Career Planning Confidence Among Facebook Users

Abstract

As a highly popular social networking site (SNS) for exchanging information about their personal activities, values, goals, and accomplishments with their online “friends,” Facebook (FB)^© enables social comparisons and identity negotiations that may influence college students’ career planning confidence. However, to date, no studies have examined whether FB use activities and “friend” networks are uniquely associated with such confidence when dispositional variables associated with students’ needs for belongingness and self-presentation are concurrently controlled. In the present study, participants provided information about their FB use activities and networks and completed self-report measures of adult attachment security, authenticity, career decision self-efficacy, and career aspirations. We hypothesized that, controlling for features of FB use, adult attachment security and authenticity would make significant and incremental contributions to our indicators of career confidence and that authenticity would mediate expected relations between attachment security and these outcomes. Our findings yielded general support for these hypotheses. Implications for career counseling practice that considers both clients’ relational dispositions and uses of social media are discussed.

Keywords

career confidence adult attachment authenticity Facebook college students

Facebook (FB)^© is a highly popular social networking site (SNS) among young adults for exchanging information about their personal activities, accomplishments, and aspirations with others. Currently, 88% of all online users aged 18–29 are FB subscribers (59% use Instagram, 36% use Pinterest, 34% use LinkedIn, and 36% use Twitter; Greenwood, Perrin, & Duggan, 2016). Additionally, over 90% of college students spend an average of 1 hr and 40 min each day at this site (Junco, 2012a, 2012b). As an SNS, FB allows users to (a) create a public or semipublic profile, (b) “articulate” a list of other users with whom to connect, and (c) “view and traverse” one’s list of connections and the connections made by others (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 211). FB users can thus engage in a variety of online activities including posting information and/or images of themselves, making public comments on the electronic posting boards (i.e., “walls”) of their online friends, or simply browsing others’ posts and “newsfeeds.”

College students’ intensive use of FB has prompted study of their motivations for using this SNS, as well relations among their FB use, global personality characteristics such as extroversion, neuroticism, and narcissism, and well-being (e.g., Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012; Yang & Brown, 2013). However, this literature has generated several inconsistent findings. For example, Buffardi and Campbell (2008) found that students’ narcissistic traits were significantly correlated with both their number of FB friends and their level of self-promotion on this SNS. On the other hand, Ross, Orr, Sisic, and Arseneault (2009) found that global personality factors were not particularly useful in predicting patterns of FB activities. More recently, Lemieux, Lajoie, and Trainor (2013) found that, within a college sample, the number of FB friends was negatively related to students’ self-reports of loneliness and social avoidance.

Other investigators in this domain have argued for a clearer specification of FB activities. For instance, Verduyn et al. (2015) proposed that FB use patterns be differentiated in terms of “active” versus “passive” forms, with active forms involving direct exchanges with other users (e.g., posting status updates and commenting on others’ posts) and passive forms indicating the consumption of information on FB without directly interacting with another user (e.g., reading newsfeeds and viewing posts). Regarding this FB use parameter, Pempek, Yermolayeva, and Calvert (2009) found that while many young adults use FB to express their identities, they spend more time observing versus posting their own content. Locatelli, Kluwe, and Bryant (2012) observed that college students who frequently posted negative FB status updates concurrently reported low levels of well-being, a relationship that was mediated by their dispositional tendencies to ruminate.

Using more objective criteria for assessing students’ online FB activities, Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitsky (2010) examined associations between college students’ global personality traits and their FB use, finding that extroversion was significantly correlated with self-reports of having more FB friends, whereas, unexpectedly, agreeableness was not. Acknowledging the complex and inconsistent findings linking FB use patterns with global personality factors, these investigators noted that the same FB use behaviors may stem from different motivations, and that
While the emotionally secure individual focuses on self-actualization and expresses it by sharing more information with others from a secure base, the neurotic person, who also strives to share more information, is motivated by the need for self-assurance. (p. 1294)
In line with this speculation, Skues, Williams, and Wise (2012) subsequently found that only openness levels were positively related to spending time on FB and having more FB friends and that neither extroversion, neuroticism, self-esteem, nor narcissism was significantly associated with FB use. Curiously, however, lonely students also reported having more FB friends, leading these investigators to conjecture that (a) these students may use FB to compensate for their less satisfying offline relationships by accessing and interacting with others online and that (b) global personality factors may have limited utility in predicting students’ online behaviors and experiences.

Although the literature examining links among college students’ FB use, personality characteristics, and adjustment outcomes is rapidly expanding, we could locate only one study (Argyris & Xu, 2016) that specifically examined the relationship between FB use and college students’ career-related confidence. This neglect is surprising, given emergent findings that FB use is favorably associated with variables that are theoretically related to career development, including social support-seeking (e.g., Nabi, Prestin, & So, 2013), social comparisons (Lee, 2014), and the accrual of social capital (Johnston, Tanner, Lalla, & Kawalski, 2013; Kalpidou, Costin, & Morris, 2011) via information seeking and networking (Kind & Evans, 2015; Vitak & Ellison, 2012). These information-sharing and social support-building constructs align with developmental processes discussed in Super’s (1990) life span career theory. Super proposed that, during the Exploration stage of career development, late adolescents are normatively tasked with specifying and provisionally implementing their vocational identities. Elsewhere, Jordan-Conde, Mennecke, and Townsend (2014) argued that FB serves as a medium through which late adolescents in the moratorium phase of identity development can test out various aspects of their emergent identities within their online peer communities. Consistent with this view, findings from a 1-year longitudinal study showed that, controlling for their college participants’ self-esteem and life satisfaction, the intensity of FB use at year 1 strongly predicted the acquisition of “bridging” social capital at year 2, and that participants with lower self-esteem gained more from their FB use than did their higher self-esteem peers (Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe, 2008). Yet, contrary to Jordan-Conde et al.’s (2014) argument, a more recent longitudinal study of college students found that FB use intensity was associated with a decline in self-concept clarity over a 3-month period (Appel, Schreiner, Weber, Mara, & Gnambs, 2018, study 3). Such inconsistent findings support the pursuit of a finer-grained analysis of personality-related motivations that may explain these variant findings.

