Personality Change and the College

The college years, typically occupying ages 18 through 21, come at the end of adolescence, a time reputedly characterized by rebellion, violent emotion, crises of identity and personality change. Having successfully made the break with childhood the college student has still to develop an adult self-concept, find a suitable occupational role, and consolidate his hard-won independence. Many people feel that the college provides an ideal environment for accomplishing these developmental tasks; at one and the same time it offers independence from parental control and protective shelter, a strong peer culture and the example of a mature faculty, stimulation for the intellect and an outlet for the emotions. It is clear from the goals stated in their catalogs that many liberal arts colleges take their responsibility for providing a healthy environment for personal development every bit as seriously as their responsibility for encouraging intellectual growth. Several studies have provided information about personality change in college students. Sanford (1956) and his co-workers at Vassar found that students attending that college became less conservative, more tolerant of individual differences, and freer in their expression of impulses. Plant (1958) found that seniors were less ethnocentric than they had been as freshmen. Webster, Freedman and Heist (1962) reviewed earlier studies and reported some original data supporting previous findings that students tend to become less religious and more liberal during the college years.