance in the EPCD score.

The Incremental Validity of the SCCI

To test the SCCI’s incremental validity, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to
investigate the unique contribution of the three major SCCI scales in predicting the RCA score, over
and above that of the EPCD. First, the total EPCD score was entered at Step 1, to control for its
effect. Then the three major SCCI scores (Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive
coping) were entered at Step 2 to determine their direct effects on career decision status. The EPCD
scores accounted only for 1.5% of the variance in career decision status F(1, 452) ¼ 6.78, p ¼ .01.
Young adults who had greater emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties
also reported a less advanced career decision status (b ¼ .12, p ¼ .01). Adding the three major
SCCI scale scores accounted for a further significant 4.1% of the variance, F(3, 449) ¼ 6.57, p <
.001. However, only one of the three SCCI scales contributed significantly to the prediction of career
decision status: young adults who used more Nonproductive coping strategies (b ¼ .25, p < .001)
reported less advanced career decision status. The EPCD no longer made a significant contribution
to the prediction (b ¼ .08, p ¼ .23). In sum, Nonproductive coping strategies predicted career deci-
sion status, over and above the EPCD, thus supporting the incremental validity of the SCCI.

Discussion
The present study focused on the associations between the three SCCI scale scores, on the one hand,
and the EPCD score, on the other. Supporting our hypothesis, a greater use of Nonproductive coping
and Support-seeking strategies was strongly associated with higher levels of emotional and
personality-related career decision-making difficulties. In addition, more use of Productive coping
strategies was moderately associated with lower levels of emotional and personality-related career
decision-making difficulties. These findings are compatible with those of previous studies linking
coping behaviors with anxiety and pessimism (Ò’Hare & Tamburri, 1986; Scheier, Carver, &
Bridges, 2001; Weinstein et al., 2002), and support the construct validity of the SCCI. Moreover,
our results highlight the detrimental effect of Nonproductive coping on career decision making and
provide evidence that these strategies predict not only a higher degree of cognitive decision-making
194 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

difficulties (Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015b) but also the emotional aspects of these difficulties (i.e.,
career indecisiveness). Finally, a regression analysis showed that only the use of Nonproductive cop-
ing strategies predicted less advanced career decision status, over and above the EPCD, thus support-
ing the incremental validity of the SCCI. Together, these results support Lipshits-Braziler et al.’s
(2015a) claim that the use of nonproductive coping strategies impedes career decision making to
a greater extent than the use of productive coping strategies facilitates it.

Study 3: The Associations Among Strategies for Coping with Career

Indecision, Career Decision Self-Efficacy, and Personality Factors
To further investigate the convergent and incremental validity of the SCCI questionnaire, we tested
its associations with career decision self-efficacy (CDSE, Betz et al., 1996; Taylor & Betz, 1983),
which is the belief about one’s ability to successfully accomplish certain tasks involved in career
choice. Taylor and Betz (1983) found that career decision self-efficacy contributes significantly
to the prediction of career indecision. Career decision self-efficacy is also positively correlated with
career decidedness (Creed, Patton, & Bartrum, 2004). Therefore we hypothesized that a higher level
of career decision self-efficacy would be associated with greater use of Productive coping strategies
and less use of Nonproductive coping strategies. We had no specific hypothesis regarding Support-
seeking strategies.
In addition, we tested the associations between the SCCI and personality factors as measured by
the BFI (John et al., 1991). The BFI measures the five major dimensions of normal personality: neu-
roticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In general,
research on personality and coping (see Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007, for a meta-analysis) has
found that extroversion and conscientiousness are positively associated with coping strategies that
involve engagement (such as problem solving and cognitive restructuring), whereas neuroticism is
associated with strategies that involve disengagement (such as withdrawal and wishful thinking). In
addition, they found that extroversion and neuroticism predict support-seeking. Therefore, we
hypothesized that extroversion and conscientiousness would be positively associated with greater
use of Productive coping strategies, whereas neuroticism would be associated with the use of Non-
productive coping strategies. In addition, we tested the hypothesis that extroversion and neuroticism
would be positively correlated with the greater use of Support-seeking strategies.
Finally, to assess the incremental validity of the SCCI, we tested its ability to predict individuals’
career decision status over and above predictions based on the CDSE (Taylor & Betz, 1983) and the
BFI (John et al., 1991).

