The development of calling during college: a three-year investigation

At the beginning of this research project, there was no shared definition of calling and no empirical evidence regarding its origin and its development through time (Dalla Rosa, Galliani & Vianello, 2014). Hence, we started our research providing a unifying framework for the study of calling that integrates previous contributions. Now, at the end of the research project, we define calling as a multi-dimensional construct that describes spiritual, motivational, affective and identity-related facets of the relationship between individuals and a specific domain in life or work (Dalla Rosa, Galliani & Vianello, 2017). Having a calling implies that individuals are committed to the calling domain and feel that they are passionate about it, that being involved in the domain contributes to the definition of their identity, that the domain is pervasive across life, and finally that their involvement in the domain is guided by something beyond the self such as destiny or God. The intensity of these feelings and beliefs is highly variable across individuals, across dimensions, and across domains. During the development of this project, research on correlates of calling experienced a rapid increase. It has been found that calling is related to a number of other beliefs and attitudes toward work or life. We summarized this evidence and estimated meta-analytical correlations between calling and its correlates (Dalla Rosa et al., 2017). Stronger associations (around r=.5) have been found with the belief of having a meaning in life, engagement in work and learning, career commitment, and job satisfaction. Recently, longitudinal studies have been conducted on calling. Yet, the development of calling is currently an open question. It is still quite unknown whether and how calling increase or decrease through time. To our knowledge, there are three studies that investigate calling longitudinally. Dobrow (2013) and Duffy et al. (2011) observed that calling significantly decreases over time, whereas Hirschi and Hermann (2013) found that it remains stable over a time lag of 18 months. One aspect over which it seems that authors agree regards the variability of changes in calling between subjects. While at the group level calling may change very little or nothing at all, authors agree that at the individual level calling may change. Yet, we have no empirical information on the direction and intensity of these changes. Hence, we hypothesized that there are groups of people for which calling increase, decrease, and remain stable over time. To answer this question, we conducted a survey involving a sample of 5837 (T1), 1700 (T2), and 881 (T3) college students enrolled at the universities of Padua, Florence, Siena and Naples (Parthenope). Three waves of data were collected across 3 years. Respondents were spread across different programs in 24 domains. Results confirm previous observations that the mean of calling computed on the whole group of respondents does not change across time, but decomposing the sample in clusters we identified individuals that follow different developmental trajectories of calling. None of these clusters include stability across time. This suggest that the small decline (or lack thereof) observed in previous studies might have been generated by intense changes in opposite directions. Furthermore, we observed that social support and (contrary to common expectations) clarity of professional identity and engagement in learning activities predict levels of calling calling after one year.