In their review of FB literature, Nadkarni and Hofmann (2012) argued that FB use patterns and their adjustment-related impacts are likely guided by two primary motivations: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation. On one hand, the need to belong reflects such variables as self-esteem, orientations toward affiliation, and comfort with intimacy and self-disclosure. On the other hand, the need for self-presentation is linked to variables such as impression management and self-enhancement which likely influence the accuracy of the online personal communications and self-images that individuals share with others. Adopting Nadkarni and Hofmann’s (2012) dual-factor model for understanding FB use patterns, Seidman (2013) found that agreeableness and neuroticism were the best predictors of FB belongingness-related behaviors and motivations, whereas low levels of conscientiousness and high levels of neuroticism best predicted the self-presentational behaviors of college student FB users and that the motivation to express these self-aspects mediated the relationship between neuroticism and self-disclosure. These findings further suggest that our understanding of the impacts of college students’ FB use on their well-being may be clarified by considering the contributions of dispositional traits more closely associated with students’ belongingness and self-presentation needs.

In sum, studies examining relations among FB use patterns, global personality traits, and indicators of college students’ well-being have yielded mixed findings. Furthermore, we could locate only one study (Argyris & Xu, 2016) that specifically considered how FB use experiences influenced college students’ career planning confidence. These researchers proposed that FB provides two important technical “affordances”––the affordance of virtual people watching and the affordance of garnering social support––and that engaging these affordances can, respectively, strengthen college students’ social relatedness and self-presentational efficacies, which, in turn, should strengthen their career decision self-efficacy. Although their findings yielded support for their hypotheses, we sought to test a model for predicting career planning confidence that, in addition to controlling for multiple indicators of FB use, considered the contributions of dispositional traits more closely associated with students’ belongingness and self-presentational needs. Given this aim, we turned to the research literatures on adult attachment security and dispositional authenticity.

Attachment Theory as a Framework for Understanding the Contributions of FB Engagement to College Students’ Career Decisional Confidence

Recently, Hart, Nailling, Bizer, and Collins (2015) proposed that attachment theory could serve as a viable framework for explaining engagement with FB. Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982/1969, 1988) indeed offers an important life span perspective on the emergence and adult expression of belongingness needs, one that emphasizes how early infant interactions with primary caregivers around the former’s experiences of distress and uncertainty are ultimately transformed into distinctive relational schema or “attachment orientations.” According to Bowlby (1988), these relational orientations capture critical dispositional variability in the expression of belongingness needs, variability that is further assumed to either promote or impair the individual’s adjustment and development throughout the life course. In adulthood, attachment security is frequently assessed by a person’s self-reported levels of attachment anxiety, or fears of rejection or abandonment by intimate others, and attachment avoidance, or expressed discomfort with the demands of intimacy and dependence on others (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000). Adults with low scores on both dimensions are considered to have a secure attachment orientation, whereas those with high scores on one, the other, or both dimensions concurrently are presumed to endorse insecure attachment orientations.

Three decades of research on adult attachment security have generally found that, relative to their peers with insecure orientations, individuals with secure adult attachment orientations demonstrate more adaptive functioning across a wide range of adjustment indicators, including important career-related processes and outcomes (for a recent review, see Mikulincer & Shaver, 2017). Adult attachment security has also been recently linked to dispositional variability in authenticity or the quality of one’s “true” self-experiencing and self-representations to others (Lopez, Ramos, Nisenbaum, Thind, & Ortiz-Rodriguez, 2015). Given that adult attachment orientations and authenticity may, respectively, represent important dispositional variability in belongingness and self-presentational needs, we first summarize findings from the broader literature linking adult attachment security and authenticity with career-related development and adjustment processes and then consider studies examining relations among college students’ adult attachment orientations, authenticity, and patterns of FB engagement.

Adult Attachment Orientations and Career Development Processes

Several attachment theory-driven studies within college student samples have examined associations between students’ adult attachment orientations and various career development processes and outcomes. Students’ adult attachment orientations have been related in expected directions with vocational self-concept crystallization (Tokar, Withrow, Hall, & Moradi, 2003), career decision self-efficacy and fear of commitment (Wolfe & Betz, 2004), and to career indecision (Keller & Brown, 2013). In other studies, adult attachment anxiety and avoidance were each found to predict career indecision through their indirect effects on students’ level of self-criticism (Braunstein-Bercovitz, 2014) and their levels of self-exploration and identity confusion (Downing & Nauta, 2009). Adult attachment orientations have also been shown to predict college students’ life satisfaction by way of their intermediate impacts on students’ social self-efficacy and career decision self-efficacy (Wright & Perrone, 2010) and to predict both academic and career self-efficacy by way of their indirect effects on students’ perceptions of career supports and barriers (Wright, Perrone-McGovern, Boo, & White, 2014). Elsewhere, secure adult attachment orientations have been related to lower actual versus ideal self-discrepancies and to more favorable “growth” motivations in broader aspects of life (Blalock, Franzese, Machell, & Strauman, 2015).