Method
Participants
The participants were 451 young adults (aged 18–30) who filled out the questionnaires on the Future
Directions website, on their own initiative, in return for feedback about various aspects of their
career decision-making. The data of 49 additional individuals were excluded from the analyses
because (a) they reported that they already knew what major they intended to choose (n ¼ 4), (b)
their responses were questionable, as measured by the validity items of the SCCI (n ¼ 20), or (c)
they reported a low level of stress or that stated they had no difficulties in making a decision (their
responses to the Perceived Decisional Difficulty and Distress question were 1 or 2 [see Study 1];
n ¼ 25). Of the 451 participants whose data were included in the analyses, 289 (64.1%) were women
and 162 (35.9%) were men. The participants’ mean age was 22.55 (SD ¼ 3.11), and their mean years
of education was 12.29 (SD ¼ 1.15).
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 195

Instruments
Perceived Decisional Difficulty and Distress. These scales were described in the Method section of
Study 1.

The SCCI. Details of the psychometric properties of the SCCI are described in Study 1. The median
Ca internal-consistency reliability estimates of the 14 subscales in the present sample was .84 (range
.73–.94). The reliabilities of the three major SCCI scales were similar to those in Studies 1 and 2:
.87, .91, and .88 for Productive coping, Support-seeking, and Nonproductive coping, respectively.
As in the previous two studies, moderate to low correlations were found among the three major
scales, namely, r ¼ .14 between Productive coping and Support-seeking, r ¼ .30 between Sup-
port-seeking and Nonproductive coping, and r ¼ .31 between Productive and Nonproductive cop-
ing. The results of a CFA showed that the model adequately fits the data, as in the previous two
studies, w2/df(1872.2/799) ¼ 2.34, RMSEA ¼ .055, CFI ¼ .90, and SRMR ¼ .08.

CDSE. The CDSE is a self-report questionnaire assessing how confident individuals feel of their ability to
effectively navigate the career decision-making process (Betz et al., 1996; Taylor & Betz, 1983). For
each statement, participants were asked to rate their self-efficacy for specific decision-making tasks
on a Likert-type scale (1 ¼ no confidence at all, 5 ¼ complete confidence). Higher scores reflect greater
levels of CDSE. Because we used three questionnaires (the SCCI, CDSE, and the BFI) and we were inter-
ested only in the total CDSE score, we asked the participants to fill out the short, 10-item version of the
CDSE with 2 items representing each of the five subscales (Gati, Ryzhik, & Vertsberger, 2013). Gati et
al. (2013) reported that the Ca internal-consistency reliability of the total score of the 10-item version of
the CDSE was .85; and this short version of the CDSE was negatively correlated with career decision-
making difficulties (r ¼ .36). In the present study, the Ca reliability of this version was also .85.

The BFI. The BFI is a 44-item inventory that measures the Big Five factors (dimensions) of an indi-
vidual’s personality: extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to
experience (John et al., 1991). The items are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ strongly dis-
agree, 5 ¼ strongly agree). Laski (2002) reported that the Ca internal consistency reliability esti-
mates of the Hebrew version of the BFI were .80. .81, .68, .73, and .76 for extroversion,
neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, respectively. In the
present study, we omitted 3 items from the openness to experience factor that involved artistic and
aesthetic experiences (which had unsatisfactory psychometric properties, based on the results of a
pilot study [N ¼ 219]); thus the BFI we used had 41 items. The reliabilities of the five factors in
the present sample were .81, .71, .77, .84, and .75, respectively.

RCA. The RCA was described in Study 1.

Procedure
Participants who chose to fill out the SCCI, one of the self-report questionnaires on the Future Direc-
tion website, were then directed to fill out the CDSE and then the BFI. Using this order allowed us to
first discover the participants’ coping strategies, and only then elicit their career decision self-efficacy
and personality factors, so that responding to the latter questionnaires would not affect their report
regarding which strategies they use to cope with career indecision. After completing the three ques-
tionnaires, the participants responded to the RCA question and reported general demographic informa-
tion. Finally, the participants received personalized feedback about their coping strategies, based on
their responses to the SCCI. The total time to fill out the questionnaires ranged from 20 to 25 minutes.
196 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

Table 3. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the SCCI Scales With the Five BFI Factors and the
CDSE.

