Against the backdrop of globalization, intensifying uncertainties in the labor market complicate decision-making processes (Khattab et al., 2022). This insecurity significantly undermines Chinese young adults’ confidence in transitioning from campus to the workplace (Hu et al., 2024), creating substantial challenges for young adults in career decision making (Karimi et al., 2024). Chinese young adults commonly exhibit decision-making anxiety (Saka et al., 2008), have high information-seeking needs (Santos et al., 2018), and experience motivational deficits (Kırdök & Harman, 2018). In this context, many urgently require adequate career decidedness to make rational occupational choices (Li et al., 2019). Career decidedness is when a person pursues a target profession, and demonstrates clarity and commitment toward that profession, considering job fit and future direction during career selection (Hirschi & Koen, 2021). Existing research has found that the quality of career decidedness serves as a significant predictor of subjective well-being among youth populations (Uthayakumar et al., 2010), and has a strong positive association with their future career success and subjective well-being (Uthayakumar et al., 2010). Therefore, understanding its underlying mechanisms has practical significance.

 

Research has found that career decidedness is influenced by situational factors, such as family economic status and labor market fluctuations (Nota et al., 2007; Uthayakumar et al., 2010), and individual factors, such as protean career attitudes, career planning, career adaptability, and career decision self-efficacy (Hu et al., 2024; Karimi et al., 2024). However, research has predominantly viewed individuals as passive responders to external constraints, rather than proactive agents capable of reshaping their career environment. Although existing research has examined isolated personality traits such as self-efficacy, the synergistic effects between dispositional traits (e.g., proactive personality) and cognitive–behavioral processes remain understudied (Ud Din et al., 2023). Proactive personality, as a crucial dispositional trait, reflects individuals’ relatively stable tendency to initiate environmental changes (Bateman & Crant, 1993). This serves as a vital factor in enabling individuals to effectively address career constraints, demonstrate initiative, explore opportunities, and persist through challenges (Ud Din et al., 2023). To systematically reveal the internal mechanisms through which proactive personality influences career decidedness, this study proposed a trait–dynamic goal adjustment–decision quality explanatory framework grounded in self-regulation theory, with a focus on the goal-pursuit process.

 

Under self-regulation theory (SRT), human behavior is not entirely passive or driven solely by environmental or instinctual forces. Individuals spontaneously generate thoughts, emotions, and actions to achieve personal goals, which function through planned and cyclical adjustments (Newman & Newman, 2020; Zimmerman, 2000). In other words, individuals proactively adapt their cognition, emotions, and behaviors to achieve goals, adapt to environments, or address challenges. Career goals are critically important for career decidedness (Uthayakumar et al., 2010). During career exploration, goals may shift as individuals identify new objectives and subsequently invest in them (Wrosch et al., 2003). Further, numerous motivational and self-regulation frameworks (e.g., Fong et al., 2024) emphasize the importance of persistence, perseverance, and tenacity in goal pursuit. However, the capacity to adjust goals when they become unattainable is an equally critical aspect of motivation and self-regulation (Haase et al., 2021). Growing evidence suggests that goal compromise across different career stages is positively associated with proactive behaviors (Creed & Blume, 2013). The process of disengaging from unattainable or impractical goals and reengaging with more realistic or adjusted goals demonstrates adaptability (Holmberg & Sandbrook, 2019), and has been found to be positively correlated with behavioral change (Conner et al., 2022). Goal reengagement constitutes a crucial target-pursuit process in career decidedness.

 

Drawing on SRT and goal-setting theory (GST), which elucidates the relationship between conscious goal-setting and task performance, this study examined the distinct roles of goal commitment and goal reengagement. Goal commitment reflects individuals’ dedication to pursuing long-term objectives (Burkley et al., 2013). The goal-pursuit process involves not only reengaging with new goals but also sustaining commitment to existing ones. Previous research has indicated that proactive individuals enjoy greater opportunities to seek new possibilities or achieve new goals (Klein et al., 2012). Prior to goal decision making, those with a proactive personality tend to exhibit stronger beliefs in environmental malleability, actively identify goal-related issues, to engage in goal reengagement through self-regulation, ultimately influencing career decidedness (Hou et al., 2014). However, GST also emphasizes that goal setting directs individuals to focus energy on goal-relevant activities while disregarding irrelevant ones (Jeong et al., 2023). In this context, existing goal commitment may interfere with the pursuit of new goals and career decidedness. Therefore, we investigated the mediating role of goal reengagement between proactive personality and career decidedness, along with the moderating effect of goal commitment from the dual perspectives of SRT and GST, thereby unveiling the mechanism connecting proactive personality to career decidedness. The research model is shown in Figure 1.

