About

Robert W. Lent, Ph.D., is a professor in the Counseling Psychology program within the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education. He earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from The Ohio State University in 1979. His research primarily focuses on the application of social cognitive theory to academic and career behavior. In addition to this central theme, his scholarly interests extend to counselor training and development, psychological wellness, and relationship processes. As the principal investigator of the Social Cognitive Career Theory Lab, Dr. Lent leads research efforts that explore how social cognitive frameworks can inform understanding and interventions related to career development and academic decision-making.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Psychology
• Social Science
• Pedagogy
• Social psychology
• Applied psychology
• Medical education
• Management
• History
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Development and Cross-Cultural Validation of a Measure of Career Exploration and Decision-Making Outcome Expectations

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2026-04-17

  articleSenior author

  Existing measures of outcome expectations in career exploration and decision-making tend to focus on positive expectations and may not adequately sample the range of anticipated outcomes (e.g., self-evaluative, social) that could motivate or discourage students’ engagement in career planning activities. We developed a novel measure assessing negative and positive outcome expectations and explored its factor structure, validity, and reliability in a sample of undergraduate students in the United States ( N = 291). We then administered the scale to a sample of Turkish undergraduates ( N = 307) and tested measurement invariance across the two cultural/linguistic groups. Results supported a four-factor structure of the 22-item Career Exploration and Decisional Outcome Expectations (CEDOE) scale in both samples, reflecting positive (self and social benefits) and negative (self and social costs) outcome expectations. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses supported configural, metric, and partial scalar invariance across countries. The scale also yielded promising reliability and validity estimates, including relations with an established measure of career exploration outcome expectations, decisional self-efficacy, and exploratory goals. However, evidence of intercept non-invariance and weaker reliability of the social benefits sub-scale in the Turkish sample suggests that further research, including targeted item refinement, is needed to support cross-cultural use of the CEDOE.

  PublisherDOI

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

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2026-03-25

  articleSenior author

  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.

  PublisherDOI

• Charles J. Gelso (1941–2025).

  American Psychologist · 2026-04-06

  article

  Charlie Gelso (born November 27, 1941, in Pittston, Pennsylvania; died October 7, 2025, in Laurel, Maryland) was a transformative figure in counseling psychology. He was a gifted scholar, teacher, and mentor. Charlie's scholarship centered on the psychotherapy relationship. Another major strand of Charlie's influence was methodology and research training. His widely cited work clarified core research design choices and introduced his popular "bubble hypothesis," the idea that solving one methodological problem invariably creates another. Charlie was one of the first to study the effects of time-limited counseling, developing models and measures that facilitated subsequent research. Charlie Gelso's legacy endures in the journals he helmed, the methodological clarity he modeled, and the many mentees he launched. Above all, he taught that psychotherapy's real relationship-grounded in genuineness and human connection- belongs at the center of the therapy process. It was also at the center of Charlie's personal and professional life, and we are eternally grateful to have had a real relationship with him. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• The Roles of Identity-Affirming Behaviors and Self-Efficacy in Coping With Weight Stigma in the Workplace: A Social Cognitive Perspective

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2025-03-17

  articleSenior author

  Although weight stigma frequently occurs in work settings, its impact on larger-bodied workers’ vocational experiences and occupational well-being has received limited attention. We adapted the social cognitive career self-management (CSM) model to study larger-bodied workers’ coping with weight stigma in the workplace. Measures of body acceptance coping behavior and coping self-efficacy were constructed and subjected to exploratory factor analysis in a subsample of adult workers in larger bodies ( n = 250). Both measures yielded factors reflecting cognitive-emotional self-acceptance and behavioral self-assertion elements. A confirmatory factor analysis with another subsample ( n = 377) found support for bifactor representations of coping behavior and self-efficacy. A latent variable path analysis found that the CSM model provided good fit to the data and accounted for substantial amounts of the variance in work engagement, career satisfaction, satisfaction with coping efforts, and organizational commitment. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Career Interventions in the Digital Age: Key Challenges and Transformative Opportunities

  The Counseling Psychologist · 2025-05-01 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We are currently in the midst of a digital revolution that has already begun to transform how, when, and where career development assistance is offered. Artificial intelligence and related advances will allow career services to reach clients on a much larger scale than ever before, to target assistance to underserved persons, and to allow counselors to continue to do what they do best by providing the “high touch” complement to “high tech.” I explore several avenues for transforming career counseling models to address challenges wrought by technological change in the workplace (e.g., preparedness for work disruptions) and for leveraging new concepts (e.g., choice architecture) and evolving tools (e.g., chatbots, digital monitoring) to assist students and clients with career and life planning, choice, and adjustment issues. The focus is not only on what services we might offer but also on how and when they may be made available. Implications for theory, research, practice, training, and advocacy are also considered.