Authenticity and Career Development Processes

Taken together, the above findings suggest that adult attachment security may promote college students’ career planning confidence by both satisfying their belongingness needs and strengthening their more authentic self-presentations to others. Drawing from Rogerian theory, Wood, Linley, Maltby, Baliousis, and Joseph (2008) conceptualized and measured authenticity as a tripartite construct that embodied high levels of “true self” experiencing along with low levels of self-alienation and susceptibility to external influence. Using their self-report measure, White and Tracey (2011) reported that authenticity was negatively related to career indecision in a college sample, whereas, using an alternative self-report measure of authenticity (the Authenticity Inventory, Kernis & Goldman, 2006), Milyavskaya, Nadolny, and Koestner (2015) observed that authenticity mediated relationships between psychological need satisfaction and undergraduates’ pursuit of self-concordant goals. In broader studies of college students’ adjustment, authenticity was found to mediate the relation between students’ self-rumination/self-reflection levels and their reports of life satisfaction and distress (Boyraz & Kuhl, 2015) and to make a unique contribution to the prediction of life meaning when students’ adult attachment security was concurrently controlled (Lopez et al., 2015).

FB Use, Adult Attachment Orientations, Authenticity, and Career Confidence

Despite the above findings, there is still an open question as to whether college students’ FB use activities, which are presumably linked to their belongingness and self-presentational needs (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012), influence their levels of career planning confidence when these dispositional variables are conjointly considered. Regarding this question, there is preliminary evidence that dispositional levels of adult attachment security and authenticity are related to FB use patterns and may thus account for whether these patterns favorably or unfavorably affect college students’ career decisional confidence. For example, FB use intensity has been associated with high levels of attachment anxiety and lower levels of interpersonal competency among college students and other adults (Jenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, & Hudiburgh, 2012; Oldmeadow, Quinn, & Kowert, 2013), and that college students with low levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance appeared to make the most adaptive use of FB as a medium for accessing both “bonding” and “bridging” social capital (Lee, 2013).

Elsewhere, Reinecke and Trepte (2014) assessed the impact of authenticity in personal online profiles by first asking participants to “describe the person you represent in your on-line profile” and then having them rate these adjectives in terms of the person “you really are.” Their findings demonstrated that participants’ online authenticity was significantly related to their subjective well-being and longitudinally predicted their positive and negative affect as well as their life satisfaction, thus suggesting that authenticity may serve as “an important mechanism that links SNS use to increased psychological well-being” (p. 100). In a study of the online and off-line self-presentations of a sample of Internet “bloggers,” Trub (2017) reported that, relative to their more insecurely attached peers, securely attached participants demonstrated greater similarity between their online and off-line self-presentations as well as lower levels of self-concealment. Lastly, Yang and Brown (2016) found that “broad, deep, positive, and authentic Facebook self-presentation” (p. 402) was positively associated with college students’ perceived support from their audience and contributed to their higher self-esteem.

Summary and Research Hypotheses

The available literature examining interrelationships among college students’ FB use, global personality traits, and well-being has generated a number of complex and inconsistent findings, as well as calls for more specific assessment of FB users’ belongingness and self-presentation needs (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012). Furthermore, despite evidence that FB functions as a popular means for engaging in identity-related negotiations with others and accruing social capital that can potentially promote students’ career development, thus far only one study (Argyris & Xu, 2016) specifically assessed the impact of FB use on a single index of college students’ career planning confidence.

To extend this particular line of inquiry, we sought to assess and control for several features of college students’ FB use (i.e., average daily time on FB, the frequencies of active and passive forms of use, and number of FB friends), prior to examining the hypothesized contributions of our participants’ adult attachment security and authenticity in predicting each of two indicators of their career planning confidence (career decision self-efficacy and career aspiration). We hypothesized that, controlling for FB use patterns, students’ levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance, as well as their authenticity, would contribute unique and incremental variance to the prediction of their career planning confidence. Lastly, we expected that students’ dispositional levels of authenticity would mediate the expected relationship between adult attachment security and career confidence.

Method

Participants and Procedure

The sample consisted of 191 undergraduate students (148 women, 41 men, 2 unknown) attending a large, public university in the Southwest. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 52 years, with a mean age of 22.4 years (SD = 5.60). Regarding race/ethnicity, the largest group was Hispanic (33.3%), followed by Asian/Pacific islander (28.6%), Caucasian/White (23.8%), African-American/Black (5.8%), Biracial (4.2%), and “Other” (3.7%).

Prospective participants for a study on college students’ use of FB were initially solicited via an online, campus-based research recruitment portal wherein students can earn partial course credit for their participation in research studies. Our study’s recruitment message indicated that participants would respond to questions about their use of social media, experiences in relationships, and career attitudes. Following their review and acceptance of informed consent procedures, participants were granted access to a secure research website that contained the study’s research measures.

Measures

FB activities

Ten items were drawn and modified from the Facebook Action Scale (FAS; Koroleva, Krasnova, Veltri, & Gunther, 2011; Krasnova, Wenninger, Widjaja, & Buxmann, 2013), which assessed frequencies and time that individuals spend engaging in active and passive forms of FB activities. The FAS is a 15-item self-report measure that represents four groups of actions users can perform on an SNS: Active Participation, Passive Following, Social Browsing, and Social Searching. The original authors reported Cronbach’s αs ranging from .71 to .93 for the four subscales. In the present study, 10 items were selected and modified to create distinct subscales that measure frequency of two forms of FB actions: Active Communication and Passive Consumption. Active Communication represents posting and communicating with others on FB (e.g., “On average, how often do you respond to what others post?”). Passive Consumption represents viewing and reading contents posted by other users (e.g., “On average, how often do you read your news feed?”). Participants rated items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (less than once a week) to 5 (more than five times a day). In the present study, the Cronbach αs were .67 for FB Active Communication and .79 for FB Passive Consumption.

Number of FB friends and total time of FB daily use

The following items were used to measure the number of FB friends and total time of FB daily use: “Approximately how many TOTAL Facebook friends do you have?” “In the past week, on average, approximately how many minutes per day have you spent actively using Facebook?” These items were drawn from the Facebook Intensity Scale (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2011).

Experiences in Close Relationships—Short Form Scale (ECR-S)

The 12-item ECR-S is a self-report measure of adult attachment security that contains two 6-item subscales (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). The Anxiety subscale measures the fear of being abandoned and rejected (e.g., “I need a lot of reassurance that I am loved by my partner”), while the Avoidance subscale assesses discomfort with intimacy and dependence on others (e.g., “I try to avoid getting too close to my partner”). Participants rated their level of agreement with items on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly). Higher scores indicate greater anxiety and avoidance, respectively. Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, and Vogel (2007) found Cronbach’s αs ranging from .78 to .88 for the Anxiety and Avoidance scale scores among college students. In their study, ECR-S subscale scores were correlated in expected directions with scores on independent measures of depression, anxiety, and interpersonal problems, thus providing criterion validity support. In the current study, Cronbach’s αs were .74 for Anxiety scores and .83 for Avoidance scores.

Authenticity Scale (AS)

The AS is a 12-item self-report measure of the tripartite construct of authenticity: Authentic Living (“I always stand by what I believe in”), Accepting External Influence (“I usually do what other people tell me to do”), and Self-Alienation (“I feel alienated from myself”; Wood, Linley, Maltby, Baliousis, & Joseph, 2008). Respondents answer items along a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (does not describe me at all) to 7 (describes me very well). Cronbach’s αs for AS subscale scores ranged from .74 to .84 across three separate studies (Wood et al., 2008). Wood et al. (2008) reported that 2- and 4-week test–retest reliabilities of AS subscale scores ranged from .78 to .91. These investigators also found that AS subscale scores significantly correlated in expected directions with independent measures of psychological well-being. In the current study, Cronbach’s αs for AS subscales scores ranged from .81 to .86. Following the reverse scoring of the Self-Alienation and Accepting External Influence subscales, a total authenticity score was created by summing across all three subscale scores, with higher scores indicating higher levels of dispositional authenticity. The Cronbach’s α for AS total scores in our sample was .88.

Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale—Short Form (CDSE-SF)

The CDSE-SF is a 25-item self-report measure of undergraduates’ perceived efficacy in performing various career-decision-making tasks and behaviors (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996). This instrument contains five subscales: Self-Appraisal, Occupational Information, Goal Selection, Planning, and Problem-Solving. Examples of questions include “How much confidence do you have that you could: make a plan of your goals for the next five years” and “How much confidence do you have that you could: select one major from a list of potential majors you are considering.” Participants rate their confidence on a Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (no confidence at all) to 9 (complete confidence). Betz, Klein, and Taylor (1996) found Cronbach’s αs ranging from .73 to .83 for the CDSE-SF subscales and .94 for the CDSE-SF total scores. Betz, Hammond, and Multon (2005) found Cronbach’s αs ranging from .78 to .87 for the CDSE-SF subscales and from .93 to .95 for the CDSE-SF total scores in diverse samples. Betz et al. (2005) also reported considerable evidence of the validity of the CDSE-SF relative to other measures assessing career decision. In the present study, only CDSE-SF total scores were used and these scores obtained a Cronbach’s α of .95.

Career Aspiration Scale (CAS)

The CAS is a self-report measure of career-related aspirations that consists of eight total items and two subscales (Gray & O’Brien, 2007). The Achievement and Leadership Aspirations subscale measures the degree of aspiration toward leadership and responsibility in one’s career (e.g., “I hope to move up in any organization or business I work in”) and the Educational Aspirations subscale measures a desire to pursue further education (e.g., “I think I would like to pursue graduate training in my occupational area of interest”). Participants rate their level of agreement with each item on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (not at all true of me) to 4 (very true of me), with higher scores indicating greater career aspiration. Gray and O’Brien (2007) reported Cronbach’s αs of .76 and .82 for scores on the Leadership Achievement Aspirations and Education subscales, respectively, as well as a total CAS score reliability of .77 within their sample of college women. In a subsequent study, CAS subscale scores were also positively correlated with scores on independent measures of career salience and achievement motivation within a sample of female graduate students, indicating satisfactory criterion-related validity (Gregor & O’Brien, 2015). In the current study, CAS subscale scores were summed to produce a total CAS score that obtained a Cronbach’s α of .74.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Prior to conducting our primary analyses, we inspected cases involving missing data and examined whether the distributions of scores on our key measures met parametric assumptions regarding normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity. We also examined whether participants’ age, gender, and race/ethnicity were significantly related to their career planning confidence scores and should thus be controlled in our primary analyses.

