Social Comparison and Perceived Social Support in Relation to Career Adaptability Among Senior High School Students in Sidoarjo

Fairuz Nabilah Qolbi Nasywa; Mimbar Oktaviana

doi:10.36526/sosioedukasi.v15i3.9482

Authors

Fairuz Nabilah Qolbi Nasywa Universitas Negeri Surabaya
Mimbar Oktaviana Universitas Negeri Surabaya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36526/sosioedukasi.v15i3.9482

Keywords:

Social Comparison Orientation, Perceived Social Support, Career Adaptability, Senior High School Students, Career Construction Theory

Abstract

Career adaptability is a central psychological resource during the senior secondary phase, yet Indonesian evidence remains concentrated on university samples and rarely models comparative and supportive social processes together. This study examined the associations of social comparison orientation and perceived social support with career adaptability among eleventh-grade students in Sidoarjo Regency, East Java. A cross-sectional correlational survey was administered to students from six public senior high schools; of 1,043 raw responses, 879 met the pre-specified inclusion criteria (M age = 16.41, SD = 0.89; 63.4% female). Social comparison orientation was measured with the INCOM, perceived social support with the MSPSS, and career adaptability with the CAAS. Following item analysis, the two negatively worded INCOM items were removed because of negative corrected item-total correlations, yielding a nine-item score; internal consistency was good to excellent for all three scales (alpha = .919, .948, and .973, respectively). Spearman rank correlations showed positive associations of career adaptability with social comparison orientation (rho = .516, 95% CI [.459, .569], p < .001) and, more strongly, with perceived social support (rho = .641, 95% CI [.593, .682], p < .001), whereas the two predictors were only trivially related to each other (rho = .075, p = .026). A supplementary multiple regression with heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors indicated that both variables contributed independently and jointly accounted for a substantial share of the variance in career adaptability (R2 = .702; beta = .504 and .638). Findings position perceived social support as the more salient correlate and suggest that comparative and supportive social processes operate as largely independent psychosocial inputs to adolescent career readiness, with direct implications for school counselling practice.

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