CHANCE EVENTS AND THE STRUCTURE OF INTERE STS - A STUDY OF DECISION-MAKING BEHAVIOR IN COLLEGE-FRESHMEN

Starting with a brief discussion of the concept of chance as presented in psychological and sociological literature, a model is developed em bedding chance in a rational framework. Referring to choice of college major, it is discussed which importance has to be attached to chance events and whether these can be related to the differentiation of the interest profile of a person. The evaluation of the answers of 217 fre shmen to a questionnaire shows that 61.3 percent of the investigated s ubjects report chance events to be important for the choice of college major. The number of chance events remembered as well as the estimati on of their importance demonstrate a weak negative correlation with th e differentiation of the interest profile. The results suggest that ch ance events should be considered in vocational development.