DOI = 10.

1177/1069072703261545 DOCTYPE = ARTICLE

A Function-Centered Model of Interest Assessment for Business Careers

Timothy Butler Harvard University James Waldroop Peregrine Partners
The authors argue that an effective way to describe the manifestation of interest patterns within a particular work domain is through a nuanced description of interests in terms of the essential functional activities common to that domain. Focusing on the domain of business work and studying a large sample of business professionals over a 15-year period, the authors derived an eight-factor business core function model representing the way interest patterns are manifested in actual business work. This model is the basis for a business interest assessment instrument, the Business Career Interest Inventory (BCII), which has been used by more than 75,000 business professionals and business students and has become the career interest assessment tool of choice at more than 200 of the leading business schools around the world. This article describes the rationale for the core function model and presents basic psychometric information on the BCII. Keywords: psychometric method, interest assessment, business career assessment, function-centered model

The definition of interests as essentially purposive activity has been described as a functionalist approach, and Savickas (1999) traced the championing of this position to Dewey (1913), Thorndike (1935), Kitson (1925), and Strong (1943). The functionalist approach provides the background for the authors utilization of a function-centered model of interest assessment in the realm of business careers. A function-centered model would suggest that for the career decision maker, it is the activities that comprise a specific work role opportunity that have meaning in terms of a choice as to whether or not taking a particular employment opportunity is in the best interests of his or her career development. The construct of work role opportunity is deliberately chosen over the more traditional construct of job. Similar to environment, a job is in fact a rather abstract construct composed of clusters of activities that may change substantially over even shorter periods of time. In this sense, a job is often confused in the minds of career decision makers and researchers alike with a position title. An individual
JOURNAL OF CAREER ASSESSMENT, Vol. 12 No. 3, August 2004 DOI: 10.1177/1069072703261545 2004 Sage Publications 270
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Table 1 Business Core Function Definitions

Application of technology: the general use of technology to accomplish business objectives; the use of engineering-like analysis to solve business problems Quantitative analysis: business problem solving that relies on mathematical analysis and in particular financial analysis Theory development and conceptual thinking: activities involving broadly conceptual approaches to business problems Creative production: the broad exercise of imagination in the early phase of a business project, such as creating an idea, product, or strategy where none existed before Counseling and mentoring: developing relationships as an integral part of business work, such as coaching, training, mentoring, and customer relationships Managing people and relationships: working directly and consistently with groups of people in the roles of manager, director, or supervisor Enterprise control: exercising ultimate strategic and decision-making authority for complete operations Influence through language and ideas: exercising influence through the skillful use of written and spoken language; using the acquisition of information and persuasion to affect business decisions

hired as, let us say, an assistant brand manager in a consumer product company may retain the same title and job but be engaged in substantially different activities after being in the position for a year. The intent of the function-centered model is to portray the congruence that exists between the emerging interest patterns of an individual and the salient activities that characterize those patterns as they are expressed in a particular work role opportunity. This congruence is expressed in terms of core work functions common to a specific vocational domain. For more than 15 years, the authors have been studying the core functions for the business domain. Based on an analysis of interviews and a battery of psychological inventories given to more than 650 business professionals over a 10-year period of time and working with an expanding database that now includes testing data on more than 75,000 business professionals and business students, they have developed a working model of eight business core functions. These core functions are defined briefly in Table 1. Each of these dimensions expresses a basic interest theme expressed in terms of its functional manifestation in the business domain. For example, the quantitative analysis dimension represents the interests in pragmatic numerical reasoning and analysis as they are expressed in the business activities such as data analysis, computer modeling, company valuation, budget forecasting, and so on. An individuals score on a measure of the quantitative analysis dimension is thus simultaneously a measure of an underlying, general (i.e., not related exclusively to one vocational domain) interest theme and a measure of the expression of this theme in activities particular to the business domain.