Proactive personality refers to an individual’s relatively stable tendency to proactively influence their surroundings (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Individuals with a proactive personality are less affected by situational pressures, believe they can effect change by shaping their environment, actively seek opportunities to demonstrate initiative, and persistently strive to create ideal outcomes (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Existing research has found that individuals with a proactive personality possess the potential and traits to effectively address career constraints (Ma et al., 2024), and are sensitive to social cues, particularly those related to organizational issues and developmental opportunities (Haynie et al., 2020). They proactively demonstrate initiative, exploit available opportunities, and persevere until meaningful change is achieved, consistently devising new solutions to problems (Ud Din et al., 2023). This demonstrates proactive personality as being a critical factor in career decidedness (Yu et al., 2021).

 

Specifically, those with higher (vs. lower) levels of proactive personality not only exhibit greater initiative, but also identify and process more information relevant to career decidedness (Yu et al., 2021). Individuals with a highly proactive personality adopt a positive mindset toward challenges (Bateman & Crant, 1993), alleviating stress and uncertainty about the future. This enables young adults to effectively address difficulties in career decidedness, thereby reducing career decidedness difficulties (He et al., 2021) and fostering higher levels of career decidedness. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Proactive personality will positively predict career decidedness.

Goal reengagement refers to the process of identifying alternative goals, assigning value to these goals, and initiating activities aimed at their achievement (Wrosch et al., 2003). Researchers have posited that disengaging from unrealistic goals and redirecting energy toward more achievable alternatives constitutes the most adaptive self-regulation strategy (Wrosch et al., 2003). When past career goal failures trigger psychological distress or feelings of helplessness after abandoning goals, shifting to other meaningful career objectives can help young adults alleviate their stress. Empirical studies have shown that goal reengagement is positively correlated with career exploration and career planning (Creed & Hood, 2014), which, in turn, exerts a significant positive impact on career decidedness (Yu et al., 2021). By enhancing individuals’ self-confidence in their career decidedness, goal reengagement fosters greater career direction clarity and reduces anxiety, thereby promoting career decidedness certainty at early stages (Rogers & Creed, 2011).

 

However, adaptive self-regulation is inherently challenging when confronting unattainable goals. Research has suggested that individual differences, such as dispositional optimism, predict variability in how individuals regulate goals (Hanssen et al., 2015). Significant disparities exist in individuals’ capacity to reduce effort and commitment to unworkable goals. Pursuing alternative goals, however, demands additional motivational resources. Studies have indicated that individuals’ response to goal-related obstacles is correlated with their personality traits, which may also signal their approach to adversity (Gživnová & Kohútová, 2024).

 

According to SRT (Zimmerman, 2000), proactive individuals cyclically adapt their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors through planned adjustments to achieve their personal goals. Researchers have proposed that disengaging from unrealistic goals and redirecting efforts toward other more attainable objectives constitutes the most adaptive self-regulation strategy (Wrosch et al., 2003). Goal reengagement is one process through which individuals undergo adaptive adjustment. Specifically, those with a proactive personality identify opportunities and act on them, demonstrate initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change is achieved, while remaining relatively unconstrained by situational factors (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Career decidedness requires high levels of independent self-regulation (Rigotti et al., 2020), and proactive individuals excel in self-regulatory strategies (Bakker & de Vries, 2021), thus making them more likely to successfully reorient toward new career objectives during career development. Through self-regulated processes, they systematically reengage with revised goals, leveraging goal adjustments to explore and commit to alternative career pathways (Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001). Thus, we posited that young adults with a highly proactive personality would exhibit a strong propensity to acquire career-related information and resources, demonstrate greater adaptability to volatile economic climates, and thereby exhibit heightened confidence in making career decidedness. Individuals with a strongly proactive personality are driven to assert control over their career trajectory (Bateman & Crant, 1993), aligning with their intrinsic motivation to shape professional outcomes, rather than passively responding to external constraints. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Goal reengagement will mediate the relationship between proactive personality and career decidedness.

