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In Ter Cult Ural Conceptions of Psychological Maturity IN TER CULT URAL CONCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MATURITY* AN EXPLORATQHY STUDY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By RITA MALONEY VERSACE, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State University 1956 Approved by* ' Adviser ^apartment of Psychology ACKDOWLED GMENTS The writer wishes to express appreciation to her advisor, Doctor John E. Horrocks, for his encouragement and comments throughout the study; to Doctor Robert J. Wherry for his generous consultation and advice on the statistical analysis of the data; to the Soroptamist Club of Columbus whose grant partially aided in carrying out the study; to the professors and students in France, Belgium, Italy, and the United States whose cooperation made the study possible; and to the staff members and graduate students who served as judges and otherwise assisted in the study. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCTION........................................ 1 Purpose..........................................4 Questions to be Investigated................... 6 Hypotheses .................................... 7 II THE CONCEPT CF PSYCHOLOGICAL MATURITY............. 8 General Disousslons of Maturity................ 12 Experimental Investigations of Maturity. 24 III METHODOLOGY.......................................33 Analysis.......................................37 IV RESULTS............................................ 44 Reliability................................... 44 Tests of Hypotheses........................... 64 Faotor Analysis .............................. 70 V SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND DISCUSSION..............84 Conclusions................................... 89 D i s c u s s i o n ....................................90 APPENDIX.................................................... 105 QUESTIONNAIRES.......................................... 112 BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................129 iii LIST OF TABLES uBL FA GE 1 Description of Sample by Nationality, Age, 34 Sex, and Scholastic Standing 2 Inter-rater Reliability for Two Judges in 47- Assigning Descriptive ■'■terns to Minor 48 Categories 3 Summary of the Distribution of Inter-rater 49 Reliabilities for Five Judges Taken Two at at Time in Assigning Minor Categories to 11 Major Categories 4 Test-retest Reliability for Five Judges in 51 Assigning Minor Categories to Major Categories 5 Inter-rater Reliability in Assigning 60 Descriptive Cultural Items to Cultural Categories 6 Differences between Relative *roporoion of 66 Responses in Individual Major Categories for the American and European Samples and their Significance Level 7 Differences between Relative Proportion of 67 Responses in Individual Minor Categories having a Rank-order Difference of 20 or more for the American and European Samples and tneir Significance Level 8 Differences between Relative Proportion of 71 Responses in those Cultural Categories Con­ taining 20 or more Responses for American and European Samples and their Significance Level 9 Observed Intercorrelations between Major 73 Cate gar ies 10 Observed Intercorrelations between Minor 74- Categories end Major Categories 75 11 Corrected Intercorrelauions between Major 76 Categories 12 Corrected Intercorrelations between Minor 77- Categories and Major Categories 78 13 Residuals 81 Unrotated Factor Loadings 82 iv V TABLE PAGE 15 Rotated factor Loadings 83 16-27 Inter-rater Reliability for Rive Judges 106- in Assigning Minor Categories to.Major 111 (Categories / L IST OF icjUEST10 1'JAIRES CiUESTIOIfi'iAiRE PACE 1 Conceptions of Psychol qyical Maturity 113 (English) 2 Conceptions of Fsychological Maturity 116 (French) 3 3 Conceptions of Psychological Maturity 119 (Ital ian ) 4 Rating of Maturity Statements 122 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION For some time, psychologists have concerned themselves with problems of man's adjustment* One result of this concern has been the many studies which make possible a description of qualities characteristic of a "normal," "well-adjusted" individual. Beyond the notion of adjustment to present conditions lies the question of constructive living, of contributing to the advancement of society, of leading a satisfying, happy life, and of adding to the happiness and well-being of others. These concepts might well be said to describe the activities of persons whom society considers as mature. What is meant by a "mature individual" as distinguished from an immature individual or one lacking in maturity? Psychologists have attempted to answer this question as they have the question of what is adjustment. Investigation of the references in the Psycholcgical Abstracts (thirty-seven within the past ten years) plus the many dis­ cussions of maturity in psychological textbooks indicates the quantity and quality of psychology's contribution to an understanding of those aspects of behavior known as maturity. One finds in the references mentioned above, general discussions, particularly by well-known psychologists, which give some components of maturity as the psychologists have gleaned them through their own 1 practical experience. Besides these, one finds some experimental investigations of restricted aspects of maturity, such as emotional maturity or social maturity. These two approaches may be considered as divergent means of arriving at an operational definition of maturity, since both describe behavior. A general definition may be constructed from the general discussions of maturity by listing all the components of maturity as given by "experts." These could then be analyzed as Tindall (44) analyzed adjustment indices. This has not been done, however. Inherent in the investigation of restricted aspects of maturity is the hope that as eaoh aspect is carefully studied, eventually a genera! definition together with behavioral manifestations can be formulated. The writer was unable to discover any experimental investigations de­ signed primarily to determine the behaviors which maturity connotes. Reasons for the lack of this type of experimental investigation of maturity may lie in the complexity of the concept. First of all, there are no simple biological correlates of this state. In general, one might assume that a person to be psychologically mature should first have reached puberty. Yet, many times a physiologically immature person will exhibit aspects of behavior which most people would consider manure. Secondly, psychological maturity does not occur as a function of time as does physical maturation and may, in fact, never occur. Thirdly, a person may be considered mature in one area, for example, in assuming job responsibility, and yet be considered quite immature in another area, as for example, in heterosexual relationships. Fourthly, maturity does not appear to be an underlying personality urait which when one attained is permanent. Rather, it would seem 3 more likely to be a characteristic specific to given situations similar to the findings of Hartshorns and May (16) with regard to honesty* And, finally, at this point there are no ways of measuring a person's over-all psychological maturity. Horrocks (25, p.703) points out this difficulty and others in his disucssion of the at­ tainment of psychological maturity as an end of adolescence: Psychologically and chronologically adolescence ends with the attainment of a consistent and comparatively widespread level of maturity. The development of suoh maturity is a slow process, and there now exists no means whereby it is possible to measure whether an individual has attained such a level* It is ordinarily assumed that most individuals have attained at least a moderate degree of psychological maturity by the time they are in the early twenties and that they are then adults rather than adolescents* For some people, however, psychological maturity never does arrive, with the result that they extend their adolescence throughout their later years. Horrocks' use of the term "psychological maturity" which he defines as "attainment of a consistent and comparatively widespread level of maturity" is to be noted. This term is used throughout the present study and is considered to include all aspects of maturity elsewhere referred to as social maturity, emotional maturity, and the like. Despite the difficulties involved in conducting research on psychological maturity, there still appears to be a need for suoh research. In every field, there is a demand for mature individuals— industry, education, the home, among religious leaders, in civic positions, as well as in the armed services, in civilian defense and the like* One of the main goals of education is to produce individuals 4 who can take their place in society as nature persons, translating effectively idiat they have learned into responsible, meaningful action. Robinson (37, p. 250) indicates that maturity is a major problem which persons bring to the counseling interview, lie points out that while increasing maturity is one of the aims of counseling, "little research is available on how to increase maturity." In the writer's opinion, one of the first steps in the needed research on psychological maturity, is a research-derived definition of the concept. With some awareness of what people mean when they speak of maturity, further investigations can then be made. Purpose This, then, is the purpose of the present research: (a) to seek a universally used comprehensive behavioral definition of psychological maturity in terms of the qualities commonly considered to comprise
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