So Worried I Don't Know What To Be: Anxiety is Associated With Increased Career Indecision and Reduced Career Certainty

Abstract

There is a relationship between career indecision and anxiety, however the relative contributions of state and trait anxiety are unclear in the literature. 110 first-year university students completed the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Career Decision Scale (CDS) to measure anxiety and career indecision. Regression analyses revealed that state and trait anxiety made independent contributions to career indecision and that state anxiety is a much stronger predictor of career certainty than is trait anxiety. Although anxiety significantly predicted career decidedness, participants did not indicate that anxiety impacted on their career decidedness in response to open-ended questions. As such, counselling clients may not be consciously aware that anxiety impacts on their career decidedness. It is recommended that counsellors create a relaxed environment to ease clients' career decision making.