Holland Codes


The Holland Codes or the Holland Occupational Themes are a taxonomy of interests based on a theory of careers and vocational choice that was initially developed by American psychologist John L. Holland.
The Holland Codes serve as a component of the interests assessment, the Strong Interest Inventory. In addition, the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration has been using an updated and expanded version of the RIASEC model in the "Interests" section of its free online database O*NET since its inception during the late 1990s.

Overview

Holland's theories of vocational choice, The Holland Occupational Themes, "now pervades career counseling research and practice". Its origins "can be traced to an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 1958 and a subsequent article in 1959 that set out his theory of vocational choices. ... The basic premise was that one's occupational preferences were in a sense a veiled expression of underlying character." The 1959 article in particular is considered the first major introduction of Holland's "theory of vocational personalities and work environments".
Holland originally labeled his six types as "motoric, intellectual, esthetic, supportive, persuasive, and conforming". He later developed and changed them to: "Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional ". Holland's six categories show some correlation with each other. It is called the RIASEC model or the hexagonal model because the initial letter of the region is equal to R-I-A-S-E-C when it is expressed as a circle connecting the regions of high correlation. Professor John Johnson of Penn State suggested that an alternative way of categorizing the six types would be through ancient social roles: "hunters, shamans, artisans, healers, leaders, and lorekeepers ". Holland offers full definitions of each type in his book, Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments .
According to the Committee on Scientific Awards, Holland's "research shows that personalities seek out and flourish in career environments they fit and that jobs and career environments are classifiable by the personalities that flourish in them". Holland also wrote of his theory that "the choice of a vocation is an expression of personality". Furthermore, while Holland suggested that people can be "categorized as one of six types", he also argued that "a six-category scheme built on the assumption that there are only six kinds of people in the world is unacceptable on the strength of common sense alone. But a six category scheme that allows a simple ordering of a person's resemblance to each of the six models provides the possibility of 720 different personality patterns."

Related model

Prediger's two-dimensional model

Prediger constructed the scale of "work task" and "work relevant abilities" based on Holland's model, and carried out factor analysis and multidimensional scale analysis to clarify the basic structure. As a result, two axes of Data/Ideas and Things/People were extracted. Although Prediger's inquiry did not start from interest per se, it eventually led to the birth of models other than RIASEC, suggesting that the structure of occupational interest may provide a basic dimension.

Tracey and Rounds's octagonal model

In the United States, the energetic trial is being made with the aim of the new model which surpasses Holland hexagon model in 1990's. Tracey & Rounds's octagonal model is one such example. Based on the empirical data, they argue that occupational interests can be placed circularly in a two-dimensional plane consisting of People/Things and Data/ldeas axes, and the number of regions can be arbitrarily determined. According to their model, only Holland's hexagonal model does not adequately represent the structure of occupational interest, and it is possible to retain validity as an octagonal or 16 square model if necessary.
Tracey, Watanabe, & Schneider conducted an international comparative study of job interests among Japanese and U.S. university students, and the results suggest that the Tracey & Rounds's octagonal model is more fitted to Japanese students than Holland's hexagonal model.

Tracey and Rounds's spherical model

Tracey & Rounds criticizes that the conventional models of occupational interest structure do not correctly depict the positional relationship of occupations because they neglect occupational prestige, i.e., "social prestige" or "high socioeconomic status" and proposes a spherical model that assigns occupations to a 3-dimensional space incorporating occupational prestige. In this model, 18 regions of interest are displayed on a spherical space. The left hemisphere has a high status area, with Health Sciences at the top. The right hemisphere has a low status area, with Service Provision as the lowest ground.
Though this model is excellent in the point of more accurately describing the relation between various occupations, it makes the occupation interest structure more complicated, and there is a weak point that it is difficult to be adapted to the data except for the U.S.

List of types

R: Realistic (Doers)

Holland defines the "Realistic Type" as a person who has “a preference for activities that entail the explicit, ordered, or systematic manipulation of objects, tools, machines, and animals…these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to the acquisition of manual, mechanical, agricultural, electrical, and technical competencies.” Sample majors and careers include:

I: Investigative (Thinkers)

Holland defines the "Investigative Type" as a person who has "a preference for activities that entail the observational, symbolic, systematic and creative investigation of physical, biological, and cultural phenomena... these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to an acquisition of scientific and mathematical competencies." Sample majors and careers include:

A: Artistic (Creators)

Holland defines the "Artistic Type" as a person who has "a preference for ambiguous, free, unsystematized activities that entail the manipulation of physical, verbal, or human materials to create art forms or products...these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to the acquisition of artistic competencies." Sample majors and careers include:

S: Social (Helpers)

Holland defines the "Social Type" as a person who has "a preference for activities that entail the manipulation of others to inform, train, develop, cure, or enlighten...these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to an acquisition of human relations competencies." Sample majors and careers include:

E: Enterprising (Persuaders)

Holland defines the "Enterprising Type" as a person who has "a preference for actives that entail the manipulation of others to attain organization goals or economic gain...these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to an acquisition of leadership, interpersonal, and persuasive competences." Sample majors and careers include:

C: Conventional (Organizers)

Holland defines the "Conventional Type" as a person who has "a preference for actives that entail the explicit, ordered, systematic manipulation of data...these behavioral tendencies lead in turn to an acquisition of clerical, computational, and business system competencies." Sample majors and careers include:

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