International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling 16: 89-97, 1993. [619667]

International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling 16: 89-97, 1993.
01993 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
The Career Myths Scale: its validity and applicability*
GRAHAM B. STEAD & MARK B. WATSON
Vista University, University of Port Elizabeth
Abstract. The Career Myths Scale (CMS) was developed to assess the extent to which students
subscribe to irrational beliefs regarding careers. The CMS was administered to a sample of
university students (n = 153) and a principal components analysis of the CMS identified the
following components: Test Myths, Self-Esteem Myths, Misconceptions of Exactitude, and Career
Anxiety Myths. The usefulness of the CMS in counselling students is discussed.
Many of the major developments in counselling and psychotherapy of the last
few decades have been assimilated into career counselling techniques. Ellis's
(1962) Rational Emotive Therapy is one development in psychotherapy that
has important implications for career counsellors. Ellis has stated that human-
beings are both rational and irrational and that people behave in certain ways
because they believe that they should or must act in these ways. One's
problems, thus, lie in illogical thinking. Irrational beliefs have also been
described in the context of Krumboltz's (Mitchell & Krumboltz, 1990) social
learning approach to career decision making and Dorn's (1990) social
psychological perspective to career counselling. According to Mitchell and
Krumboltz, self-beliefs and beliefs about the world of work affect one's
aspirations and actions. They add that inaccurate self-observation and world-
view generalizations can interfere with the decision making process. Dorn
contends that the attitudes people have toward career development can be
ineffective and are not easily changed. He adds that such attitudes can
profitably be understood as career myths or irrational beliefs. He does
acknowledge that career research in this area is limited.
Raimy (1975) suggests that a crucial common factor to most of the more
recent developments in counselling is the modification of misconceptions.
Much of the current career literature either explicitly or implicitly recognizes
that such misconceptions may lie at the root of many of the career concerns
for which students seek counselling (e.g., Thompson, 1976). As Dryden (1979)
points out 'it is rare that a client is not subscribing to at least one of the
*A preliminary version of this article was presented at the International Round Table for the
Advancement of Counselling Conference, Porto, Portugal, 2–6 April, 1991.

90
irrational ideas outlined by Ellis (1962) that is relevant to his inability to make
a career decision' (p. 185). Yet little attention has been given to clients'
thoughts regarding the career development process and how such thoughts may
contribute to a clients' frustration and indecision.
Various authors have identified irrational beliefs that may be expressed in
career counselling. Nevo (1987) identified ten irrational expectations that seem
to contribute to client indecision and frustration in career choice. While some
of Nevo's ideas conform to Ellis's definitions, others are specific to the career
field. Nevo's irrational career expectations can be placed in four groups as
follows:
I. Irrational expectations regarding careers, e.g., there is only one career in the
world that is right for me or until I find my perfect career choice I wilt not
be satisfied. These two myths have been referred to as misconceptions of
exactitude by Thompson (1976);
2. Irrational expectations concerning counsellors and tests, e.g., intelligence
tests will indicate my worth;
3. Irrational expectations concerning the self, e.g., I must be an expert or very
successful in my field of work; and
4. Irrational expectations concerning decision making, e.g., choosing a career
is a one-time act.
Such beliefs may be regarded as obstacles to effective career decision
making in that they are grounded in faulty assumptions, in selective infor-
mation and misinformation. Thompson (1976) believes that career counsellors
can contribute to the career development of their clients by challenging them
to re-examine both the assumptions and the information on which their career
views are based.
If career myths held by clients can influence the career counselling process,
then traditional career counselling approaches are not enough. Lewis and
Gilhousen (1981) note in this regard that:
Interests, values, and occupational information are of little consequence if the client cannot
put them into realistic perspective. An important initial step in the vocational counseling
process, then, would be for the counselor to identify and challenge the myths to which the
client is subscribing (p. 296).
While career myths can be propounded by counselling theory itself (Baum-
gardner, 1977; Warnath, 1975) as well as career counsellors (Dolliver &
Nelson, 1975), this research focuses on the career myths that clients may have
about the career counselling process. It also attempts to address earlier calls
for instrumentation in this area.
The need for a scale that measures the career myths of clients on entering
career counselling would be of benefit to career counsellors. Such a measure
would offer insight into the reasoning clients use when considering careers.
The Career Myths Scale (CMS; Stead, 1991; Stead, Watson & Foxcroft, 1993)
was constructed to measure irrational beliefs regarding the career choice
process. The initial development of this measure was reported in Stead and