The goal of occupational health psychology (OHP) is to improve the quality of work life, and to protect and promote the health of workers and of their families. OHP is interdisciplinary, involving most areas of psychology and drawing upon fields such as public health, sociology, medicine, and industrial engineering. OHP is typically characterized as having
Occupational information is one of the major components needed to make effective career decisions. Occupational information refers to the collection of details about occupational and educational opportunities. Gathering and using occupational information is essential if an individual is to select options that fit his or her interests, values, aptitudes, and skills. Occupational information can include
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) was originally developed in 1939 by the U.S. Employment Service (USES) as a means to organize occupational information into one volume using a standardized format. It was produced to assist with job placement, employment counseling, and labor market estimations; the latest edition was published in 1991. With each revision
The Career Occupational Preference System (COPSystem) is a coordinated career guidance program consisting of three assessment instruments all keyed to eight major career clusters. The three assessment components are the COPSystem Interest Inventory (COPS), the Career Ability Placement Survey (CAPS), and the Career Orientation Placement and Evaluation Survey (COPES) and their accompanying interpretive materials. Interpretation
The occupational card sort is a technique used by career counselors to assist persons who are unclear about their present or future vocational choice. It accomplishes this by (1) increasing the range and quality of information about self and about specific occupations, (2) expanding or narrowing the range of occupations being considered, and (3) encouraging
For many individuals and for a long time, occupational choice has been seen as the goal of career development. Theory and practice focused on either occupational choice or career development, but more recently these have been integrated into more complex conceptions of career. Historically, occupational choice is a comparatively new phenomenon. Up until the twentieth
The inclusion of prestige as part of interest assessment is not a new phenomenon but has gained increasing attention over the past few years. As a construct, prestige encompasses level of aspiration, level of training, preference for public recognition and esteem, desire for high income, occupational level, responsibility, and socioeconomic status. Prestige may also reflect
For more than a century, people who study work, occupations, and society more generally have been interested in what distinguishes a profession from an occupation and how an occupation becomes a profession. Over time, theorists have provided different answers to these questions and proposed different processes of occupational professionalization. What underlies all of the theories
The Hall Occupational Orientation Inventory (HALL), first published in 1968, was developed by Lacy G. Hall to provide a more complete assessment of work-related personality variables than do the extant standardized interest inventories. Hall based the development of this inventory on the humanistic personality need theory elaborated by Abraham Maslow and adapted by Anne Roe
Occupational classification systems are schemas for grouping jobs and job data. Government agencies often use occupational classification systems to standardize the way job data are collected and how jobs are described. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses a standard classification structure to collect and sort national job data, such as wages
Commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) aspires to be America’s most comprehensive and widely applicable career development resource. A replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, O*NET’s primary feature is its detailed, research-based descriptions of nearly 1,000 occupations. Available as a database, an interactive Web
Career researchers and counselors emphasize the value of accurate information in the career planning process, and the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) is the most widely used source of occupational information in existence. Drawing on an ongoing U.S. Department of Labor data collection project, the OOH is a print and Internet reference designed to provide essential
Occupational stereotypes are a reflection of our tendency to use heuristics in our thinking about the world in the place of data. The result in this domain can be, and often is, prejudice and unequal opportunities for those demographic groups who become labeled. Classes of occupations can also suffer from generalizations made about them. However
The term career has been defined by several prominent behavioral scientists as a pattern of work-related experiences, including attitudes and behaviors, that span a person’s life. Such a definition encompasses different work referents, including job involvement, organizational commitment, occupational commitment, and work/nonwork roles. Adopting this definition suggests that a person can change jobs, organizations, and
Both educational and occupational attainment are important (and related) aspects of prestige differences in the United States as well as throughout the more developed and developing countries. Prestige is used as a measure of social status and therefore is a part of the broader social stratification system. Social status is viewed as a subjective concept
