Relationship Between the Identity Formation Process and Career Development

We proposed on the basis of a review of the ego identity and career development literatures that variability in career exploration and occupational commitment might be related to characteristic differences in the manner by which individuals explore and commit to their ego identity in late adolescence. To test propositions about the relations between career development and identity formation, measures of ego identity status, exploratory activity, and occupational commitment were administered to 99 college students. A canonical analysis was conducted, which yielded two significant canonical roots. The first root, which accounted for 35% of the variance between canonical composites, indicated that occupational commitment is inversely related to the moratorium status. The second root, which accounted for 11% of the variance, suggested that career exploration is positively associated with the moratorium and identity-achieved statuses and inversely related to the diffusion status. The results are related to future directions in theory, research, and practice.