Discussion about "maturity"

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am wondering why maturity comes later to some people than others. Imho, it seems to be clear that some major event or trauma in one’s life (loss of parents at an early age, childbirth, etc.) can cause maturity to occur at a very young (or younger than average age.) My two main questions:

  1. Is there a psychological condition that can retard or prevent maturity from occurring even if major events do occur?

  2. Can a person choose to become mature in the absence of major events in their life?

  3. Is maturity a natural development (like puberty) or something learned over time?

2

I think you understand maturity quite well.

It does come naturally with life events. The death of relatives and traumatic events like serving in the military certainly can advance the process. Aging tends to produce maturity as one begins to consider that they won’t live forever.

An observation that I have made and heard repeated is that drug use during youth retards maturity. Specifically, marijuana use seems to halt the maturing process or even regress it. Sometimes there is no way to catch up. As one example of several that I personally know of is a 34 year old female who started using drugs at about 15 years of age. In so many ways she still behaves like a teenager. I have seen this enough times to believe the theory.

3

Not sure that I agree with your idea that drug use during youth retards maturity, Al. I suspect that most people tried, experimented, or started using drugs in their teens; and generally, I’m sure that you’d find these people reach maturity at some point - regardless of whether they still smoke dope or not. Maybe for some emotional reason your friend is ‘stuck’ doing 15-year-old behaviour which is why she continues her habit in the same way an adolescent does. ‘Maturity’ is a bit subjective - what you may deem to be behaving “like a teenager” may be “refreshing” to someone else.

‘Maturity’ is contextual too, I think. Personally, I am fantastic in an emergency, a crisis, an important negotiation or anything requiring the broad elements maturity evokes - yet I *still find farts funny, roll my eyes like a child, and stay up really late for no reason at all.
(*I know. So *pathetically *immature, it makes me roll my eyes.)

As to your ponderings Superhal, I think that the psychological condition that could retard or prevent maturity can sometimes be an outlook, or an attitude that for all intents and purposes can *look *like maturity has not been reached, and in fact maybe it has.

For example, a friend whose father was murdered, mother was an invalid, only sibling was developmentally challenged, at 17 had to give a child up for adoption, and was orphaned in her mid twenties, expresses her maturity by behaving like a fun-loving teenager by not carrying any of the ‘baggage’ that some expect she ‘should’.

Another, whose well established multi-million dollar business went bust and who subsequently lost all the usuals that go with that, didn’t ‘pause for reflection’ or ‘considered others whose lives were completely ruined’ before starting up again without missing a beat. Is that maturity? I don’t know. That she kept right on going is mature. Believing that none of what happened was her responsibility, maybe is not.

I think that you do mature in the absence of major events; in the same way that anything organic does, whether it’s fertilised or traumatised, it still matures. I don’t think major events are necessarily a guaranteed road to maturity - for some people it achieves exactly the opposite.

Along with it being a natural development, I think maturity can also be learned - it all depends on what the emotional pay-off is I guess.

Which brings me back to your friend, **Al **- maybe she is the way she is because there’s no emotional dividend in being anything more than she is now.

God knows if any of this even makes any sense. I’m just too immature to go to bed, even when I’m really, really tired.

4

What do you mean by maturity? I tend to think it means the ability to delay gratification, make reasoned decisions, act responsibly, and control your impulses.

If that’s the sort of maturity you mean, I think it matures very unevenly even within the same person: I know people that are mature in their professional life, but immature in their social life. I know people that are mature in their platonic relationships, but immature in their romantic relationships. I know people who are mature in their daily financial decisions but immature in their long term planning.

Some of it is absolutely physiological: the brain is not done maturing until the mid 20s. and as a high school teacher I am constantly amazed at the way bright, generally wise, teens will suffer epic collapses of judgment. I don’t see, honestly, a huge correlation between maturity and tragedy: I think tragedy highlights, in some cases, maturity that was already there, or simply makes a person sad and withdrawn, which looks like maturity to others.

5

I became very mature at some things before I was 10, but others I am still not there yet.

6

I believe the capacity for maturity, like all personality traits, also has an in-born component. Personality is not a quantifiable equation whereby if you input X experiences you will get Y behaviors.

If I provided you with details of the early life experiences of my half-dozen closest friends and then described their lives today, the best psychologists in the world would not be able to guess accurately which person had which experiences.

Moreover. maturity is a complex concept. A person who is goal-oriented and disciplined in his/her career can be emotionally or sexually immature. Most people, I think, could fill in the blanks in this sentence with no trouble:

"I am very mature when it comes to _____ but somewhat immature when it comes to ______.

7

I’ve heard this too, though not with drug use per se as with addiction. The theory is that, when the going gets tough, the addict (alcoholic, stoner, etc.) escapes into their addiction, rather than facing, dealing with, learning from, and growing from the vicissitudes of life.

Anyway, that’s the theory I’ve heard—anyone have any evidence for or against?

8

I’ve just started looking around but so far at 4 different websites, I got 4 different definitions (and 2 of those websites were about.com answers.) I think we can all agree that “maturity” is:

  1. difficult to define.
  2. compartmentalized (as other posters have noted).
  3. depends as much on the observer as the observed.
  4. is a function of behavior, not age.

The definition I’d like to work with is that maturing is a process, not an end goal. What are the mechanics of this process?

Hmm. This would coincide neatly with critical period studies: there’s a window where maturity can be gained, and if that window is closed, then the person has issues with it for the rest of their life. For example, in second language studies, the critical period for learning a second language is around 13 years old (which, like almost everything in critical period studies, coincides with puberty.) At 13, you can achieve native-speaker ability in the 2nd language. After 13, you can’t. Therefore, a drug addict who avoids the maturing during the critical period will have issues with maturity the rest of their life. While they can achieve a certain level eventually, they will never be able to achieve the maximum level.

9

You might find the subject of “emotional intelligence” interesting. This is the website of the author of the original book. There are other books available now including Emotional Intelligence for Dummies.

10

Emotional intelligence is not maturity.
EI is defined more by an instinct for doing what is best for all concerned.
Maturity is mostly about demonstrating an ability to comply with expectations.

11

Thanks BoD! My mature dog is mature!

12

I think I found the answer to most of my questions:

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development

Thanks everybody. :slight_smile: