Going off to College and Constructing Identity

August 15, 2022 It's back to school time, including for college students. College is a great place for constructing identity...

Hello It’s Complex Readers,

I hope you had a good two weeks and that the current week is getting off to a good start. It’s mid-August, which means back to school, including college. Some readers may be sending their children off to college and some readers may be students going off to college. Some of you know college students or are interested in them. This week is still about identity, with a focus on how college is a great place for identity exploration. As always, please tell everyone and anyone about It’s Complex. And please share this particular post with any college students you know and their families. Thank you!!

A Reminder for Familar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers

Here at It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. The world sure is a complex place, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. We end up glossing over complexity and postpone thinking about it. But much is at stake for humanity and for individuals. Let’s stop postponing; let’s embrace complexity and deal with it. At It’s Complex, we think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality (M), connectedness (C), and dynamics (D). I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!

• Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.

• Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness, which refers to mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.

• Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.

For further details (or as a refresher), check out some of the first newsletter posts.

Newsletter: Going Off to College and Constructing Identity

It is mid-August and colleges around the US are welcoming incoming freshmen, transfer students, and returning sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Maybe you know some of those students, maybe you are one of them, maybe you are the parent of some of them.

Every Fall for 26 years as a college professor, I thought about going off to college from students’ perspectives. Going off to college is both exciting and scary. It is the beginning of new experiences and new opportunities. Going off to college means meeting new people and making new friends. Going off to college means leaving home (except for commuters), being on your own more, and making more of your own decisions. For many, that is all very exciting and liberating. But being away from home can also be scary. College is about academics, learning, and critical thinking. Learning is exciting, but college academics can be daunting and anxiety provoking for some. Going off to college means engaging with new ideas and perspectives in varied settings—some more constructive than others...

In the context of new ways of being independent, engaging with varied people, and learning about new perspectives, going off to college is also very much about constructing identity. As discussed in prior identity newsletters, constructing identity is complex and can be understood systemically in terms of multidimensionality, connectedness, and dynamics.

If you want to see those newsletters again:

People identify themselves in terms of multiple and interrelated characteristics or dimensions (e.g., physical, social, psychological, active, cultural). With regard to dynamics, people’s ways of defining themselves change and develop throughout the lifespan. There is also identity continuity or stability, as people continue to define themselves in some of same ways and experience themselves as the same person throughout their lives. In one identity newsletter, we considered how identity construction happens through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. All of these points about identity apply to college students.

With regard to multidimensionality, college students have opportunities to define themselves in terms of multiple issues, people, and activities. College students are potentially defining themselves in multiple new ways as they engage with varied people in varied settings and as they engage with new ideas and perspectives. Insofar as they are defining themselves in new ways, dynamics are involved and during the course of four years, there can be changes in how students think about themselves. And individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are constituting  their action, including as they ask themselves “Who am I?” and as they answer others’ questions about themselves in varied settings.

Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

For decades, Erik Erikson’s (1902 – 1994) ideas dominated developmental psychology’s discussions and research on adolescent identity construction. Erikson offered a lifespan theory of identity, and he posited that during adolescence, adolescents question their parents’ ways of defining them and start to explicitly or consciously grapple with how to define themselves, for themselves. Erikson also argued that adolescents need to engage in “free role experimentation” to experiment with and evaluate different identity options (Erikson, 1959/1980, p. 120). For Erikson, the developmental goal of identity construction during adolescence is for adolescents to emerge from experimenting and evaluating as adults with identity commitments to beliefs and values, as well as social roles that give them a direction for the future. Again, I emphasize that Erikson viewed identity construction as a lifelong process. Thus, it does not begin and end with adolescence, and he posited several infancy, childhood, and adult identity construction stages. The point here is that he posited a time of identity experimentation—also known as identity exploration—for adolescents who are asking identity questions (e.g., Who am I? What do I believe in? What do I want in life?) and pondering identity issues for themselves. They are reflecting on their own, but they also explore identity options as they engage with others in cultural activities. As such, individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes co-constitute identity exploration.

