Chickering's Theory of Identity Development, as articulated by Arthur W. Chickering explains the process of identity development. The theory was created specifically to examine the identity development process of students in higher education, but it has been used in other areas as well. History During his employment at Goddard College, Chickering started in on the research for his theory. The research, which he began in 1959 and finished in 1969, involved surveying college students. The students were traditional in age, and were enrolled as sophomores through senior. Chickering was involved with the Project on Student Development in Small Colleges, which allowed him to collect additional data from other schools and compile it with the data from his own. In 1969, he published Education and Identity which explained his new theory of student development. His work was revisited and updated in 1972 and again in 1993 in cooperation with Linda Reisser. Overview Chickering's theory focuses primarily on identity development. It examines this by means of seven vectors of development which contribute to the development of identity: Developing competence Managing emotions Moving through autonomy toward interdependence Developing mature interpersonal relationships Establishing identity Developing purpose Developing integrity These vectors can be thought of as a series of stages or tasks that deal with feeling, thinking, believing, and relating to others. Individuals may progress through the vectors at different rates. The vectors have a tendency to interact with each other, and this can cause reevaluation of issues associated with vectors that had already been worked through. Although the vectors do build on one another, the vectors do not follow a strict sequential order. Developing in multiple vectors allows individuals to function with greater stability and intellectual complexity. Developing competence In Education and Identity, Chickering and Reisser use the analogy of the three-tined pitchfork to describe competence. The tines are intellectual competence, physical competence, and interpersonal competence. The handle of the pitchfork represents the sense of competence that comes from the knowledge that the individual is able to achieve goals and cope with adverse circumstances. Managing emotions This vector consists of learning to understand, accept, and express emotions. Individuals learn how to appropriately act on feelings that they are experiencing. In his more recent work, Chickering's theory was broad and covered emotions including anxiety, depression, guilt, anger, shame along with positive emotions such as inspiration and optimism. In his original work, he focused primarily on