Occupational therapists (OTs) select and direct therapeutic activities designed to develop or restore maximum function to individuals with disabilities. There are approximately 92,000 occupational therapists employed in the United States. Since about the 14th century, physicians have recognized the therapeutic value of providing activities and occupations for their patients. Observations that mental patients tended to
Occupational safety and health workers are responsible for the prevention of work-related accidents and diseases, injuries from unsafe products and practices, property losses from accidents and fires, and adverse effects of industrial processes on the environment. There are approximately 40,000 occupational safety specialists and 12,000 health and safety technicians employed in the United States. For
Occupational health nurses are registered nurses who care for people in the workplace. Although they treat illnesses, injuries, and health problems, they are also involved with safety and health issues and prevention programs. An occupational health nurse may be an employee of a business, institution, or corporation or may be self-employed on a contract or
Occupational therapy assistants (also called OTAs) help people with mental, physical, developmental, or emotional limitations using a variety of activities to improve basic motor functions and reasoning abilities. They work under the direct supervision of an occupational therapist, and their duties include helping to plan, implement, and evaluate rehabilitation programs designed to regain patients’ self-sufficiency
Many developed countries require occupational licenses for everyone from surgeons to interior decorators. Licensing in effect creates a regulatory barrier to entry into licensed occupations, and thus results in higher income for those with licenses. However, licensing is assumed to protect the public interest by keeping incompetent and unscrupulous individuals from working with the public.
The Career Occupational Preference System (COPSystem) is a coordinated career guidance program consisting of three assessment instruments all keyed to eight major career clusters. The three assessment components are the COPSystem Interest Inventory (COPS), the Career Ability Placement Survey (CAPS), and the Career Orientation Placement and Evaluation Survey (COPES) and their accompanying interpretive materials. Interpretation
The Hall Occupational Orientation Inventory (HOOI) is an ambitious undertaking designed to aid career and personal exploration through the self-assessment of needs, values, interests, and abilities. Resembling a psychometric one-stop shop, items cover more dimensions at once than other tools used for similar exploratory purposes. The HOOI was originally published in 1968 in three forms:
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) refers to the database of worker and occupational attributes that succeeds the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) as the primary source of information for occupations in the U.S. economy. Although the DOT had held this title for many years, numerous events— including the explosion of
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles, or DOT, is a comprehensive listing of job titles with accompanying job descriptions, available in a paper format, published by the U.S. Department of Labor. Since its inception in 1939, the DOT has served as an invaluable resource for human resource practitioners in developing job analyses and job descriptions. The
United States federal fair employment laws generally prohibit discrimination in employment on the basis of certain protected characteristics, including race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability. However, the fair employment laws permit employers to discriminate based on a protected characteristic in rare situations where the characteristic is considered a bona fide occupational qualification
Police occupational socialization is the process whereby individuals learn to be fit for performing police work by becoming aware of organizational and occupational practices, internalizing them, and carrying them out as participating members of their work group. Learning takes place through three social phases: pre-entry, entry, and in-service. This sequence involves individuals making a choice
Occupational stress is a broad concept that has been defined in a variety of ways in the popular and professional literature. It is generally agreed that occupational stress consists of the harmful physical and psychological consequences to individuals that result when an imbalance exists between demands of the work environment and individual needs, abilities, and
Occupational information is one of the major components needed to make effective career decisions. Occupational information refers to the collection of details about occupational and educational opportunities. Gathering and using occupational information is essential if an individual is to select options that fit his or her interests, values, aptitudes, and skills. Occupational information can include
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is the United States Department of Labor’s online successor to the Dictionary of Occupation Titles (DOT). The O*NET is intended to provide a reference responsive to the rapidly changing world of work. The O*NET is an ever-evolving resource due to ongoing data collection efforts intended to expand its information coverage
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) was originally developed in 1939 by the U.S. Employment Service (USES) as a means to organize occupational information into one volume using a standardized format. It was produced to assist with job placement, employment counseling, and labor market estimations; the latest edition was published in 1991. With each revision