Exploring identity options is still part of identity construction, at least for many young people in western cultures. But times have changed since Erikson published some of his most influential books in the 1950s and 1960s. Contemporary developmental psychologist, Jeffrey Arnett, points out that in western and industrialized cultures, more young people are pursuing post-high school education, which further means that jobs and careers start later than they used to. In addition, getting married and having children are occurring later than in the past. (http://www.jeffreyarnett.com/ARNETT_Emerging_Adulthood_theory.pdf) Within this changed cultural context, today’s adolescents are beginning to engage in some identity experimentation and evaluation, but they are not necessarily read to commit to and take on adult social roles in their early 20s. Thus, adulthood no longer follows adolescence. Although the legal age of adulthood may be 18 in many countries around the world, how many of you would describe the 18-year-olds in your lives as full-fledged adults? Who wakes up on their 18th birthday suddenly transformed into an adult?

If adulthood no longer follows adolescence, what does? “Emerging adulthood” has emerged as a life-phase that occurs between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood, roughly between the ages of 18 and 25. Arnett’s research shows that emerging adulthood is neither late adolescence nor early adulthood, but a life-phase in and of itself, with its distinct characteristics. One characteristic is that emerging adults engage in identity exploration with regard to beliefs and values, work, and relationships, and they do so more intensely and seriously than during adolescence when opportunities for such exploration are relatively limited.

Multidimensional and Dynamic Identity Exploration in College

And so, going off to college includes identity exploration—emerging adulthood style. As I told students every semester, college is a “great place for identity exploration.” Students can experiment with and evaluate multiple aspects of identity as they take varied courses in varied departments and engage with people from varied circumstances. They can explore multiple identity characteristics as they engage in new activities, and as they encounter varied perspectives on multiple issues and topics. They can think about who they are with regard to multiple and interrelated identity characteristics as they stay up until the wee hours of the morning discussing varied identity issues with varied others.

As with going to college in general, identity exploration can be both exciting and scary. It is exciting to try out different ways of expressing yourself, of thinking about who you are, and striving to achieve whom you want to be. At the same time, it can be daunting and confusing to deal with multiple identity issues.

In addition to dealing with multiple identity issues, it is not surprising that identity construction can be quite dynamic as emerging adults explore identities in college. Some college students may even be explicitly or consciously trying to change how they define and express themselves. Some may be pretty sure about who they think they are one semester, but then change aspects of how they see themselves the next semester. With regard to career identity, I myself was not a psychology major in college at Johns Hopkins, where they offered a general humanities major that focused on history and literature. Throughout college, I thought I would go into law or journalism, but neither ever felt quite right to me. I finally decided to go into psychology at the end of the Fall semester of my senior year. I then spent two years taking undergraduate courses in psychology before going to graduate school at Clark University. I told students this personal story every semester when we talked about Erikson in class or when registration for the next semester was underway. They perked up and some told me that they were relieved to know that they were not the only ones who were unsure about their majors and career futures. I invariably also told them that their major would not make or break their lives and that they could still go into all kinds of careers. I know an engineering major who works in finance and a doctor who was a history major.

Dealing with identity dynamics can certainly be daunting and confusing. You might find a college student who seems to “know who they are,” but then they take a course and find themselves questioning how they think about themselves. They are unsettled and disequilibrated. Or they meet some new people who see themselves and others differently. They are unsettled and disequilibrated. Their parents are worried that they are flakey or unfocused. I would say that constructing identity is complex and such dynamics are to be expected. Multi-dimensional and dynamic identity exploration is part of what college is for.

