The Nature and Power of Interests
Abstract
Despite their significance to both individuals and organizations, interests are often misunderstood, and their predictive power is often overlooked. In this article, we discuss the nature of interests, describe several key features of interests, and, contrary to the received knowledge of many, explain how interests can be used to predict career and educational choice, performance, and success. Finally, we discuss the continuity of interests across the life span and explain how evidence of stability supports conceptualizations of interests as being distinct dispositions rather than simply extensions or workplace instantiations of basic personality traits.
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Decades of research have supported the psychometric reliability of RIASEC interest scales and their criterion-related validity for predicting important career outcomes.
“Decades of research have supported the psychometric reliability of RIASEC interest scales, and their criterion-related validity for predicting important career outcomes (Nye et al., 2021;Rounds & Su, 2014;Su, 2020).”
From Interest Fit Beyond the RIASEC: The Comprehensive Assessment of Basic Interests—O*NET (CABIN-NET) (2026) · cites this paper as Rounds & Su, 2014
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References 27 · Cited by 229
- Authors
- Rounds, J., & Su, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-04
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 98-103
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- OpenAlex
- W2096939032
- Cited by
- 229
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 5
- FWCI
- 11.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion, public-domain)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Career Development and Diversity
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Keywords
- interest, interest stability, career choice prediction, performance prediction, success prediction, personality traits, dispositions
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