Mean SD Productive Coping Support-Seeking Nonproductive Coping

Extroversion 3.24 0.75 .20* .02 .18*

Neuroticism 2.73 0.78 .28* .20* .37*
Agreeableness 4.05 0.53 .17* .03 .15*
Conscientiousness 3.93 0.61 .24* .11 .31*
Openness to experience 3.57 0.67 .18* .04 .06
CDSE 3.42 0.74 .53* .16* .39*
Mean (SD) 5.87 (1.23) 5.35 (1.84) 4.83 (1.51)
Note. N ¼ 451. Correlations above |.30| are in bold. BFI ¼ Big Five Inventory; CDSE ¼ Career Decision Self-Efficacy; SCCI ¼
Strategies for Coping with Career Indecision.
*p < .01.

Results
The Convergent and Divergent Validity of the SCCI
The Pearson correlations between the three major SCCI scales, on the one hand, and the CDSE and
the five BFI dimension scores, on the other, as well as the means and the SDs, are presented in
Table 3, which shows that the CDSE had a positive correlation with Productive coping (r ¼ .53),
and a moderate but negative correlations, as predicted, with Nonproductive coping (r ¼ .39) and
Support-seeking (r ¼ .16).
In addition, several noteworthy correlations between the Big Five personality dimensions
and the SCCI scales were observed. Productive coping had statistically significant but low
correlations with the BFI dimensions: neuroticism (.28), conscientiousness (.24), extrover-
sion (.20), openness to experience (.18), and agreeableness (.17). Support-seeking, in con-
trast, had a statistically significant correlation only with neuroticism (.20). Finally,
Nonproductive coping correlated with four of the BFI dimensions: neuroticism (.37), con-
scientiousness (.31), extroversion (.18), and agreeableness (.15). The variance in the
pattern of associations between the five BFI dimension scores, on the one hand, and the
three major SCCI scale scores, on the other, support the convergent and divergent validity
of the SCCI.

The Incremental Validity of the SCCI

To test the incremental validity of the SCCI, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was
used to investigate the unique contribution of the three major SCCI scales in predicting the
RCA score, over and above that of the CDSE score and the five BFI dimensions. The five
BFI dimensions were entered at Step 1, and the CDSE total score at Step 2, to control for
its effect. The five BFI dimensions did not significantly predict career decision status, F(1,
445) ¼ 1.17, p ¼ .32. The CDSE accounted for a significant amount of variance (4.6%) in
career decision status, F(1, 444) ¼ 21.53, p < .001, and contributed significantly to the pre-
diction of career decision status: young adults who reported higher career decision self-effi-
cacy (b ¼ .25, p < .001) also reported a more advanced career decision status. However, the
addition of the SCCI scales at Step 3 did not significantly increase the proportion of variance
in career decision status, F(3, 441) ¼ .55, p ¼ .65. Thus, the SCCI did not predict career deci-
sion status, over and above the CDSE, which made a unique contribution to the prediction (b
¼ .24, p < .001).
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 197

Discussion
The present study investigated the associations between the three SCCI scale scores, on the one
hand, and the CDSE score and the big five personality factor scores, on the other. As hypothesized,
Productive coping is positively and strongly associated with CDSE, whereas Nonproductive coping
and Support-seeking are negatively but moderately associated with CDSE. These results are compa-
tible with previous research which demonstrated that CDSE is positively correlated with favorable
career attitudes and behaviors, as well as with career adjustment, and negatively correlated with
career indecision (see Betz & Luzzo, 1996; Prideaux & Creed, 2001, for reviews). Although we
found associations between SCCI and CDSE, it is not possible to make direct inferences about caus-
ality. Coping strategies might contribute to individuals’ belief that they can successfully complete
tasks necessary for making career decisions, and these beliefs might affect their repertoire of coping
behaviors. Future experimental studies may reveal the causal direction between these two variables.
Interestingly, the results of the regression analysis showed that the SCCI did not predict career
decision status, over and above the CDSE. This result highlights the importance of career decision
self-efficacy as a motivational construct in career decision making and supports previous research
which found that CDSE is a significant predictor of career indecision (Betz, Hammond, & Multon,
2005; Betz & Voyten, 1997).
In addition, the SCCI correlated in theoretically congruent ways with the personality factors, but
the correlations were low to moderate (|.02| < r < |.37|). Specifically, Support-seeking was positively
associated with neuroticism, but not with extroversion, as hypothesized. Productive coping was
positively correlated with conscientiousness, extroversion, openness to experience, and agreeable-
ness, but negatively correlated with neuroticism. Finally, Nonproductive coping was positively cor-
related with neuroticism but negatively with conscientiousness, extroversion, and agreeableness.
The variance in the pattern of the associations further supports the convergent and divergent validity
of the SCCI. Interestingly, the associations of the coping strategies with the five general personality
factors (as measured by the BFI) were weaker than their associations with personality factors linked
with career decision-making difficulties (as measured by the EPCD in Study 2). This finding high-
lights the importance of using instruments specific to career decision making in career counseling
(Gadassi et al., 2012).