Even though research shows that identity changes and develops throughout the lifespan, and even though young people in western and industrialized cultures now go from adolescence into emerging adulthood before full-fledged adulthood, and even though more serious identity exploration occurs during emerging adulthood than adolescence, I think that there is still a great deal of pressure for adolescents and young emerging adults to deal with identity issues rather statically. Some of that pressure is evident in high school, as adolescents face having to think about future jobs and careers well before they apply to college. They have to decide about careers so that they can decide what to major in and then look into which schools have good programs for that major. Then, they have to decide which schools to apply to and then which one to go to. Which one suits them? Well, that depends partly on how they define themselves—on aspects of their identity.

But what if aspects of their identity change between choosing a career in high school and applying to colleges? Or, what if aspects of their identity change between choosing a major while still in high school and landing in a college dorm in the Fall? Or, what if aspects of their identity change between freshman year and junior year, or some other years? With regard to career identity, some adolescents and emerging adults know what they want to do and they do not waver, but that is not always the case. Some adolescents and emerging adults may waver more or less with regard to different aspects of identity. The point is that wavering in some ways is not unusual and is to be expected.

Most likely, varied kinds of identity changes will occur and so it can be quite daunting for high school students to choose majors and careers before they even get to college. Expecting high school students to choose majors and careers represents a static approach to identity, and overlooks the dynamic complexities of identity.  I think it is rather unrealistic (and borders on absurd) to expect them to make enduring decisions about a culturally salient aspect of identity (career in this case) before they can engage in the more serious and intense identity exploration of emerging adulthood.

Moreover, for many of the current batch of incoming college freshmen, their beginning adolescent forays into identity exploration were truncated by the pandemic. It is also problematic to expect high school students, and even college students, to make enduring choices in a world beset by uncertainty. What will the global economy look like when they graduate? What political circumstances will ensue in the coming years? How will the world deal (or not deal) with climate change? American adolescents and emerging adults have lived in the midst of the uncertainty that mass shootings have wrought. Will there be a mass shooting tomorrow at school or at the concert they want to go to? And the pandemic certainly brought uncertainty. Even before the pandemic, more adolescents were struggling with mental health issues than in the past and many college mental health services were increasingly stretched thin.

College students can change their majors, but doing so can be quite fraught. During 26 years as a college professor, I encountered many students who were not sure if they really wanted to pursue the major they were in. But many were reluctant to change. Some were worried that their parents would be mad. Some worried that it would mean “getting behind” and having to stay in school for an extra semester or even more. Some were worried that it would not look good on their transcripts or to potential employers. They were worried that they wouldn’t be able to get a job upon graduation. They were worried for varied reasons and I remember worrying for varied reasons as I changed my career goals at the end of my college years. I was fortunate that my parents were not mad and that they supported my professional choice. I was also fortunate that a humanities background was appreciated in the psychology department at Clark.

SO— from a systems perspective, identity construction is multidimensional and dynamic, and we should not be surprised if some college students start to rethink what they want to major in and what they want to do. We should not be surprised if they are rethinking varied aspects of who they think they are. Last year, someone told me that her daughter told her that she finally knows who she is, but she is worried that she won’t feel that way in the future. It sounded to me like she was feeling pressure to construct herself statically. I told her mother that she probably will change at least some aspects of who she thinks she is, and that doing so is okay and to be expected. I said that people change how they think about themselves throughout their lives. And now, that young woman is bound for college next week. Although I will not even try to predict how her identity will change, I am pretty sure that she will go through some identity exploration and that aspects of her identity will indeed change. I hope that her identity dynamics are not too unsettling and disequilibrating. I wish that for all emerging adults who are going off to college!

Have a good semester!!

Some Questions to Think and Comment About

What do you think? What interested you, what surprised you, what struck you?

How did you do identity exploration in high school and/or college?

Can you share some examples of adolescents or emerging adults whom you know who are dealing with identity issues?

What questions do you have about any of this?

Non-Electronic Reference

Erikson, E. H. (1959/1980). Identity and the life cycle. New York: W. W. Norton.