Explaining doctoral students’ relational maintenance with their advisor: a psychosocial development perspective

This study explored how psychosocial development affects doctoral students’ relationship and communication with their advisor. Chickering and Reisser’s vectors of psychosocial development were examined in the doctoral context to understand how students preserve communicatively satisfying relationships with their advisor through the use of relational maintenance behaviors. Doctoral students (N = 304) completed self-report surveys and the results...