The development of professional character: An investigation of the values of graduate students in counseling psychology

Jordan and Meara (1990) argued that in graduate education in psychology, attention should be paid to the development of professional character in addition to the teaching of ethical principles. The present study explored the development of one component of professional character, the identification with professional values.;A cross-sectional national sample of 196 counseling psychology graduate students completed a survey questionnaire comprised of the Schwartz Universal Values Questionnaire (Schwartz, 1992), the Counseling versus General-Psychology Values questionnaire, (Howard, 1992), and a demographic questionnaire.;Hierarchical multiple linear regression strategies were used to analyze the results. As hypothesized, counseling psychology graduate students' identification with the professional values of counseling psychology was predicted by year in school, students' perceptions of the graduate environment endorsing these same values, and endorsement of the personal values of Benevolence and Universalism. Surprisingly, value endorsement and year in school were inversely related. Students' perceptions of their graduate environments also significantly predicted their personal endorsement of the general psychology values. Specific graduate school experiences, (e.g. practicum hours, candidacy status) were not significantly related.;Although some significant differences were found between counseling psychology graduate students and counseling psychologists in their endorsement of professional values and in their perception of the importance of these values to their respective environments, students' ordering of these professional values was comparable to the ordering of these values by the counseling psychologists. The personal values of Universalism, Self-Direction, Benevolence, and Achievement were the most important values to the students in the present sample, results that are congruent with Kelly's (in press) survey of professional counselors. Except for a significant relationship between age and Universalism scores, these four core personal values did not vary with any of the independent variables in the present study. These results provide preliminary support for the idea that the professional values held by counseling psychology graduate students are affected by their aggregate graduate school experience.