Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology
2025. Vol. 15, no. 3, 403–417
ISSN: 2658-3607 / 2658-6010 (online)
Quality of career and university choice: Relationship with existential motivation
Abstract
The motivational side of career choice is actively studied by domestic and foreign psychologists. Meanwhile, the relation between the applicant motivation and the quality of career and university choice rarely becomes the subject of targeted scientific research. The article proposes an existential-activity view of career self-determination, based on the D. Leontiev’s model of choice as a complex internal activity and the main provisions of A. Langle’s existential analysis. Aspects of the subjective quality of choosing a university and profession (elaboration, emotional valence, autonomy, and satisfaction with the outcome) are considered in relation to fundamental existential motivations — as manifestations of the existential fulfillment. To study the connection between the quality of career choice and the leading existential motivation of a personality, a two-series qualitative-quantitative study was developed, conducted on two different samples of prospective Moscow university students (the first series is a longitudinal study). An in-depth semi-structured interview, an essay “My career choice”, the “Subjective Quality of Choice” questionnaire, and the “Existential Motivation Test” were used as data collection methods, and quantitative and qualitative content analysis, expert assessment method and correlation analysis were used as data processing methods. The study confirmed the following hypotheses: 1) the experience of career choice quality before and after entering the selected university remains consistent, as a relatively stable variable; 2) a higher quality of career choice is achieved with leading existential motivations of a “higher” level; and 3) the subjective quality of career choice shows a direct and significant correlation with the level of existential fulfillment of the individual. The research results have both practical and scientific value, raising a fundamentally new question in personality psychology regarding the relationship between the attitude to career choice and components of existential fulfillment (the attitude towards the world, life, self and one’s future).
General Information
Keywords: career choice, choice quality, existential motivation, existential fulfillment, university choice
Journal rubric: Empirical and Experimental Research
Article type: scientific article
Funding. The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant no. 23-78-10174, https://rscf.ru/ project/23-78-10174/.
Received 11.01.2025
Accepted
Published
For citation: Fam, A.Kh., Kozyreva, P.A. (2025). Quality of career and university choice: Relationship with existential motivation . Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology, 15(3), 403–417. (In Russ.). URL: https://psyjournals.ru/en/journals/vspu_psychology/archive/2025_n3/Fam_Kozyreva (viewed: 16.02.2026)
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