Social Cognitive and Attachment Predictors of Workplace Self-Advocacy Across Gender

Self-advocacy offers an important route by which workers can exercise agency in their career development. The social cognitive career self-management model has recently been applied to the study of workplace self-advocacy. The present study extended this line of research by considering how attachment dynamics and outcome expectations may operate alongside self-efficacy and supervisor support relative to workplace self-advocacy and its hypothesized outcomes. Participants were 687 full-time employees who completed an online survey. The sample was divided into distinct measurement development and theory testing phases. An exploratory factor analysis ( N = 200) found that a novel outcome expectations measure reflected anticipation of both the positive and negative consequences of engaging in self-advocacy behavior. Compared to men, women reported higher negative outcome expectations for self-advocacy behaviors. Results of a structural path analysis ( N = 487) indicated support for a model linking secure base support, attachment anxiety and avoidance, self-assertive efficacy, and outcome expectations to the expression of advocacy behaviors (e.g., self-promotion) and, in turn, subjective career success. We consider the implications of the findings for theory, research, and practice with adult workers.