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Hope as a Resource for Self-Directed Career Management: Investigating Mediating Effects on Proactive Career Behaviors and Life and Job Satisfaction

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Abstract

Hope is increasingly recognized as an important psychological resource for career development, yet the empirical research on its functioning in this domain is sparse. This paper describes an investigation of how dispositional hope is related to career decidedness, career planning, and career self-efficacy beliefs and whether these more proximal career attitudes mediate the effects of hope on proactive career behaviors, life satisfaction, and job satisfaction. This investigation was conducted using two independent samples of university students (N = 1,334) and working professionals (N = 233). The results showed that in both samples, hope was significantly related but empirically distinct from career variables. In both samples, hope had a direct effect on proactive career behaviors, partially mediated by more career planning. Hope had significant direct and indirect effects on life satisfaction among students, mediated by the three career development attitudes. Although hope was significantly correlated with job satisfaction among employees, no direct effect of hope was found in the mediation model, but an indirect effect through career decidedness was found. The results suggest that hope is an important resource for proactive career development at different career stages and that the positive relation of hope to life and job satisfaction can partially be attributed to the positive relation between hope and favorable career development attitudes.

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Acknowledgments

Part of this research was supported by an individual research grant awarded to Andreas Hirschi by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), GZ: HI 1530/2-1. The funding source had no involvement in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.

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  1. Institute for Psychology, University of Lausanne, Quartier UNIL-Dorigny, Bâtiment Anthropole, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Andreas Hirschi

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Hirschi, A. Hope as a Resource for Self-Directed Career Management: Investigating Mediating Effects on Proactive Career Behaviors and Life and Job Satisfaction. J Happiness Stud 15, 1495–1512 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9488-x

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