Psychology and Mature Interpersonal Relationships

Psychology and Mature Interpersonal Relationships

See Entire Document Download Document
Text Preview

Overgeneralization in Chickering’s Theory of Development Student’s character development in higher education can be understood by Arthur Chickering’s theory of development. In his article, “The Seven Vectors: An Overview” Chickering delves into the idea that college students experience seven vectors of development throughout their college experience. These vectors of development must reach resolution for the student to achieve identity.

The seven vectors posed by him are developing competence, managing emotions, moving through autonomy toward independence, developing mature interpersonal relationships, establishing identity, developing purpose, and developing integrity. These can be used as maps to help determine where students are and which way they are heading. Though Chickering did not necessarily state that a student’s movements through these seven vectors were sequential, the theory indicates that student’s must resolve through a specific group of vectors as a foundation towards progressing through later vectors.

Although the vectors have more direction and magnitude, they build upon one another from simpler tasks to more difficult tasks. Achieving an increased level of sense in one vector not only strengthens assurance brought to adult tasks, but also affects the remaining six vectors of development. However, instead of focusing on only emotional, social, moral, or intellectual development, Chickering’s theory should have included a student’s demographics as well. Chickering’s theory may have been too general to be useful for all college students.

Different demographics of students are not addressed in his article. Several of the theories presented here were developed more than three decades ago based on largely White, middle-class males attending highly selective colleges. As such, their ability to describe the experiences of men and women and racial minorities has to be challenged. Social and cultural shifts that have occurred since these theories were initially developed may also limit their ability to describe the experiences of even those students who resemble the original research subjects.

It is important to understand that applying Chickering’s vectors sequentially to a very diverse population of students may not be as useful since students develop differently at different rates and many times, these differing rates of development could be connected to factors like gender and race. I would like to look at Vector Two: Managing Emotion and Vector Four: Developing Mature Interpersonal Relationships to identify differences in development depending on the student’s race and gender. Vector Two consists of learning to understand, accept, and express emotions.

According to Chickering, individuals learn how to appropriately act on feelings that they are experiencing once they have accomplished this vector. Chickering says, “Development proceeds when students learn appropriate channels for releasing irritations before they explode, dealing with fears before they immobilize, and healing emotional wounds before they infect other relationships. ” To students with diverse racial backgrounds other things can influence the meaning to emotion and how it should be handled.

For example, if one was raised to the belief that if you show emotion you show weakness then one cannot easily overcome this vector. In Hispanic culture one is taught to be strong, to shake things off, or to not pay attention to one’s emotions. Therefore

See Entire Document Join FreeBookSummary to continue reading
See Entire Document Join FreeBookSummary to continue reading

one might not know how to channel emotions or even be able to tell that they are affecting us. There is little understanding of the relationship between the emotions of people and their racial background due to little or no attention being paid to the racialized dimensions of emotions.

I think college faculty should include a psychologist who is aware of these racialized dimensions of emotion and can help the student increase awareness, integration and healthy control of the feelings that he or she experiences during the growth period, particularly sexual and aggressive feelings. Chickering’s theory can still be used as guidelines however psychologist need to take into consideration the different races and the obstacles that come with their ethnic background.

In Vector Four: Developing Mature Interpersonal Relationships; Chickering states, “Developing mature relationships involves tolerance and appreciation of differences, and capacity for intimacy. Tolerance can be seen in both an intercultural and an interpersonal context. ” That stated, findings suggest that women actually enter college more “developed” than their male counterparts and because much of their development is in developing inter-personal relationships, women are more tolerant of others differences and more accepting of diverse populations than men generally speaking.

Most women tend to develop through the vector of mature, interpersonal relationships before they experience the many of the other vectors. Most men have a hard time accepting others that are different than them therefore embracing only those who are like them. Men tend to have difficulty accepting mutuality. Men often form what to them subjectively appear to be open, intimate relationships which mostly either have disconnections, violations, or dominance.

If campuses were to offer gender specific counseling groups it would really show improvement in this vector by showing the individual how to cope and deal with these challenges of maturity. Chickering’s purpose of the seven vectors was to illustrate how a student’s development in the college setting can affect him or her emotionally, socially, physically, and intellectually in a college environment, particularly in the formation of identity. College students possess characteristics that change as they progress in their years at a university.

Discovering emotions, feelings, independence, and achievement are part of a college student’s transition and exploration in establishing identity and developing characteristics. Chickering says, “Students bring to college an array of assumptions about what is right and wrong, true and false, good and bad, important and unimportant. Younger students may have acquired these assumptions from parents, church, school, media, or other sources. ” Swaying from taught values enhances anxiety and fear of discovery and punishment for many students. These values are often subconscious, due to this; they can be very hard to explain.

Therefore faculty and counselors should take in mind that there are very diverse student populations and can use Chickering’s theory as guidelines only. Academic advisors should have a broad range of theoretical perspectives and approaches to choose from in developing a personal plan for each student. The outcome being more successful and “real world” ready graduates. Works Cited Chickering, Arthur. Seven Vectors: An Overview Student Developmental Theory Overview Florida State Univ. Higher Education Program

See Entire Document Join FreeBookSummary to continue reading

<http:/studentdevelopmenttheory. wordpress. com/ethnic-identity-development/>

See Entire Document Join FreeBookSummary to continue reading
We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy.