Which theorist proposed that career development is lifelong and shaped by self-concept?

• A. Sigmund Freud
• B. Donald Super
• C. Erik Erikson
• D. Abraham Maslow

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is that career development unfolds across a person’s entire life and is guided by how they view themselves. This view comes from Donald Super, who argued that self-concept—how a person sees their abilities, interests, and desired roles—shapes career choices over time. He described career development as a lifelong process with stages like growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement, and he tied work to the various life roles people occupy (student, worker, parent, retiree). As people’s self-concept evolves with experience and changing circumstances, so too does their career path.

Freud centers on unconscious drives and early psychosexual development, not a lifelong, self-concept–driven view of career. Erikson emphasizes psychosocial crises and identity formation across the lifespan but doesn’t foreground self-concept as the primary driver of career development. Maslow focuses on a hierarchy of needs and self-actualization rather than a theory where career evolves directly from self-perception across life stages.

Donald Super is the theorist who clearly links lifelong career development to self-concept.