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Production and Operations

N= 133

Human Resources Management/Corporate Training

N=283

57

51 T Score

T Score 51

45

AT

QA

TD

CP

CS

MP

EC

IN
45

Business Core Function

AT

QA

TD

CP

CS

MP

EC

IN

Business Core Function

Sales and Sales Management

Investment Banking
N=249

N=304

59

51 T Score
52

45

AT

QA

TD

CP

CS

MP

EC

IN

45

Business Core Function

AT

QA

TD

CP

CS

MP

EC

IN

Business Core Function

Figure 1. Relative mean business core function profiles for professionals from four business career roles who report satisfaction with role choice. Note. AT = application of technology, QA = quantitative analysis, TD = theory development and conceptual thinking, CP = creative production, CS = counseling and mentoring, MP = managing people and relationships, EC = enterprise control, IN = influence through language and ideas. Scale scores are T scores based on a general business sample (N = 8,600). The first reference line is the mean of all business core functions for each sample group.

Characteristic core function patterns may be expected to emerge in specific career paths due to the fact that certain paths offer greater opportunity for the expression of some core functions and less of an opportunity for the expression of others. This is consistent with Hollands (1973) view that specific work environments reflect the personalities and interests of the people that choose to work in those environments. Figure 1 represents the mean business core function profiles for samples of business professionals in investment banking, human resources management, sales and sales management, and production and operations management who report significant satisfaction with those career areas. In the investment banking sample, quantitative analysis and enterprise control are dominant while managing people and relationships and application of technology have low mean scores. A strong contrast is found in the human resource management sample where counseling and mentoring and managing people and relationships are

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the dominant core functions and quantitative analysis has a very low mean score. The representation of career interest information in this fashion portrays the differences between these career areas in terms of the functional activities that are actually valued and pursued by individuals who derive satisfaction from that particular career area. The authors have developed the Business Career Interest Inventory (BCII) to measure an individuals strength of interest in the eight business core functions.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE BCII Model Building

Over a period of 12 years, the authors collected a database of a broad range of standard psychological testing and interview data on a group of business professionals from a wide range of functions and industries. The individuals in this sample included clients from a large executive outplacement firm, business professionals in career transition seeking assessment assistance from the authors, and executives from the authors organizational development work. At later stages in the research, data were also collected from employees of a large multinational corporation participating in a pilot study with the BCII and from the readers of a leading business professional journal. The final general business sample (N 14,400) used for BCII normative purposes was composed of individuals established in their careers (mean age = 38) from a broad spectrum of industries and functions. The sample was approximately two thirds men and one third women; gender-specific norms were developed. In the 8 years of research since the initial scale development, the database has grown to more than 75,000 business professionals, including business professionals from corporations using the assessment, MBA students from more than 200 MBA programs, and individuals using the instrument for personal career development. Testing and interview data were examined in the light of the authors extensive clinical experience in the business realm in an attempt to determine meaningful clusters of business core functions or fundamental activities of business work that allowed for expression of underlying interest patterns. The goal was to create a parsimonious model of business core functions that would represent the bedrock of business work activities. John Hollands (1973) model of career interest themes was a guiding heuristic in the investigation. It became clear that although Hollands theory was comprehensive for careers broadly, it did not provide the level of detail or nuance for describing the subtleties of the full array of business activities. Neither was the standard taxonomy of business functions (sales, marketing, corporate finance, banking, production and operations, advertising, communications and public relations, human resources, etc.) adequate to describe

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basic business activities that were observed to exist across these standard functional categories. For example, a definite pattern of elevation in scores that included elements of both Hollands artistic and enterprising themes was found among individuals who enjoyed roles in functions as diverse as public relations, business development, marketing, and deal-intensive financial services. This discrete pattern of scores became the basis for the influence through language and ideas business core function. Individuals who score high on this dimension enjoy positions of influence at the boundary of business organizations where interaction with customers or other organizations offers a high interpersonal transaction role, regardless of their job title according to standard business nomenclature. The goal was to produce a model that would account for all observed businessspecific activity clusters that would also be comprehensive in that it addressed all business-relevant themes suggested by Hollands (1973) global model. It is informative to compare Hollands six occupational themes with the eight business core functions that emerged from the model building. A direct analog is apparent in the business core function of creative production and Hollands artistic theme, but three of the business core functions (applied technology, quantitative analysis and theory development, and conceptual thinking) would be theoretically subsumed as business-specific regions within Hollands investigative theme. The counseling and mentoring business core function would be expected to have (and subsequently was found to have) a significant correlation with Hollands social theme but represents a business-specific subrange of the interests covered by that theme. Managing people and relationships, if mapped onto the Holland (1973) model, would straddle the border between the social and enterprising themes and once again represent a business-specific manifestation of interests common to that region. Enterprise control, although having a significant correlation with measures of Hollands enterprising theme, represents not an interest in business endeavors generally but rather specific interests in strategic decision making and control of operations. The influence through language and ideas business core function, as mentioned earlier, contains elements from the enterprising, artistic, and social themes of Hollands model. Elements of a subregion of Hollands realistic theme associated with action-oriented direct management (e.g., military officers) were also represented in the managing people and relationships core function, but otherwise the realistic and conventional themes are not uniquely represented in this core function paradigm that is defined as a model of professional business careers. A number of the core functions have significant correlations with these two Holland themes as business is generally an action-oriented and highly pragmatic field. The actual correlations between the eight BCII business core functions and Hollands themes, as measured by the General Occupational Theme Scale scores from the Strong Interest Inventory are reported in Table 2.

