John Holland's vocational typology and personality theory

John Holland has been clear that he believes vocational interests to be "an expression of personality." In this paper, we document evidence for fundamental links between measures of personality and vocational interests. We go on to provide an interpretation of those links and suggest that personality assessment and interest measurement offer information that is critical to predicting individuals' success in achieving status and acceptance in groups. We also suggest a distinction between the perspective afforded by each type of measure. That is, personality assessment reflects the individual viewed from the perspective of an observer (i.e., an individual's "reputation") while interest measurement reflects the perspective of the actor (i.e., an individual's "identity"). (C) 1999 Academic Press.