Goal commitment refers to an individual’s sustained psychological investment in and behavioral adherence to a specific long-term goal, manifesting as a resolute willpower to achieve the goal and a tendency toward the continuous allocation of resources in pursuit of this objective (Burkley et al., 2013). Individuals with high levels of goal commitment tend to mobilize cognitive and behavioral resources throughout the goal cycle to overcome obstacles, until the predetermined outcome is achieved (Burkley et al., 2013). Notably, there exists a commitment gap between initial goal setting and execution, as even when individuals establish clear goals they may not be resilient in their decisiveness, impacting their ability to translate these goals into concrete action plans and implement them (Han, 2021). This duality of commitment is reflected in the fact that while highly committed individuals demonstrate strong goal-directed effort persistence, they may also fall into a commitment trap due to path dependency. For instance, oversensitivity to costs sunk into unrecoverable investments (i.e., financial resources, time and effort, and specialized training that is not transferable) can cause an individual to delay exiting a career path even when it is no longer satisfying.

 

According to SRT, individuals achieve goal–behavior alignment through behavioral monitoring and strategic adjustments (Newman & Newman, 2020). In contrast, GST emphasizes that goal commitment suppresses non-goal-related behaviors through attentional filtering mechanisms, a cognitive process whereby commitment to a central goal leads individuals to selectively focus on goal-relevant information, rather than distractions (Jeong et al., 2023). When individuals with high levels of goal commitment face decisions about goal reengagement, the tension between SRT and GST becomes apparent. For instance, the former drives behavioral flexibility, while the latter reinforces path lock-in. This conflict is particularly pronounced in scenarios involving career-goal transitions. Specifically, when individuals with strong prior goal commitment contemplate reengaging with new goals, their self-regulation undergoes a three-phase process: self-observation, self-judgment, and self-reaction (Bandura, 1999). During the self-observation phase, cognitive vigilance is triggered when resource allocation deviates from the original goal. In the self-judgment phase, individuals engage in a cognitive struggle between old and new goals based on the strength of their commitments. Highly committed individuals tend to deconstruct new goal behaviors as deviations from their existing goal identity (Meyer, 2014); further, the resource sedimentation effect, which entails the accumulation of continuous resource investments in prior goals (Klein et al., 2012), exacerbates cognitive dissonance. In the self-reaction phase, individuals’ evaluation typically leads to cognitive closure, whereby the reinforcement of commitment to the original goal suppresses the motivation to shift direction, forming a self-reinforcing cycle of goal maintenance. These mechanisms result in an adaptability paradox for highly committed individuals regarding career decidedness, potentially rendering those with strong commitment to their original career goals unable to adapt to new career directions, significantly impeding the positive impact of goal reengagement on career decidedness. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Goal commitment will negatively moderate the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness.

 

Combining Hypotheses 2 and 3, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Goal commitment will negatively moderate the mediating effect of goal reengagement on the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness.

We employed a cross-sectional design for this study, collecting data from young adult university students (aged 18–25 years) in the southwest of China. This cohort represents a critical developmental stage characterized by pivotal career decision-making processes. We contacted student counselors from various departments and majors to inform them of the research purpose and request their assistance. With the help of the counselors, we collected comprehensive data on proactive personality, goal reengagement, goal commitment, and career decidedness at three timepoints spaced over 3 weeks to avoid homogenous methods and improve the validity of the data. At the first timepoint (T1), we collected data regarding respondents’ personal information, proactive personality, and goal reengagement. A week later, goal commitment was measured at the second timepoint (T2). Finally, a week after T2, career decidedness was measured at the third timepoint (T3).