Table 2 Correlations of the Business Career Interest Inventory (BCII) Core Business Functions With the General Occupational Themes of the Strong Interest Inventory (N = 213)
Realistic .68* .28* .37* .22* .08 .23* .39* .08 .56* .30* .60* .26* .14 .07 .16 .06 .07 .02 .32* .74* .17 .04 .08 .27* .11 .08 .26* .15 .63* .40* .15 .34* Investigative Artistic Social Enterprising .07 .25* .05 .09 .31* .27* .32* .38* Conventional .43* .50* .28* .04 .25* .08 .11 .12

Application of technology Quantitative analysis Theory development and conceptual thinking Creative production Counseling and mentoring Managing people Enterprise control Influence through language and ideas

Note. Correlations significant at the p < .01 level are indicated by an asterisk.

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Item Selection and Scale Construction

The authors, drawing on their experience as business consultants and psychologists at a business school, interviewed more than 2,000 business professionals and MBA students over a 12-year period and developed a range of items that represented the full range of activities that occur in business organizations. The standard taxonomy of business functions mentioned earlier (sales, marketing, corporate finance, banking, production and operations, advertising, communications and public relations, human resources, etc.) was used heuristically to create a general frame for item generation. Within each functional area, items were written that would cover the functional activities typically found in larger corporate settings and smaller, less typical, and entrepreneurial environments. To these business activity items were added general items not related to specific business activities that would represent a range of general, underlying interests expressed in nonbusiness arenas. This was done to provide a base of less transparent items and to provide for items that would fill any holes in the initial theoretical mapping of the business activity domains. The 280 items were classified and presented in the following four groupings: occupations, subjects for study, personality attributes, and work activities. Some sample items are provided in Table 3. Each item required a response on a 4-interval (0 through 3) scale, with each interval labeled appropriately for the particular section of the inventory (e.g., for the activities section, the intervals were labeled as follows: 0 = I would not like this activity, 1 = I would like this activity somewhat, 2 = I would like this activity, and 3 = I would very much like this activity). Scales were constructed by identifying an initial core scale composed of items with high face validity to the identified business core function. Correlational analyses then identified more subtle items, including both business-specific and nonbusiness items, with high correlations to the initial core scales. These item pools were then reduced to (a) maximize internal consistency and (b) decrease interscale correlation. Factor analysis of the entire item pool was used to both check for validity of the overall model and in the case of two scales (enterprise control and managing people and relationships) to further refine item content of the scales. Factor analysis was able to further differentiate the constructs of these two scales, and items were identified that enhanced this differentiation. The resulting scales contained from 19 (quantitative analysis) to 52 (managing people and relationships) items.

Reliability
Measures of internal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) for the eight business core function scales are reported in Table 4. Measures of scale stability in terms of test-retest correlation coefficients over a 6-month period are reported in Table 5.

