Individual Differences in Perceptions of Occupations and Occupational Reinforcers

Individual differences in subjective occupational perceptions were investigated. Forty‐three students and 11 vocational counsellor/researchers judged the similarity of all possible pairs of 18 occupations, three from each of Holland's categories. Subjects rated each occupation on 11 occupational reinforcers. The unity of all but Holland's Conventional category was supported by the configuration of occupations in a four‐dimensional representation obtained from a multidimensional scaling (MDS) of the similarity judgements. Holland's hexagonal arrangement of the categories was not supported. Regressing occupational reinforcer ratings on to MDS dimensions indicated that the reinforcers were generally a significant component of occupational perceptions. The Independence reinforcer, however, was a significant component only for the counsellor/researchers and Compensation was more salient to the students than to the counsellor/researchers. 1979 The British Psychological Society