Secure Attachment and Career Indecision: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

Over the past few decades, researchers have been trying to understand the career decision-making process from interpersonal and affective perspectives. Previous findings suggest that secure attachment is negatively linked to career indecision, but the extent to which other variables mediate this relation is less clear. The present study was designed to identify underlying mechanism in the relation between attachment and career indecision. This was done by examining a model which links secure attachment with career indecision through the mediating role of emotional intelligence. Participants included 362 female undergraduate students from a large Southern University. A path model was tested to investigate (a) the direct association of attachment to three dimensions of career indecision (lack of readiness, lack of information, and inconsistent information) and (b) whether emotional intelligence mediates the relations between attachment and the career indecision dimensions, while controlling students' age. Results indicated a very good fit for the proposed path model. With two exceptions, results provided support for the study's hypothesis regarding the direct and mediated links in the model; all paths were in the expected direction. Results of the study provide support for the notion that different antecedents may explain career decision-making difficulties, and therefore, college women may require diverse intervention approaches