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Table 3 Business Career Interest Inventory Sample Items

Occupations 1. Computer programmer 2. Novelist 7. Manager at a manufacturing plant 31. Advertising account executive 64. Venture capitalist 66. Logistical planner 82. Marketing brand manager Personal attributes 91. Assertive 95. A good team player 105. Methodical 114. Enjoy routine 131. Artistic Subjects for study 137. Accounting 138. Debate 143. Computer science 161. Statistics 175. Poetry Activities 182. Play strategy games 183. Perform a business loan credit analysis 189. Give speeches to large audiences 192. Develop an advertising campaign for a product 197. Manage a regional sales team 202. Analyze financial reports 221. Negotiate a complex deal to acquire a business 222. Lead the board of directors of a large charitable organization

Validity
Construct Validity

Convergent and discriminant validation. Extensive studies of predicted correlations with scales measuring interest patterns in thematically related areas on general career interest surveys were highly confirmatory of the business core function constructs. Examples of the highest positive and negative correlations between the business core function scales and thematically related scales on the Strong Interest Inventory (Campbell, 1971; Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, &

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Table 4 Measures of Internal Consistency for Business Core Function Scales (N = 5,300)
Business Core Function Application of technology Quantitative analysis Theory development Creative production Counseling and mentoring Managing people Enterprise control Influence through language and ideas Cronbachs Alpha .93 .93 .88 .88 .90 .83 .90 .92

Table 5 Stability Over 6-Month Time Period for Business Core Function Scales (N = 39)
Test-Retest Correlations Over a 6-Month Period Application of technology Quantitative analysis Theory development Creative production Counseling and mentoring Managing people Enterprise control Influence through language and ideas Mean test-retest correlation over 6-month period .66 .85 .82 .83 .86 .77 .74 .81 .79

Hammer, 1994) are provided in Table 6. The sample for this validity study was 213 MBA students who completed both the BCII and the Strong Interest Inventory. A full report on scale correlations with widely used general career interest inventories is available from the authors.
Factor Analysis

Factor-analytic studies were conducted to examine the factor structure of all business activity items on the BCII. (Business activity items are those items that describe a specific activity that is unambiguously related to business.) These studies were deliberately conducted on a post hoc rather than an a priori basis as the

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Table 6 Highest Significant Positive Correlations (p .001) and Selected Negative Correlations (p .001) Between Business Career Interest Inventory Core Function Scales and Strong Interest Inventory Scales (N = 213)
Applied technology Mechanical activities BIS .74 Realistic GOT .68 Science BIS .68 Medical technologist .68 Systems analyst .66 Navy officer .64 Engineer .63 R&D manager .58 Quantitative analysis Math BIS .50 Conventional GOT .50 Credit manager .44 Systems analyst .43 Accountant .40 Fine artist .31 Public relations director .27 Broadcaster .20 Theory development and conceptual thinking Investigative GOT .60 Science BIS .57 Sociologist .56 Science teacher .44 College professor .40 Florist .48 Agribusiness manager .35 Buyer .33 Bus driver .29 Creative production Artistic GOT .74 Art BIS .71 Music BIS .62 Writing BIS .60 Photographer .53 Musician .49 English teacher .48 Commercial artist .46 Farmer .56 Agribusiness manager .51 Accountant .42 Banker .35 Counseling and mentoring Social services BIS .68 Social GOT .63 Speech pathologist .60 YW/YMCA director .60 Special education teacher .60 Guidance counselor .59 Geologist .45 Mathematician .39 Physicist .33 R&D manager .30 Managing people and relationships Business management BIS .48 Recreation leader .47 School administrator .45 Nursing home administrator .45 YMCA director .44 Executive housekeeper .42 Social GOT .40 Personnel director .39 Public official .36 Chamber of Commerce executive .34 Enterprise control Adventure BIS .54 Realtor .51 Army officer .49 Chamber of Commerce executive .37 Navy officer .36 Public speaking BIS .35 Recreation leader .34 Enterprising GOT .32 Elected public official .33 Military activities BIS .33 Law/politics BIS .30 Personnel director .30 Influence through language and ideas Public speaking BIS .66 Elected public official .64 Personnel director .60 Public administrator .56 School administrator .56 Insurance agent .56 Law/politics BIS .56 Public relations director .55 Lawyer .44 Writing BIS .44 Recreation leader .43 Horticultural worker .42 Farmer .39 Mathematician .38

Note. BIS = Basic Interest Scale; GOT = General Occupation Theme Scale.

test construction model was based on a reconciliation of an array of empirical data with a theoretical heuristic (Hollands [1973] model) rather than on a mathematical abstraction of factors. The scree plot generated for a principle compo-

