Chapter 5: Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT): Lent, Brown, and Hackett

Career development is a relatively new concept in the recent history of labor, whereby performing a task for money, trade, or just mere survival dates as far back as anthropologists and historians have been able to provide evidence. The movement of evaluating careers in a theoretical model has evolved in more recent history due to the rise of industrialism, with many theories focusing on career development, career counseling, career guidance, and/or career intervention. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is one of the newer theories developed by Lent, Brown, and Hackett (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 1996). While many of the theories are developed from a framework of understanding vocational choice within identity, work versus personal roles, establishment of career within life experience, and career maintenance of one’s lifetime, the SCCT relates within some of these structures, however this theory is conceptualized from the key constructs of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and personal goals (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1996).