General Discussion
The main goal of the present research was to investigate the construct validity of the SCCI question-
naire (Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015a) in a series of studies. The present research has several unique
features, including (a) using three relatively large (N ¼ 391, 454, and 451) samples of young adults
currently deliberating about their career choice rather than university or college students (Larson
et al., 1994; Lee, 2005; O’Hare & Tamburri, 1986) or working adults (Weinstein et al., 2002),
(b) testing the construct validity of SCCI by analyzing its association with three career decision-
making constructs, including career decision-making profiles (Gati et al., 2010), emotional and per-
sonality-related career decision-making difficulties (Saka & Gati, 2007; Saka et al., 2008), and
career decision self-efficacy (Betz et al., 1996), (c) testing the associations between SCCI and the
big five personality dimensions (BFI, John et al., 1991), and (d) testing the incremental predictive
effect of SCCI on career decision status (Gati et al., 2003; Saka et al., 2008), over and above the three
career decision-making constructs.
The results of the three studies supported the convergent and divergent validity of the SCCI, as
evidenced by its associations with other career decision-making constructs. However, the results
only partially supported the incremental validity of the SCCI. Specifically, the SCCI was able to
predict career decision status over and above career decision-making adaptability and emotional and
198 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

personality-related career decision-making difficulties but not better than career decision self-
efficacy. This result highlights the importance of training young adults in career coping skills (espe-
cially reducing the use of Nonproductive coping strategies), while reinforcing their career decision
self-efficacy, which may provide them with a solid basis for overcoming career indecision more
effectively.
In addition to evaluating the construct validity of a new questionnaire for assessing strategies for
coping with career indecision, the present studies have another theoretical contribution to the
research on this issue. One of the challenging questions for the Lipshits-Braziler et al. (2015a) model
and the SCCI measure is the degree of effectiveness of the various coping strategies. Specifically,
Lipshits-Braziler and her colleagues classified coping strategies a priori as productive or nonproduc-
tive. However, several researchers have claimed that coping strategies cannot be defined as produc-
tive or nonproductive until their effectiveness has been demonstrated empirically (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984; Zeidner & Saklofske, 1996). Although testing the effectiveness of coping strategies
was not a central aim of the present research, we can present some tentative conclusions on this
issue. First, we found that the use of Nonproductive coping is strongly associated with other con-
structs which were found in previous research to hinder decision making (Betz et al., 2005; Gadassi
et al., 2012; Gati et al., 2011; Lounsbury, Hutchens, & Loveland, 2005), thus providing additional
empirical support for the maladaptiveness of what we have called nonproductive coping strategies.
Specifically, we found that more use of Nonproductive coping is strongly associated with less career
decision-making adaptability (.64), more emotional and personality-related career decision-
making difficulties (.74), greater neuroticism (.37), less conscientiousness (.31), and less career
decision self-efficacy (.39). In addition, we found Productive coping strategies to be only moder-
ately associated with greater career decision-making adaptability (.29), fewer emotional and
personality-related career decision-making difficulties (.25), less neuroticism (.28), and greater
conscientiousness (.24), but strongly associated with greater career decision self-efficacy (.53). In
light of these results, it seems that career counselors should focus primarily on helping their coun-
selees reduce the use of nonproductive coping strategies, rather than focusing exclusively on
encouraging the use of more adaptive coping behaviors, such as planning, information seeking, and
problem solving (Lent & Brown, 2013; Savickas, 2013).
According to the relational theory of working (Blustein, 2011), people have a natural tendency to
seek out social support when faced with major decisional tasks. This support has the potential to pro-
vide both emotional and instrumental resources that can be helpful for dealing with the challenges of
career decision making. Indeed, a number of studies have demonstrated that social and relational
support is associated with progress in career decision making (e.g., Phillips, Christopher-Sisk, &
Gravino, 2001). However, our results regarding the effectiveness of Support-seeking strategies are
mixed. First, we cannot draw a definitive conclusion about the effectiveness of instrumental help-
seeking, as it was not significantly correlated with any of the personality factors, or with career deci-
sion self-efficacy, and only weakly correlated with career decision-making adaptability (.15) and
emotional and personality-related career decision-making difficulties (.17). However, our results
indicate that emotional help-seeking and delegation are maladaptive coping strategies, as they were
significantly correlated with neuroticism (.23 and .23, respectively), high emotional and personality-
related career decision-making difficulties (.38 and .45, respectively), low career decision-making
adaptability (.42 and .45, respectively), and low career decision self-efficacy (.18 and .26,
respectively). The finding regarding the maladaptiveness of delegation coping strategy (i.e., projec-
tion of responsibility for decisions onto others) is not surprising, as it is consistent with previous
research in career decision making (Gadassi et al., 2012, 2013; Harren, 1979; Scott & Bruce,
1995). Regarding emotional help-seeking, one possible explanation for its maladaptiveness is that
it could be used to focus on emotional distress and ruminate with others (Zimmer-Gembeck &
Skinner, 2008). However, future studies, using longitudinal designs, are necessary to determine the
Lipshits-Braziler et al. 199