Inspection of the database indicated the presence of three cases with more than 10% missing data; these cases were thus removed from further analysis, resulting in a final sample of 188 cases. For the final sample, all the variables met the normality assumption except for FB use time and the number of FB friends. FB use time and the number of FB friends displayed positive skewness and kurtosis. Thus, these two scores were log-transformed and subsequently indicated normal distributions. Inspection of scatter plots confirmed linearity and homoscedasticity of data.

Zero-order correlations, means, and standard deviations of key study variables are displayed in Table 1. With one exception, scores on FB-related variables were not significantly correlated with either participants’ CDSE or CAS scores. However, the number of participants’ FB friends was significantly and positively correlated with their CAS scores. Attachment anxiety scores were significantly and negatively correlated with participants’ CDSE scores but only weakly and nonsignificantly correlated with their CAS scores. By contrast, participants’ attachment avoidance scores were significantly and negatively correlated with both their CDSE and CAS scores. As expected, participants’ authenticity scores were significantly and negatively correlated with their attachment anxiety and avoidance scores and significantly and positively related to their CDSE and CA scores. Participant age was not significantly related to either their CDSE or CAS scores and thus was not controlled in the subsequent regression analyses of these scores.

Table 1.
Zero-Order Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations for All Study Variables.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Age

2. FB use time (log t) −.12

3. FB active use frequency .07 .39*

4. FB passive use frequency −.08 .43* .32*

5. No. of FB friends (log t) −.27* .09 −.11 .05

6. ECR anxiety −.20** .03 −.04 .00 .08

7. ECR avoidance −.17* −.06 −.17* −.16* .03 .34*

8. Authenticity .22* .03 .06 .01 .04 −.50* −.47*

9. CDSE .13 −.07 .13 .09 .07 −.22 −.38* .57*

10. CAS .01 .06 .14 .10 .20 −.12 −.20 .31* .41***

Scale range 18–52 1–5 1–5 1–7 1–7 1–7 0–9 0–4

M 22.43 1.44 1.75 2.49 2.50 3.66 2.83 5.16 6.73 3.23

SD 5.60 .48 .61 1.00 .48 1.24 1.28 1.06 1.28 .62

Note. N = 188. Log t = log transformed; FB = Facebook; ECR = Experiences in Close Relationship Scale; CDSE = Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale; CAS = Career Aspiration Scale; SD = standard deviation.

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of CDSE and CAS scores indicated no significant multivariate effect due to participants’ gender, Wilks’s λ = .99, F(2, 167) = 1.14, p = .32. Given the racial/ethnic diversity within our sample, we also conducted a one-way MANOVA that examined differences in CDSE and CAS scores across our four most-represented racial/ethnic groups (Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, and African American). As these results indicated a multivariate effect that approached significance, Wilks’s λ = .93; F (6, 332) = 2.03, p = .061, we inspected the univariate findings. At the univariate level, only CDSE scores reflected a significant group difference (p < .04), with Scheffe multiple comparisons indicating that Caucasian students reported higher CDSE scores (M = 7.10) than did their Asian counterparts (M = 6.36). We therefore controlled for participants’ race/ethnicity in the primary analyses of CDSE scores.

Primary Analyses

To test our model-related hypotheses, we next ran separate hierarchical multiple regressions that, respectively, predicted participants’ CDSE and CAS scores. In the regression predicting CDSE scores, participants’ race was dummy-coded and entered at the first step. The Caucasian American group was selected as a reference group against which the CDSE scores of Asian American, African American, and Hispanic American groups were compared. Next, the block of the four FB use indicators (average daily FB use time, number of FB friends, active use frequency, passive use frequency) were entered at the next step. Participants’ centered attachment anxiety and avoidance scores were then entered as a block at the third step, followed by the final step entry of their centered authenticity scores. Apart from the first step entry of participants’ race, the regression predicting CAS scores model followed a parallel procedure for entering model predictors.

Table 2 presents the results of the regression of participants’ CDSE scores. At the first step of this model, participants’ race accounted for a modest yet significant amount of variance in these scores, F(3,167) = 2.84, p < .05, R ² = .05. The block entry of FB use-related variables at Step 2 explained an additional 7% of incremental variance in CDSE scores, with FB use time significantly and negatively associated with (β = –.24, p < .01) and with FB active use frequency significantly and positively associated with these criterion scores (β = .20, p < .05). The block entry of adult attachment anxiety and avoidance at Step 3 explained an additional 12% of the variance in CDSE scores; however, within this block, only attachment avoidance emerged as a significant and negative predictor (β = –.32, p < .001). The last step entry of participants’ authenticity scores also incrementally enhanced model prediction, accounting for an additional 13% of the variance in CDSE scores (β = .49, p < .001). In the full model, which explained 37% of the variance in CDSE scores, participants’ authenticity, FB use time, and active use frequency scores remained as significant unique predictors.

