05-12-2003, 02:52 PM
The question: Is age a mark of maturity.
O.K. so what is maturity?
So we can throw out the 2nd definition. So, lets look at 1 a The state or quality of being fully grown or developed. I'm not going to start throwing more definitions out there, but being fully grown, in the physical sense can mean that you are mature. Does age correlate to that? Yes, yes it does, very strongly.
Now, the question in the poll is probably asking about mental maturity, and that seems to be the way that everyone is interpreting it. The poll also uses the word mark, which has a whole lot of uses, but one of them, and the way that I interpreted it was as indicator. Since statistics is the only way that I know how you can give a yes now answer to this, I did a little poking around (not much because it really isn't worth it and it isn't hard to find anyway) and while yes, there is statistically significant correlation between age and mental maturity. Mental maturity is generally assessed by questionaires (as are most things in social psychology). Given all this, the answer to the question is pretty easy to pin down as yes.
Now, the fun part is interpretting that answer. Since we are talking psychology (mostly social), and statistics you have to be careful with what the answer means. Social psychology is, to quote a text, "The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another." It is a broad field covering the average of people. That is what we are looking at here, on average the older a person gets the more 'mature' they are. As mentioned there have been studies on this, some of the longitudinal (meaning it was the same group of people assessed at several stages of their lives) and they all indicate that people got more mature as they aged.
This doesn't say that all older people are more mature than all younger people, but it does say that on average as people get older they get more mature, and that older people are on average more mature than younger people. Also keep in mind that 18-25 is a standard age group for many measures, and it is one of the younger age groups. Is a 60 year old more likely to be more mature than a 24 year old? Yes. Is a 25 year old more likely to be more mature than a 16 year old? Yes, but it isn't as likely because they really aren't that different in age from each other.
So, the question really isn't "flawed". The interpretation of the question and the answers is or can be. This is one time where some of the up in arms reactions this forum sometimes generates, just bugged me.
O.K. so what is maturity?
from dictionary.com Wrote:n. pl. ma·tur·i·ties
1
a. The state or quality of being fully grown or developed.
b. The state or quality of being mature.
2.
a. The time at which a note or bond is due.
b. The state of a note or bond being due.
So we can throw out the 2nd definition. So, lets look at 1 a The state or quality of being fully grown or developed. I'm not going to start throwing more definitions out there, but being fully grown, in the physical sense can mean that you are mature. Does age correlate to that? Yes, yes it does, very strongly.
Now, the question in the poll is probably asking about mental maturity, and that seems to be the way that everyone is interpreting it. The poll also uses the word mark, which has a whole lot of uses, but one of them, and the way that I interpreted it was as indicator. Since statistics is the only way that I know how you can give a yes now answer to this, I did a little poking around (not much because it really isn't worth it and it isn't hard to find anyway) and while yes, there is statistically significant correlation between age and mental maturity. Mental maturity is generally assessed by questionaires (as are most things in social psychology). Given all this, the answer to the question is pretty easy to pin down as yes.
Now, the fun part is interpretting that answer. Since we are talking psychology (mostly social), and statistics you have to be careful with what the answer means. Social psychology is, to quote a text, "The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another." It is a broad field covering the average of people. That is what we are looking at here, on average the older a person gets the more 'mature' they are. As mentioned there have been studies on this, some of the longitudinal (meaning it was the same group of people assessed at several stages of their lives) and they all indicate that people got more mature as they aged.
This doesn't say that all older people are more mature than all younger people, but it does say that on average as people get older they get more mature, and that older people are on average more mature than younger people. Also keep in mind that 18-25 is a standard age group for many measures, and it is one of the younger age groups. Is a 60 year old more likely to be more mature than a 24 year old? Yes. Is a 25 year old more likely to be more mature than a 16 year old? Yes, but it isn't as likely because they really aren't that different in age from each other.
So, the question really isn't "flawed". The interpretation of the question and the answers is or can be. This is one time where some of the up in arms reactions this forum sometimes generates, just bugged me.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.