IMPACT OF AGE AND FAMILY TYPE ON EMOTIONAL MATURITY OF
URBAN ADOLESCENT GIRLS
P.K.Nanda
Asha Chawla
INTRODUCTION
In the
present circumstances, youth as well as children are facing difficulties in
life. These difficulties are giving rise to many psychosomatic problems such as
anxiety, tensions, frustrations and emotional upsets in day to day life. So,
the study of emotional life is now emerging as a descriptive science,
comparable with anatomy. It deals with interplay of forces with intensities and
quantities. Emotional maturity is not only the effective determinant of
personality pattern, but it also helps to control the
growth of adolescents development. The concept ‘Mature’ emotional behaviour of
any level is that which reflects the fruits of normal emotional development. A person who is able
to keep his emotions under control, who is able to broke delay and to suffer
without self pity, might still be emotionally stunned and childish. According to Walter et.al. (1976)
emotional maturity is a process in which the personality is continuously
striving for greater sense of emotional health, both intra-psychically and
intra personality. Emotional stability is one of the seventh important
indicators of mental health. It simply means being grown up so that one may be
able to personally manage his/her desires and feelings and may be better able to cope up the adverse
life situations in a most benefiting and socially approved manner. The most
outstanding mark of emotional maturity is ability to bear tension. The
emotionally mature is not one who
necessarily has resolved all conditions that aroused anxiety and hospitability but
it is continuously in process of seeing himself/herself in clearer perspective, continually involved
in a struggle to gain healthy integration of feeling and thinking action.
Adolescence is the period of heightened emotionality. It is the most demanding
periods in one’s life- a period of storm and stress because accurate portrayal
of self to others, which is an identifying criterion of healthy personality, is
in the process of establishment during this period. Considering this stage as a
crucial, stage of emotionality, the present study was planned with an objective
to study the impact of age and family type on emotional maturity of urban
adolescent girls.
METHODOLOGY
The study was
conducted on sixty randomly selected college going adolescent girls falling in
the age range of 17-22 yrs. The subjects were further divided into two groups
(30 each) and equal number of girls was taken in both the age groups i.e. 17-19 yrs and 20 to 22 yrs. Three point scale was used for answering the
questions i.e. very much, much and never. The items were so stated that if the
answer was in positive, i.e. very much, a score of 3 was given and for much, score 2 was given and for negative answer i.e.
never a score of 1 was awarded. Therefore, the higher the score on the scale, the
greater the degree of emotional immaturity and
vice versa.
FINDINGS
It was
satisfying to note that there was no illiterate father in both the age groups.
Majority of fathers i.e. 41.66% were graduates and 25% were post-graduates.
28.33% were either matriculate or above. Regarding mothers’ education, no
mother was found to be illiterate and 46.66 % were graduate followed by matriculates
and above (41.66%). 66.66% of adolescent girls belonged to nuclear family,
where as a small percentage of 33.33% belonged to joint family. It was
surprising to note that 46.66% of younger adolescent girls were found to be
emotionally stable than the older ones (40%). A drastic difference was observed
in moderately stable category of the two groups, older girls scored higher
(46.66%), whereas just 30% fell in this category belonging to younger group. No
respondent of older group fell in the category of extremely unstable, whereas
3.34 per cent girls were there in this category belonging to younger group.
Emotional unstability was less in older group as
compared to younger ones. It was interesting to note that no girl was found to
be placed in extremely unstable category in the older group, whereas 3.33%
girls were there in extremely unstable category belonging to younger group.
Results indicated that 60% of girls belonging to joint family fell in 1st
category i.e. emotional stability, whereas just 45% girls belonging to nuclear
family were in
this category. On the other hand, more percentage of girls of nuclear families
scored higher than the other group and were placed in
moderately stable category. It was very much satisfying to note that very less
percentage of girls belonging to joint family were placed in unstable
categories of emotional maturity. The percentage of unstability
was quite high in adolescents of nuclear family. No girl was found to be
extremely unstable in joint family system, whereas 2.5% of girls were there in
nuclear family.
CONCLUSION
From the
above results it is very clear that type of family definite has impact on
emotional maturity. Joint family system has a positive impact on emotionality
because maximum percentage of girls was found to be stable and no girl was
found to be externally unstable in the joint family. It might be due to the
reason that in joint family system, there are more members in the family
wherein there are more chances of disclosure of pent up emotions, there are
more number of adults advising young ones during their stressful period where
as such intimacy is not found in nuclear family, where the number of family
members is very less and majority of mothers are working. It can be concluded
from the results that emotional maturity is affected by age, as adolescents
grow in age there comes more stability in their emotions. Level
of unstability and extremely unstability
decrease with increase in age. Joint family system plays a significant
role in emotional maturity and stability of adolescent girls.
REFERENCES
Carmchael,
L. (1968) Manual of Child Psychology. Wiley Eastern Pvt. Ltd,
Singh, Y.
& Bhargava, M. (1990) Manual for Emotional
Maturity Scale. National Psychological Corporation,
Walter (1976)
The Psychology of Adjustment - Current
Concepts and Applications.