Table 2.
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Predicting CDSE Scores.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

Predictor B SE B β B SE B β B SE B β B SE B β

Asian −.74 .25 −.27 −.81 .25 −.30 −.61 .24 −.22* −.23 .23 −.09

African −.46 .44 −.09 −.44 .43 −.08 −.20 .41 −.04 .01 .38 .00

Hispanic −.38 .25 −.14 −.30 .24 −.11 −.28 .23 −.10 −.10 .21 −.04

FB use time −.67 .24 −.24** −.58 .23 −.21* −.62 .21 −.23**

FB active use frequency .48 .20 .20* .40 .18 .17 .33 .17 .14*

FB passive use frequency .22 .14 .14 .15 .13 .09 .19 .12 .11

No. of FB friends .34 .20 .13 .35 .19 .13 .24 .17 .09

Attachment anxiety −.09 .08 −.09 .10 .08 .09

Attachment avoidance −.32 .08 −.32*** −.15 .07 −.15*

Authenticity .58 .10 .49***

R ² .05 .12 .24 .37

Change in R² .07 .12 .13

F for change in R² 2.84* 3.30* 12.66* 33.02*

Note. N = 171. CDSE = Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale; SE = standard error; FB = Facebook.

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

Table 3 presents the results of the regression of participants’ CAS scores. At the first step of this model, the block entry of FB use-related variables accounted for modest yet significant variance in these criterion scores, F(4,183) = 3.62, p < .01, R ² = .07, with FB active use frequency and number of FB friends significantly predicting these scores (β = .17, p < .05; β = .22, p < .01, respectively). At Step 2, the block entry of adult attachment anxiety and avoidance scores significantly predicted an additional 4% of the variance in CAS scores; however, once again, within this block only attachment avoidance was negatively associated these criterion scores (β = –.16, p < .05). When entered at the last step, authenticity scores explained an additional 5% of variance in CAS scores (β = .28, p < .01). In the full model, which accounted for 16% of the variability in participants’ CAS scores, only participants’ authenticity scores and number of FB friends remained as unique predictors.

Table 3.
Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Predicting CAS Scores.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Predictor B SE B β B SE B β B SE B β

FB use time −.09 .11 −.07 −.08 .11 −.06 −.09 .11 −.07

FB active use frequency .19 .09 .17* .17 .09 .15 .16 .09 .15

FB passive use frequency .06 .06 .07 .04 .06 .05 .05 .06 .07

No. of FB friends .29 .09 .22 .30 .09 .23 .27 .09 .21**

Attachment anxiety −.04 .04 −.08 .02 .04 .03

Attachment avoidance −.08 .04 −.16* −.03 .04 −.06

Authenticity .16 .05 .28

R ² .07 .11 .16

Change in R² .04 .05

F for change in R² 3.62 3.73* 10.49**

Note. N = 188. CAS = Career Aspiration Scale; SE = standard error; FB = Facebook.

p < .05. p < .01. p < .001.

Test of Indirect Effects

Lastly, to test our hypothesis regarding the mediating role of authenticity, we used the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013) to create 5,000 bootstrapped resamples for testing indirect effects in each model. In the first regression model predicting CDSE scores, we hypothesized that the observed association between attachment avoidance and CDSE would be mediated through authenticity. Bootstrapping estimates supported this hypothesis (boot indirect effect = –.17, boot SE = .05, bias-corrected 95% CI [–.28, –.09]). When the mediator, authenticity, was entered at Step 4, the contribution of attachment avoidance to these scores was reduced but remained significant (β = –.15, p < .05), thus indicating that authenticity partially mediated the relationship between attachment avoidance and CDSE when race, FB use-related variables, and attachment anxiety were controlled.

In the second regression model predicting CAS scores, we similarly hypothesized that the association between attachment avoidance and CAS would be mediated through authenticity. Bootstrapping estimates again supported this hypothesis (boot indirect effect = –.05, boot SE = .02, 95% bias-corrected CI [–.09, –.02]). When authenticity was entered at Step 4, attachment avoidance became a nonsignificant predictor, thus indicating that authenticity fully mediated the relationship between attachment avoidance and CAS when FB use-related variables and attachment anxiety were controlled.

Discussion

Previous studies have found that college students’ use of online SNS such as FB is associated with processes that are theoretically relevant to career exploration and decisional confidence, including information sharing, identity-related exchanges, and social support building. However, we could locate only one prior study (Argyris & Xu, 2016) that specifically investigated links between students’ FB use and their career decision-making confidence. In an effort to advance this line of inquiry, we examined associations between college students’ FB use and indicators of their career planning confidence (career decision self-efficacy and career aspiration) in order to understand if students’ use of this particular SNS uniquely contributed to their career planning confidence when dispositional traits associated with their belongingness and self-presentational needs (i.e., attachment security and authenticity) were concurrently controlled.

Correlational analyses indicated that, among FB use variables, the number of participants’ FB friends was positively and significantly correlated with their CAS scores but not significantly related to their CDSE scores, suggesting that gaining social capital online is associated with aspirations toward occupational achievement, leadership, and education, but not necessarily with confidence in one’s ability to navigate the career search and decision-making process. It may be that interactions with diverse users online (i.e., the acquisition of bridging social capital) facilitate increased exposure to a variety of occupational possibilities and identities. However, such exposure to occupational possibilities via large (virtual) friendship networks does not, in and of itself, necessarily promote understanding and efficacy-related beliefs concerning the specific competencies that facilitate appropriate career-related choices.

