Prestige in interest activity assessment q Sandro M. Sodano a, * , Terence J.G. Tracey b a University at Buffalo, SUNY, Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology, 427 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260-1000, USA b Arizona State University, 302 Payne Hall, MC-0611, Tempe, AZ 85287-0611, USA article info Article history: Received 1 May 2008 Available online 10 July 2008 Keywords: Activity preferences Interest assessment Personal globe inventory Prestige Spherical model of interests abstract Prestige has been demonstrated to be a component in interest assessment [Tracey, T. J. G. (1997). The structure of interests and self-efficacy expectations: An expanded examination of the spherical model of interests. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 44, 32–43; Tracey, T. J. G. (2002). Personal Globe Inventory: Measurement of the spherical model of interests and competence beliefs [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 113–172; Tracey, T. J. G., & Rounds, J. (1996a). The spherical representation of vocational interests. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 3–41]. However, the content of prestige and thus its meaning in activity and competency preferences has not been clarified, nor has it been differentiated from alternative explanations such as sex-typing. A vector fitting procedure was utilized from theoretical and empirical approaches with samples of college students who rated each activity item from the Personal Globe Inventory (PGI; [Tracey, T. J. G. (2002). Personal Globe Inventory: Measurement of the spherical model of interests and competence beliefs [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 113–172]) for the following content: pres- tige, effort required, skill required, competition involved, and female and male sex-typing. These content ratings were matched with the theoretical structure of the PGI scales in the first sample (N = 124) and the empirical structure of the PGI items in a second sample (N = 267). Across both approaches, the PGI prestige dimension was highly related to ratings for prestige, effort, skill, effort and skill, and competition, but unrelated to sex-typing. These results support the inclusion of prestige in interest activity assessment and also assist in its interpretation. Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Prestige in interest activity assessment Prestige is not a new construct in vocational psychology. It has been defined in relation to occupations from such perspec- tives as level of training (Holland, 1997) and status (Holland, 1985), occupational level (Campbell, 1971; Strong, 1943), level of difficulty and level of responsibility (Roe, 1956), general educational level (Gottfredson & Holland, 1989), socioeconomic status (SES) (Stevens & Cho, 1985), and level of prestige for occupations (Stevens & Hoisington, 1987). Prestige has been incorporated into many models of career choice. However, when included in models of career choice, it is generally included as supplementary, either as separate and in addition to vocational interests (Gottfredson & Duffy, 2008; Holland, 1997), or as one of many values (Dawis, 1991; Dawis & Lofquist, 1984). However, Tracey and Rounds (1996a) found support for prestige being a key aspect of vocational preference ratings and not a separate content, with later research continuing to support this finding (Deng, Armstrong, & Rounds, 2007). 0001-8791/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.07.002 q A preliminary version of this study was presented at the annual meeting of the American, Educational Research Association, New York, 2008. * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 716 645 6616. E-mail address: smsodano@buffalo.edu (S.M. Sodano). Journal of Vocational Behavior 73 (2008) 310–317 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Vocational Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb