The role of personality characteristics and family process on indecisiveness on Italian adolescents.

Abstract

Findings from several studies underlined that career indecision and indecisiveness are two separate constructs even if indecisiveness is associated with decision making process (Germeijs & Boeck, 2002). Authors discussed the relationships between indecisiveness and personality characteristics: indecision has been related to external locus of control, trait anxiety, and low self-esteem (Bacanli, 2006), but findings were not completely coherent. Furthermore, recent research have pointed out the relationship between family process and career decision making (Nota et al., 2007), but the role that family process could play in the emergence of generalized indecision has been weakly studied. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between indecisiveness, personality characteristics (self-esteem and anxiety trait) and quality of family communication. Three hundred and fifty Italian adolescents, aged from13 to 18 years old, completed measures of indecisiveness, self-esteem, anxiety trait and family communication. Correlations between indecisiveness and all variables considered were found.