 

This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of School of Public Administration at Sichuan University (202501030128). All participants gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Respondents were assured of confidentiality and anonymity. Participation was voluntary. We used the last four digits of each respondent’s cell phone number as an identifier to ensure data consistency across the three timepoints, while protecting respondent anonymity. We distributed the survey to 1,321 participants, with 1,077 valid forms retained after screening and matching, yielding a rate of recovery of 81.5%. The demographic characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1.

We adapted the measures from established scales. To ensure the consistency and applicability of the original English versions in the Chinese context, we conducted a back-translation procedure. Before beginning the formal investigation, we conducted a preliminary test with 15 young adults and modified the items according to their feedback.

 

We measured proactive personality using a 10-item scale developed by Li et al. (2019). Responses were recorded on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A sample item is “If I believe in an idea, nothing will stop me from making it happen.” For this study, Cronbach’s alpha was .91.

 

We measured goal reengagement using the six-item Goal Reengagement Scale compiled by Wrosch et al. (2003). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A sample item is “I think about pursuing other new goals.” For this study, Cronbach’s alpha was .90.

 

We measured goal commitment using the nine-item Goal Commitment Scale compiled by Hollenbeck et al. (1989). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A sample item is “I am committed to achieving the goals I set.” For this study, Cronbach’s alpha was .78.

 

We measured career decidedness using a six-item scale developed by Lounsbury et al. (2005). Responses were recorded on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A sample item is “I am sure about what I eventually want to do for a living.” For this study, Cronbach’s alpha was .79.

The data analysis proceeded in several stages using established statistical tools. We conducted preliminary analyses, including calculating descriptive statistics and undertaking correlational analysis and stepwise multivariate linear regression analysis, with SPSS 24.0. To examine the hypothesized mediation and moderation relationships, we applied Hayes’ (2018) PROCESS 4.2 macro for SPSS (Model 14), using 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrapped resamples to estimate 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Furthermore, we carried out a confirmatory factor analysis with Amos 22.0 to assess the validity of the measurement model. All interaction terms were mean centered prior to analysis to mitigate multicollinearity concerns.

We used Harman’s single-factor test to estimate the potential effect of common method bias on our results. This test models all items into one factor and examines the unrotated solution, and in this study we extracted six factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. The total variance explained by the first factor was 28.34%, which is well below the threshold variance limit of 40%. Therefore, common method bias was not a significant concern for our study.

We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and tested the hypothesized four-factor model comprising proactive personality, goal reengagement, goal commitment, and career decidedness. The model fit the data well, χ²/df(1,077) = 3.95, p < .001, goodness-of-fit index = .90, comparative fit index = .93, Tucker–Lewis index = .92, root-mean-square error of approximation = .04, standardized root-mean-square residual = .06, suggesting that participants were able to distinguish our key constructs.

Using SPSS 24.0, we analyzed the correlations among the latent variables (see Table 2). The correlations between all main variables were significant, providing initial support for the proposed relationships among the variables.

First, we used SPSS 24.0 to test the hypotheses (see Table 3). We conducted a regression analysis with proactive personality as the independent variable and career decidedness as the dependent variable. As shown in Model 4, proactive personality significantly and positively predicted career decidedness, thereby supporting Hypothesis 1. Meanwhile, Model 5 shows that after incorporating goal reengagement, proactive personality significantly and positively predicted career decidedness. Additionally, goal reengagement significantly and positively predicted career decidedness. Consequently, Hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported.

Second, we used Model 14 of the PROCESS macro 4.2 (Hayes, 2018) for moderation and moderated mediation effect testing, controlling for gender, age, academic year, major, parents’ level of education, and parents’ occupation types. As shown in Table 4, goal commitment moderated the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness, thereby supporting Hypothesis 3. In addition, we performed a simple slope analysis (see Figure 2). The influence of goal commitment on the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness was statistically significant, regardless of whether the level of goal commitment was high, b = 0.10, 95% CI [0.02, 0.17], or low, b = 0.24, 95% CI [0.16, 0.33].