Results from the regression analyses tell a slightly different story regarding indicators of FB use and career planning confidence. When entering all four FB use indicators (average daily FB use time, number of FB friends, active use frequency, passive use frequency) as a block into the first regression model, average daily FB use time negatively predicted CDSE scores, whereas FB active use frequency positively predicted these scores. When entering FB use indicators into the second regression model, number of FB friends positively predicted CAS. Several important conclusions can be drawn from these findings. First, when studying FB use, it is important to address the quality, quantity, and type of FB use in order to understand their unique contributions to various indicators of career-related confidence. This is evidenced by the different relationships observed in the univariate correlational analyses and the regression analyses. Additionally, these findings indicate that the actual amount of time spent on FB (which can include passively scrolling through information presented by others) may not be helpful for career development and may even predict lower confidence in career decision-making. It is possible, for example, that users spending considerable time on the site may engage in procrastination or become distracted from important career decision-making tasks. Relatedly, Przepiorka, Blachnio, and Díaz-Morales (2016) recently found that FB intrusion (behavioral addiction) and intensity of use were positively associated with both general and decisional procrastination.

In our full model regression of CDSE scores, we similarly found that FB use time was negatively predictive of participants’ career decision self-efficacy, whereas their frequency of actively using FB (i.e., posting information and communicating with others) was a significant positive predictor of these criterion scores. Actively building social capital, engaging in relationships with others, and sharing/receiving information online may serve as an important vehicle for career exploration and vocational identity formation. Additionally, active use may satisfy important self-presentation needs among certain users, as they create online personas and share information reflective of their worldviews. This aligns with previous findings that positive, authentic self-presentation on FB is positively associated with other well-being outcomes like perceived support from one’s audience and self-esteem (Yang & Brown, 2016).

Results from regression analysis also revealed that, once FB use variables were controlled, attachment avoidance negatively predicted participants’ CDSE and CAS scores. These findings indicate that avoidant FB users’ levels of career decisional confidence and aspiration are influenced by their attachment insecurity, above and beyond their use of SNS. This may in part reflect avoidant FB users’ less frequent active and passive use of FB than their anxiously attached peers, as evidenced in our correlational findings. Interestingly, we found that attachment anxiety was not a significant negative predictor of either CDSE or CAS scores after FB use variables were controlled, although earlier studies that did not examine or control for college students’ social media use found that attachment anxiety was negatively associated with indicators of career development such as vocational self-concept crystallization (Tokar et al., 2003) and career decision self-efficacy (Wolfe & Betz, 2004). Our findings thus suggest that FB may serve as a useful social support building platform that positively influences the career planning confidence of individuals prone to fears of interpersonal rejection.

Regression analyses also suggested that once FB activity and attachment security was accounted for in the model, authenticity positively predicted CDSE and CAS scores. This supports the idea that high levels of “true self” experiencing are uniquely predictive of college students’ career-related confidence (White & Tracey, 2011) because this dispositional variable promotes the pursuit of self-concordant goals (Milyavskaya, Nadolny, & Koestner, 2015).

Finally, mediation analyses revealed that authenticity partially mediated the negative relationship between attachment avoidance and CDSE after controlling for race/ethnicity and FB use variables. Additionally, authenticity fully mediated the negative relationship between attachment avoidance and CA after controlling for FB use variables. It appears that the relationships between avoidance and CDSE or CA can be explained in part by college students’ formation of an integrated, coherent, and authentic self that enables them to understand how their dispositional tendencies toward less intimate relationships with others might be meaningfully and appropriately linked to their career choices.

In general, the findings of the present study have important implications regarding the interrelationships among various types of FB use, adult attachment orientation, perceived authenticity, and career planning confidence among college students. First, our findings highlight the importance of conjointly considering various types of FB use in order to better understand the influences of students’ FB use on their career-related decision-making and motivational confidence. Second, our findings suggest that simply spending time on FB may not be conducive to advancing such confidence; rather, actively engaging with others online may be necessary for FB use to predict positive outcomes (e.g., career decision self-efficacy). Finally, among college student FB users, one’s perceived level of authenticity appears to play a significant role in explaining the relationship between attachment avoidance and indicators of career planning confidence.

These results may have some important implications for future research. Because the current study utilized a cross-sectional design, it is possible that the observed relationships are bidirectional. For example, experiencing a clear set of career aspirations or career decisional confidence may enhance one’s overall feelings of authenticity, or that those with lofty career aspirations may be more prone to social networking online (i.e., developing a broader network of FB friends). Future research should employ longitudinal and experimental designs to better understand the nature of these complex interrelationships and to establish, where appropriate, causal interpretations of these interrelationships. Additionally, although we found that the number of FB friends was positively associated with students’ level of career aspiration, it remains unclear if this effect is beneficial. For example, lofty aspirations in the absence of necessary skills, preparedness, and aptitudes for desired careers may not lead to positive psychological states. In other words, it remains unknown if having FB friends promotes an inflated sense of what is possible or what one might expect for the future. This may be especially important to consider in light of prior findings that students’ narcissistic traits were significantly correlated with both their number of FB friends and their level of self-promotion on this SNS (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). Also, Chou and Edge (2012) found that spending more time using FB predicted greater endorsement of the belief that others are happier and have better lives. Therefore, although exposure to a vast array of possibilities seen in the lives of others may promote beliefs of upward mobility, it may also have some deleterious mood effects, especially on persons particularly sensitive to online feedback. Future research should explore the interrelationships among FB use, career aspiration, and indicators of psychological well-being or actual levels of career achievement.