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Table 7 Principle Loadings of the Eight Business Core Function Scales on Factors Derived From a Factor Analysis of All Business Activity Business Career Interest Inventory (BCII) Items With a Principle Components Extraction of Eight Factors and Varimax Rotation (N 7,500)
Core Function Application of technology Quantitative analysis Theory development and conceptual thinking Creative production Counseling and mentoring Managing people and relationships Enterprise control Influence through language and ideas Factor 1 2 N/A 4 8 7 3 6 Factor Loading .84 .79 N/A .43 .68 .60 .69 .52

nents extraction did indeed indicate that an eight-factor solution would be the most parsimonious. A varimax rotation was used to identify independent dimensions (a promax rotation yielded highly similar results). The analysis revealed that seven of the eight business core functions had a dominant loading on seven of the extracted and rotated factors. These loadings are reported in Table 7. This loading was unambiguous (clearly higher than all other core function loadings for that factor) for five factors. In addition to the dominant loading of creative production on Factor 4, there was a secondary loading (.33) of the influence through language and ideas business core function, suggesting that the pure factor represents that aspect of creativity in business that is linked with an attempt to influence the environment (rather than creativity for its own sake). In addition to the dominant loading of influence through language and ideas on Factor 6, that factor has a secondary loading (.32) of enterprise control, suggesting a factor that represents the use of language and ideas with a bias toward power and control. In all of these cases, the business core function name and attendant definition would be an accurate label for the pure factor itself. The theory development and conceptual thinking business core function did not have a dominant loading on any of the extracted factors. It had modest loadings on Factor 2 (.35), Factor 6 (.27), and Factor 1 (.24), suggesting that this more academic dimension of theory, ideas, and imagination is dispersed in the business world among functions that are more directly focused on finance, technology, and intellectual persuasion. Although this is the one factor that did not find corroboration in the abstract methodology of factor analysis, the authors, with their many years of business career counseling experience, see the value of including a dimension that echoes in business terms the essence of Hollands

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investigative theme and often finds realization in areas such as business teaching and research, strategic planning, and management consulting.
Criterion Validity

Discriminant studies of occupational groups. Business core function profiles of highly experienced and satisfied individuals in specific business career areas discriminate in a predictable fashion between these occupational groups. Examples of these business career area profiles are given in Figure 1. The production and operations managers sample was composed of 133 individuals who had management responsibility in either manufacturing production environments or service operation environments who reported that they liked their work and had been in that role for a minimum of 3 years. The human resources and corporate training sample was composed of 283 professionals who worked in human resources departments of corporations or worked as organizational development trainers either internally for a human resources department or with an organizational development consulting organization. They met the same criteria for length of time in role and enjoyment of their function as the production and operations managers. The sales and sales manager sample was composed of 304 individuals who were employed (for a minimum of 3 years) either as direct line sales representatives or as managers of sales teams from a variety of business organizations. They as well were included in the sample only if they indicated enjoyment of role. The investment banking sample included 249 individuals employed or recently employed (some were investment bankers who had recently enrolled in an MBA program) in typical investment banking service areas (e.g., corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, sales and trading, etc.) mostly in large Wall Street investment banks. They all met the criteria of minimum employment of 3 years and satisfaction with their functional roles. Data on the business core function profiles for more than 20 different business career areas are available from the authors. Discriminant studies of predicted differences in general occupational samples. Studies of selected business core function differences between four general occupational samples (students from a leading business school; a general business professional sample; administrators in education, government, and human services; and nonbusiness workers) indicate significant differences in the predicted directions. For example, the general business professional sample (this is the same sample, N 8,600, described earlier) has significantly higher mean scores on enterprise control and quantitative analysis compared to administrators in education, government, and human services (a sample of 577 administrators from educational settings, government agencies, and human services organizations) and the nonbusiness workers (secretarial and administrative support personnel, N = 390). The administrators in education, government, and human services

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have a higher mean score on the counseling and mentoring business core function than either the general business professionals sample or the students from a leading business school (several thousand MBA students currently enrolled in the school). The students from a leading business school, known for launching the careers of top executives, have higher mean scores on the enterprise control and influence through language and ideas dimensions when compared to the general business professional sample. All three administrative groups have significantly higher scores on enterprise control when compared to the nonbusiness worker sample.

