When probing into career issues in Taiwan, it is imperative to understand that in terms of social norms, Taiwan is a Chinese collectivist culture, where Taiwanese parents are deeply concerned about their children's career development and heavily involved in their career choices. Therefore, compared to the influence of family in Western individualist culture, the influence of family on career decision-making in Chinese collectivist cultures is worthy of further exploration. To date, very few studies have evaluated the influence of parental expectations on the career decisions of Taiwanese students; therefore, the present study elucidated the effects of parental expectations on children's career indecision. 
    This study examined the impact of parental expectations on developmental indecision and indecisiveness of
college students and the mediating effect of career decision self-efficacy. Employing measures of "Living up to Parental Expectations", "Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale", "Career Developmental Indecision Questionnaire", and "Career Indecisiveness Questionnaire" as research tools, the researchers used stratified random sampling to select 9 colleges/universities in Taiwan. The questionnaires were administered to 633 university students in eastern, northern, central, and southern Taiwan. The retrieved data were analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis to test the research hypotheses. Findings were as follows: (1) Both "perceived self-performance (PSP)" and "living up to parental expectations (LPE)" of parental expectation were significant predictors of developmental indecision. The greater the PSP and LPE, the less developmental indecision sampled college students experienced. (2) All the PSP, LPE and PPE of parental expectation were significant predictors of indecisiveness. More PSP and LPE was associated with less indecisiveness among the college students. More "perceived parental expectation (PPE)" was associated with higher indecisiveness. (3) Both the relation between PSP and career indecision and the relation between LPE and career indecision were completely or partially mediated by career decision self-efficacy. This corroborated the discourse of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and suggests that social context, in this case Chinese culture in Taiwanese society, exerts indirect impact on career decision/indecision, mediated by self-efficacy.
    This study found that PPE, PSP and LPE produced different predictive results for developmental indecision and indecisiveness, which can be used to reinterpret the previous divergent findings on career indecision. In particular, the results of this study demonstrated that parental expectation could be a double-edged sword, being good and bad at the same time. An individual may need to compromise self needs and repress oneself to meet the expectations of parents, leading to the inability to make career choices and being trapped in indecision. On the other hand, parental expectations may also reflect attentiveness and affirmation towards the children, or be seen as a kind of understanding and care. In the latter case, the attainment or fulfillment of parental expectations is a form of recognition, ncouraging and motivating the moving-forward of this parent-child consensus.
    The present study found that career decision self-efficacy plays a mediating role between parental expectations and career indecision. Hence, career counselors are suggested to assist students by enhancing their career self-efficacy, which appears to be effective in reducing career indecision. According to Bandura (1977), the formation of self-efficacy is rooted in four reference points: performance accomplishment, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal. Therefore, when a counselor is meeting with a client, the positive impacts of past successes can be particularly highlighted in the conversation, while exploring important influencers outside the family, such as school teachers or older club members, as these exemplary figures often make up part of the missing function of parents in a child's career development.