 

Furthermore, as indicated by the index of moderated mediation in Table 4, B = −0.05, 95% CI [−0.10, 0.01], the moderated mediation effect of goal commitment was not statistically supported.

This study advances understanding of career-decidedness mechanisms by integrating SRT and GST into a unified trait–dynamic goal adjustment–decision quality framework. We found that proactive personality was positively associated with career decidedness. Moreover, goal reengagement significantly and positively mediated the relationship between proactive personality and career decidedness, and goal commitment played a negative moderating role in the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness.

 

First, this study systematically explored the positive correlation between proactive personality and career decidedness among young adults preparing to enter the workforce. Introducing goal reengagement as a key mediator, our research has corroborated the emphasis on self-regulatory processes in the pursuit of goals, demonstrating how proactive individuals leverage dynamic goal management through evaluation and resetting to navigate labor-market uncertainties, which is a critical supplement to static trait-behavior models (Brown et al., 1998). Hierarchical regression analysis revealed significant direct predictive effects of proactive personality on career decidedness. This finding extends the application boundaries of positive psychology into the realm of cognitive career decidedness. Further, mediation analysis demonstrated that highly proactive individuals enhance their decidedness quality through continuous goal evaluation and resetting. This dynamic regulatory mechanism not only reflects Creed and Blume’s (2013) goal compromise model, but also identifies adaptive goal management as a critical intervention target for career counseling, cultivating goal plasticity to boost career decidedness satisfaction. This finding deepens understanding of the complex relationship between proactive personality and career decidedness, enriching theoretical research in this field. It also provides valuable insights and new perspectives for career-guidance practices.

 

Second, this study has revealed the goal-commitment paradox in career decidedness. This finding challenges the traditional view in GST that high commitment inevitably leads to positive outcomes (Locke & Latham, 2002). Specifically, we found that in dynamic career environments, heightened goal commitment may foster goal rigidity, a cognitive state characterized by persistent fixation on existing objectives. This rigidity reduces the transformative potential of goal reengagement by inducing attentional lock-in, thereby suppressing its positive contribution to career decidedness. For young adults entering the job market, high career commitment often leads to excessive attachment to specific career goals, reducing their willingness to reassess and adjust those goals. Such overcommitment may cause them to overlook more advantageous career alternatives or lack necessary flexibility when facing challenges and uncertainties in the decision-making process. Thus, while career commitment is typically viewed as a positive psychological state, excessively high levels may backfire, constraining flexibility and adaptability in career decidedness and weakening the facilitating role of goal reengagement. This discovery underscores that goal commitment does not always benefit career decidedness. It must remain moderate and align with environmental dynamics.

 

In summary, this study integrated SRT with GST, extending and complementing prior research on SRT (Kuhl et al., 2006) while addressing its limitations. We have also provided fresh insights into the complex psychological mechanisms underlying career decidedness, and our findings have critical implications for career counseling and psychological intervention practices.

Our findings have the following implications, which could guide counselors’ work and young adults’ career decidedness. First, counselors should realize that goal reengagement is to be valued alongside the proactive personalities of young adults in career decision making. When young adults feel helpless and hesitant in their career decidedness, counselors should help to analyze each kind of job field to engage young adults’ goal reengagement, rather than disregard their indecision. Second, we found that goal commitment had a negative effect on the relationship between goal reengagement and career decidedness. Counselors directly affect young adults’ career decidedness, and should pay attention to the paths and boundaries of goal commitment to exert the optimal effect of counseling. Preventive career guidance can assist young adults in learning to navigate the negative boundaries of goal commitment during the goal-reengagement process.

First, career goals is a general target, and we could have subdivided this into different phased targets. Such manageable subgoals or phased targets could interrupt the process by goal reengagement; thus, future studies could examine phased targets and curve changes. Second, although we have discussed the association between a proactive personality and career decidedness, the latter is affected by many facets, such as environments, government policies, compaction, and interest. Future studies could explore more antecedents of career decidedness. Third, our participants were all students in southwest China. Future research could expand the testing scope by including young adults from different educational backgrounds, regions, and countries to examine the effectiveness of the model.

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