DISCUSSION
As stated earlier, the intent of the function-centered model is to portray the congruence that exists between the emerging interest patterns of an individual and the salient activities that characterize those patterns as they are expressed in a particular work role opportunity. The utility of the model in its application to the vocational domain of business has proven to be significant. Since its introduction in 1996, the Business Career Interest Inventory has been adopted by more than 200 business schools throughout the world. In a recent survey of assessments among its member schools, the Graduate Management Admissions Council found this instrument to be the leading career assessment tool (along with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) used by member schools. It was listed in the top three assessments used for any purpose by the more than 130 schools in its governing membership. The enthusiasm with which it has been met can be explained by the business-specific relevance of its constructs and the conceptual accessibility of the core function model. Business students and business professionals intuitively relate to the idea of a profile of business core functions that measure the specific business activities that have the potential to actualize underlying interest patterns.

Research Directions, Problems, and Limitations

The model in general and its specific application to the business domain provide an opportunity for further research. In terms of the business domain, the authors have employed large databases to map the mean business core function profiles of more than 25 business career paths. Other career paths await analysis. There is also a need to explore more specific career specialties within larger career areas. For example, the investment banking profile could be analyzed into constituent groups such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, municipal finance, and so on. It would be informative to study differences such as those that probably exist between sales professionals in business-to-business sales roles and sales professionals in consumer-oriented sales roles. Are individuals interest-

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ed in product development roles in high-technology industries different in terms of interests when compared to professionals in product development roles in lowtechnology companies? Is there a fundamental difference in the interests of general managers preferring small companies when compared to general managers in large corporate environments? The authors continue their investigations into questions of this nature, but the field of business careers is both large and dynamic; it calls for further study and analysis. A challenge facing the developers and users of the BCII and any assessment instrument in the increasingly global world economy is the issue of cultural differences among test takers. The general business sample used for BCII scale score comparisons is composed of a large (N 14,400) sample of business professionals from a broad spectrum of industries and functions who work in many countries, but the large majority of the sample is drawn from professionals working in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. Clinical experience has shown that individuals from nations other than those most represented in the sample still find the model useful and the results meaningful. However, there is a strong case for developing and studying cultural differences on the eight business core functions. The BCII database has now reached sufficient size to make available meaningful normative data for Latin American, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese business students. (Separate Turkish norms have been developed and are already in use.) This project is high on the authors research priority list. The development of such norms however raises interesting issues for business interest assessment. In the global economy, which is dominated by models, managers, and business practice norms originating largely in American and European countries and companies, to whom should non-American and nonEuropean business students be compared when evaluating how their interests apply to contemporary business career paths? Should the exceptional student from rural Taiwan who has been educated at leading schools in America and who is building her career in New York and London compare her interests to generally Western norms (the people who will largely be her peers for much of her career) or to the norms of Taiwanese professionals? One option of course is to make both normative comparisons available, and this is the path that will most likely be chosen for future cross-cultural development of the BCII. The function-centered approach as a general model of career interest assessment requires research to define the core work functions for any given vocational domain. In this regard, the construct of vocational domain is a fluid and malleable concept that may be posited at greater or lesser levels of specificity. For example, one could define the core functions of the teaching vocational domain as well as those of the engineering teaching domain. This applicability at different levels of analysis is another strength of the model itself. With this model, the researcher has as an advantage with the ability to be more precise in terms of elucidating the actual activities that underlie a specific work role. This experiencenear aspect of the model is thus well adapted for providing clinically useful

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career assessment data that has a great deal of nuance. The model has a particular advantage in career areas where work role definitions are characterized by a high degree of variability from setting to setting or are subject to ongoing redefinition as organizations restructure themselves to face the demands of accelerated technological or social change.

REFERENCES
Campbell, D. P. (1971). Handbook for the strong vocational interest blank. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dewey, J. (1913). Interest and effort in education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Harmon, L. W., Hansen, J. C., Borgen, F. H., & Hammer, A. L. (1994). Strong Interest Inventory: Applications and technical guide. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press. Holland, J. L. (1973). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Kitson, H. D. (1925). The psychology of vocational adjustment. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott. Savickas, M. L. (1999). The psychology of interests. In M. L. Savickas & A. R. Spokane (Eds.), Vocational interests (pp. 19-56). Palo Alto, CA: Davies-Black Publishing. Strong, E. K., Jr. (1943). Vocational interests of men and women. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Thorndike, E. L. (1935). The psychology of wants, interests, and attitudes. Norwalk, CT: AppletonCentury-Crofts.