Applying image norms across Super's career development stages.

D. E. Super's (1957) theory of career development has long been of interest to careers researchers (M. Savickas, 1994; S. C. Whiston & B. K. Brecheisen, 2002). Its insightful illustration of career stages has made it widely applied by careers practitioners. Image norms may influence the career decisions and developmental tasks inherent in each stage. An image norm is the belief that individuals must present or possess a certain image, consistent with occupational, organizational, or industry standards, in order to achieve career success. Understanding the effects of image norms across D. E. Super's (1957) career stages has important implications for individuals, organizations, and career counseling professionals.

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Super's (1957) theory of career development has long been of interest to careers researchers (Fouad & Arbona, 1994; Savickas, 1994; Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002). Its insightful illustration of the stages individuals pass through in their careers has made it widely applied by careers practitioners and has profoundly affected numerous clients. The purpose of this article is to use Super's (1957) theory as a tool to illustrate how image norms may operate in each of his career stages. Image norms may influence the career decisions and developmental tasks inherent in each of Super's (1990) stages. An image norm is the belief that individuals must present or possess a certain image, consistent with occupational, organizational, or industry standards, in order to achieve career success. The rise in image discrimination cases suggests that image norms may play an important role in employment decisions. We propose that physical attractiveness and image effects may have an impact on career decisions throughout Super's (1957, 1990) developmental stages. These effects need to be more fully researched in order to understand the role of image norms in career decisions.

Image norms may influence career choices in every stage of an individual's career. Super's (1957, 1984) Model of Career Development has greatly influenced research on career stages. Super (1990) described five stages individuals go through in their careers, beginning with growth and ending with disengagement. As individuals confront the developmental tasks inherent in each stage, beliefs about the role of image may influence the accomplishment of said tasks.

In the first part of this article, we describe how image norms are formed. Image norms are considered to operate within a broader societal context and, as such, are expected to be influenced by society's definitions of beauty and attractiveness. In the second part, we examine Super's (1984) theory of careers and hypothesize how image norms may operate in each stage of his model. Finally, in the third part, we discuss the implications of image norms for individuals, organizations, and career counseling professionals.

Image Norms

Although the role of physical attractiveness in career decisions has received fairly strong research support (Hosoda, Stone-Romero, & Coats, 2003), the role of image has received limited attention from academics. A person's image is the totality of his or her personal appearance. Beliefs about the importance of image, personal appearance, and physical attractiveness in the workplace may reflect occupational and organizational stereotypes. Image norms may also reflect gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disability status, spiritual beliefs, and other cultural factors (Fouad & Byars-Winston, 2005). Ultimately, all of these factors may shape one's perception of image and become the basis for image norms.

Individuals develop three separate (but not mutually exclusive) sets of image perceptions, each of which may shape image norms and influence career decisions. The first set of perceptions involves occupational stereotypes. This is the belief that presenting or possessing a certain image is a requirement for entry into an occupation. Individuals' perceptions of these requirements may influence the decision to pursue or avoid certain jobs and occupations.

The second set of perceptions involves an individual's self-image. Individuals hold beliefs about their own image and degree of physical attractiveness. These beliefs may encompass physical characteristics (e.g., height, weight, strength, and endurance) and demographic attributes (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, and age). Such beliefs are likely grounded in and reflective of the current cultural norms and social mores regarding image and attractiveness in a society (Frith, Ping, & Hong, 2005). Evidence of gender differences in ratings of skills and abilities (Swanson & Lease, 1990) may also emerge in self-evaluations of image and attractiveness. Perceptions of one's own image may influence assessments of self-esteem and self-efficacy and serve to establish expectancies about the likelihood of success in certain occupations.

Finally, the third set of perceptions individuals may develop involves the relationship between their own image and an organization's image. The term organizational image has been used to describe general impressions of a company. Tom (1971) defined organizational image as the way that people perceive an organization, consisting of their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings about an organization. Others have described organizational image as a reaction to the company's name (Gatewood, Gowan, & Lautenschlager, 1993) or as a set of attributes about a company (Belt & Paolillo, 1982). Companies may prefer to hire and retain employees whose image is consistent with their organizational image. Individuals may rely on organizational images as one factor in determining their potential fit with a particular company (Greenhaus, Callanan, & Godshalk, 2000).

Image Norms and Super's Model of Career Development

Central to Super's (1957) theory of career development is the notion of the self-concept (Betz, 1994). Self-concept is basically how individuals picture themselves (Super, 1957). It has been defined as "the constellation of self attributes considered by the individual to be vocationally relevant" (Super, 1963, p. 20). This picture includes one's abilities, personality traits, values, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Super (1963) suggested that individuals attempt to implement their self-concept through occupational choice. Given the definitional breadth of Super's (1963) construct (Betz, 1994), one's self-concept may also include beliefs about one's image, personal appearance, and physical attractiveness. Perceptions of one's image may influence beliefs about which occupations would allow for the implementation of the self-concept.

Developmental theories of careers assume that "career development is a process that takes place over the life span" (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996, p. 128). Numerous psychologists and sociologists have suggested that individuals progress through distinct career stages, where each career stage is characterized by unique career concerns, psychological needs, and developmental tasks (Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, 1989; Brown & Brooks, 1996; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986). Super (1957, 1984) offered one of the most widely recognized models of career development stages.

Super's most recent formulation of his theory proposes that individuals progress through five stages of career development across the life span (Super et al., 1996; Zunker, 1998). The stages are growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement. This article focuses on how image norms may operate in each of Super's (1990) career development stages to influence the occupational and organizational choices individuals face throughout their careers. Applications of image norms across each of Super's (1990) stages are more fully developed in the following paragraphs.

Growth

In the growth stage, an individual begins to develop his or her self-concept (Super, 1957). The growth stage involves an individual's first introduction to the world of occupations (Super, 1990). Research suggests that children hold broad stereotypes about jobs that allow them to differentiate between occupations (Gottfredson, 1996; Martin & Gentry, 1997). Gender differences reflecting societal norms and expectations also manifest themselves as occupational stereotypes in this early stage of career development. In fact, "a series of studies conducted in the early 1970s (Hewitt, 1975; Looft, 1971) concluded that, by their early school years, children has [sic] acquired attitudes toward occupations that reflected traditional gender-role stereotypes" (Rubenfeld & Gilroy, 1991, p. 64). A generation later, Piel Cook (1993) argued that "the sex differentiation of the labor market continues, with women and men tending to prefer gender-traditional occupations" (p. 227). A recent study of seventh graders found that, when asked about their hopes for their future careers, boys tended to list mechanics, construction, the military, and sports-related fields, whereas girls tended to list health-related, writing, art, and entertainment-related fields (Usinger, 2005).

Occupational stereotypes about the importance of image and physical attractiveness for career success in certain occupations may become the basis for image norms. Adolescents may believe that individuals must possess a specific image to work in certain occupations, industries, and companies. Occupational image norms that are formed in the growth stage likely arise from one's own experiences, messages from family and friends in the social network, and messages from the media.