situations in which support seeking coping strategies (especially those involving instrumental and
emotional support) are adaptive and those in which they are not.

Limitations and Future Research

Before discussing the implications for research and counseling, the limitations of the present study
should be acknowledged. First, we assessed incremental validity with only one measure (career deci-
sion status), so it should be assessed with multiple criteria in future research. Another limitation
involves the characteristics of our samples: the participants were young adults who visited a career
decision-related website on their own initiative as part of their deliberations. Thus they had taken at
least one active step—using the Internet for solving their problems. Therefore, it is important to
extend the study and repeat the analyses with young adults who have not yet begun their career deci-
sion making. Third, although the studies were based on comprehensive samples, they were carried
out in Israel with young adults; therefore they should be replicated in other cultural contexts and with
more ethnically diverse samples. In addition, the present data were gathered at a single point in time,
so the causal relationships between the various constructs should be directly tested in future studies.
Finally, future studies should also test the effectiveness of interventions aimed at decreasing the use
of Nonproductive coping strategies and increasing the use of Productive coping for deliberating
individuals.

Career Counseling Implications

The 21st century has brought drastic worldwide changes to the workplace, which have created a
sense of instability (Nota & Rossier, 2015) that necessitates the use of different conceptual and prac-
tice tools to help individuals find support, meaning, and resources while coping with uncertainty and
stress (Blustein, 2011). The results of the present studies, combined with previous research
(Lipshits-Braziler et al., 2015a, 2015b), show that the SCCI is a reliable and valid measure for asses-
sing SCCI. Therefore, it can be considered an additional counseling tool which may help individuals
cope with the challenges of making career decisions in an era of widespread change. Utilizing the
SCCI can help counselors pay special attention to clients who use nonproductive coping strategies
and encourage reflection about the advantages and disadvantages of using such strategies. Moreover,
this initial assessment can be used to assign clients to specific group career interventions, which may
help reduce the use of Nonproductive coping strategies and encourage the use of Productive coping
strategies. Furthermore, using a before–after design, the SCCI can be used to measure outcomes,
such as the effectiveness of career counseling interventions. Specifically, it can assess whether indi-
vidual or group counseling has succeeded in building up clients’ repertoire of effective coping stra-
tegies. Finally, in the light of our results about the effect of career decision self-efficacy on career
decision status, it may be proposed that in addition to reinforcing their repertoire of coping skills,
interventions aiming at increasing clients’ career decision self-efficacy can be also beneficial for the
undecided young adults.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank Gali Rachel Cinamon, Nilly Mor, and Lilach Sagiv for their fruitful discussions, and Naomi
Goldblum, Zehava Masuri, Dana Vertsberger, and Nimrod Levin for their helpful comments on an earlier ver-
sion of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.
200 Journal of Career Assessment 25(2)

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article: This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 380/12), the Samuel
and Esther Melton Chair of the second author, and the Anna Lazarus Chair of the third author. Correspondence
concerning this article should be addressed to Itamar Gati, Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University,
Jerusalem 91905, Israel. E-mail: [email protected].

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