Despite the limitations of the present study, its findings have some implications for the practice of vocational psychology. Social media is increasingly used as a tool in career counseling, including using SNS for encouraging peer interaction and information sharing (Kettunen, Vuorinen, & Sampson, 2015). As counselors turn to online sites like FB to communicate with clients and to encourage networking, they ought to consider both the types of online behaviors they are facilitating (i.e., active vs. passive use), as well as individual differences that may influence the career development outcomes of their clients’ FB use. At the very least, our findings suggest that career counselors would do well to inquire if their career clients use FB to solicit career-related information from peers and/or to share their career-related goals/aspirations with others. Relatedly, our findings suggest that career clients’ dispositional levels of attachment security and authenticity are particularly worthy of careful assessment as these characteristics may influence whether their FB exchanges with peers enhance or inhibit career planning confidence. In short, the potential rewards and hazards associated with social media use should alert practitioners to the importance of adopting a holistic approach to career counseling that reinforces the thoughtful use of SNS and that attends to their clients’ attachment-related insecurities, while concurrently promoting their clients’ development of an integrated and authentic self.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Age
2. FB use time (log t)	−.12
3. FB active use frequency	.07	.39***
4. FB passive use frequency	−.08	.43***	.32***
5. No. of FB friends (log t)	−.27***	.09	−.11	.05
6. ECR anxiety	−.20**	.03	−.04	.00	.08
7. ECR avoidance	−.17*	−.06	−.17*	−.16*	.03	.34***
8. Authenticity	.22***	.03	.06	.01	.04	−.50***	−.47***
9. CDSE	.13	−.07	.13	.09	.07	−.22**	−.38***	.57***
10. CAS	.01	.06	.14	.10	.20**	−.12	−.20**	.31***	.41***
Scale range	18–52		1–5	1–5		1–7	1–7	1–7	0–9	0–4
M	22.43	1.44	1.75	2.49	2.50	3.66	2.83	5.16	6.73	3.23
SD	5.60	.48	.61	1.00	.48	1.24	1.28	1.06	1.28	.62

	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3	Step 4
Asian	−.74	.25	−.27**	−.81	.25	−.30**	−.61	.24	−.22*	−.23	.23	−.09
African	−.46	.44	−.09	−.44	.43	−.08	−.20	.41	−.04	.01	.38	.00
Hispanic	−.38	.25	−.14	−.30	.24	−.11	−.28	.23	−.10	−.10	.21	−.04
FB use time				−.67	.24	−.24**	−.58	.23	−.21*	−.62	.21	−.23**
FB active use frequency				.48	.20	.20*	.40	.18	.17	.33	.17	.14*
FB passive use frequency				.22	.14	.14	.15	.13	.09	.19	.12	.11
No. of FB friends				.34	.20	.13	.35	.19	.13	.24	.17	.09
Attachment anxiety							−.09	.08	−.09	.10	.08	.09
Attachment avoidance							−.32	.08	−.32***	−.15	.07	−.15*
Authenticity										.58	.10	.49***
R ²	.05	.12	.24	.37
Change in R²		.07	.12	.13
F for change in R²	2.84*	3.30*	12.66***	33.02***

	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
FB use time	−.09	.11	−.07	−.08	.11	−.06	−.09	.11	−.07
FB active use frequency	.19	.09	.17*	.17	.09	.15	.16	.09	.15
FB passive use frequency	.06	.06	.07	.04	.06	.05	.05	.06	.07
No. of FB friends	.29	.09	.22**	.30	.09	.23**	.27	.09	.21**
Attachment anxiety				−.04	.04	−.08	.02	.04	.03
Attachment avoidance				−.08	.04	−.16*	−.03	.04	−.06
Authenticity							.16	.05	.28**
R ²	.07	.11	.16
Change in R²		.04	.05
F for change in R²	3.62**	3.73*	10.49**

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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	Step 1			Step 2			Step 3			Step 4
Predictor	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Asian	−.74	.25	−.27**	−.81	.25	−.30**	−.61	.24	−.22*	−.23	.23	−.09
African	−.46	.44	−.09	−.44	.43	−.08	−.20	.41	−.04	.01	.38	.00
Hispanic	−.38	.25	−.14	−.30	.24	−.11	−.28	.23	−.10	−.10	.21	−.04
FB use time				−.67	.24	−.24**	−.58	.23	−.21*	−.62	.21	−.23**
FB active use frequency				.48	.20	.20*	.40	.18	.17	.33	.17	.14*
FB passive use frequency				.22	.14	.14	.15	.13	.09	.19	.12	.11
No. of FB friends				.34	.20	.13	.35	.19	.13	.24	.17	.09
Attachment anxiety							−.09	.08	−.09	.10	.08	.09
Attachment avoidance							−.32	.08	−.32***	−.15	.07	−.15*
Authenticity										.58	.10	.49***
R ²	.05			.12			.24			.37
Change in R²				.07			.12			.13
F for change in R²	2.84*			3.30*			12.66***			33.02***