Vocational and Leisure Interests: A Profile-Level Approach to Examining Interests

Although much attention has been devoted to examining the measurement of vocational interests, much less attention has been directed to studying leisure interests, despite suggestions for incorporation of leisure interests into career counseling, particularly for college students. Furthermore, research on the relations between leisure and vocational interests highlights that some leisure interests are highly related to vocational interests, such as interests in Social, Artistic, and Realistic activities. To advance understanding on interests and the relations between leisure and vocational interests, the current study used Latent Profile Analysis, a novel approach to examining interest profiles that identifies groups of individuals with similar profiles. Support was found for seven different interest profiles in a sample of college students. Additionally, a number of mean differences on work values, work centrality, and personality traits among the seven profiles were examined.