  PublisherDOI

• Career Exploration and Decision-Making of Turkish Undergraduates: Testing a Social Cognitive Model

  Journal of Career Development · 2025-09-28 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  The present study examined the applicability of the social cognitive model of career self-management (CSM; Lent & Brown, 2013) to career exploration and decision-making in a non-Western, collectivist cultural context. Participants were 451 Turkish undergraduate students who completed measures of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, social support, decidedness, decisional comfort, and affective dispositions (i.e., positive and negative affectivity). The CSM-based latent variable model fit the data well and explained significant variance in career decidedness, comfort, and exploratory goals. The results extend research on the cross-cultural utility of the CSM model, finding that it may aid understanding of the career exploration and decision-making process outside of the national, economic, and linguistic contexts in which it has thus far been tested. Implications for the CSM model as well as practice and future research are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• The Role of Self-Efficacy in Coping With the Psychological Challenges of Job Loss: Application of the Social Cognitive Career Self-Management Model

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2024-03-20 · 7 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  There is substantial evidence that involuntary job loss can have major implications for workers’ well-being. Yet research on coping with unemployment has most often focused on the job search process and progress toward re-employment, with less emphasis on the process of coping with the myriad psychological challenges of job loss. This study adapted the social cognitive model of career self-management as a framework for understanding well-being and psychological distress during unemployment. Participants were 602 unemployed workers who completed social cognitive measures representing two coping sub-domains, job searching and psychological coping. Within each sub-domain, measures included coping behaviors, self-efficacy, and support. Measures of proactive personality, financial strain, and two psychological functioning criteria (emotional well-being and distress) were also completed. The findings provided initial psychometric support for a novel measure of psychological coping self-efficacy and suggested the utility of the psychological coping variables as predictors of well-being and distress above and beyond job search coping in the context of unemployment. The study’s implications for practice and future research on coping with unemployment are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Choice Architecture and the Potential to Nudge Career Development at Scale

  Journal of Career Assessment · 2024-11-05 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Choice architecture refers to features of the psychological, social, and physical environment that can affect the process and outcome of human decisions. With roots in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, it has become a fertile topic of inquiry in a wide range of behavioral domains. Thaler and Sunstein (2008) popularized choice architecture and its concept of nudges, which are small environmental adjustments that can facilitate behavioral choices without limiting personal autonomy. Nudge interventions have been studied intensely in relation to health, financial, ecological, and consumer outcomes. In this article, I consider how the strategic use of digital nudges might be used in career interventions, particularly in the context of a proactive, large-scale service delivery model. After overviewing the efficacy of nudge interventions in other literatures (e.g., educational decision-making), I suggest an agenda for designing and testing career development nudges. Though they often yield modest effect sizes, nudges may have potential as a cost-effective addition to the career intervention repertoire, providing both a means of assisting those who have been underserved by traditional career services and an outreach bridge between technology- and counselor-based interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Career Preparedness and Safety Nets as Hedges Against an Uncertain Work Future

  2023-04-03 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Some economic forecasters envision a precarious and unstable occupational future for many workers. Yet policymakers, technologists, social scientists, and others have been slow to consider proactive solutions to prevent, or limit the effects of, large-scale work instability or loss. In this essay, I briefly consider two sets of preventive or damage-limiting strategies, one focused on large-scale systemic interventions and the other on additions to the content and focus of career development interventions. At the systemic level, I discuss proactive repairs to the social safety net to prevent poverty, unemployment, and underemployment. At the level of career services, I advocate for placing a greater emphasis on career-life preparedness and choice architecture strategies designed to help students and workers make work choices that may be relatively sustainable, if not entirely “robot-proof,” over the foreseeable future.

  PublisherDOI

• Navigating the multiple challenges of job loss: A career self-management perspective

  Journal of Vocational Behavior · 2023-09-20 · 16 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Broadening the Participation of Women and Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Minorities in STEM: A Mata-Analytic Lens on the Social Cognitive Interest, Choice and PersistenceHypotheses

  NSF · $296k · 2013–2016

• GSE/RES: A Longitudinal, Mixed-Method Test of a Social Cognitive Model of Women's Adjustment to STEM Majors: Building an Empirical Foundation for Theory-Based Interventions

  NSF · $472k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Steven D. Brown

  Loyola University Chicago

  60 shared

• Hung‐Bin Sheu

  32 shared

• Frederick G. Lopez

  University of Houston

  20 shared

• Gail Hackett

  University of Missouri

  20 shared

• Janet Schmidt

  National Center for PTSD

  18 shared

• Robert H. Lim

  University of Maryland, College Park

  16 shared

• Linda C. Schmidt

  Catholic University of America

  15 shared

• Kayi Hui

  University of Maryland, College Park

  15 shared

Labs

• Social Cognitive Career Theory LabPI

  Applications of social cognitive theory to academic and career behavior

Awards & honors

• John L. Holland Award for Outstanding Achievement in Career…
• College of Education Scholarship Award, University of Maryla…
• College of Education Distinguished Leadership Award, Univers…
• Distinguished Achievement Award (for lifetime achievement in…
• Leona Tyler Award for Lifetime Achievement in Counseling Psy…