In adulthood, we often let our unconscious habits take over our day-to-day lives. But there are times – such as when making a difficult decision or resolving a crisis in our own lives -when we need to engage our mature, conscious minds fully.
By the time we reach our late teens, we are, in most ways, adults. Our bodies are physically mature, and in many respects, our thinking skills are at their peak. But at this point, most of us will have many years of adult life ahead. So what do the adult years offer in terms of a chance to carry on developing ourselves and our consciousness?
Morality and maturity
Most of us like to think that our days of judging right and wrong have progressed since we were children and that developing a realistic yet morally acceptable approach to life is part of becoming a mature, responsible adult. In the 1960s, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg put forward a theory that is still influential today regarding how our moral judgment develops. Kohlberg claimed that everyone – irrespective of age or culture – could be placed in one category in a hierarchy of moral development by assessing their response to a hypothetical moral dilemma. At the lowest level was the type of moral reasoning used by children, where right and wrong are judged in relation to whether punishment or reward is the likely result. Next comes the typical adult stage, in which ‘ good behavior’ is determined by what other people in the social group or society at large will perceive as such. Finally – and, according to Kohlberg, many adults do not reach this highest stage of moral development – individual conscience becomes the criterion for judgments of right and wrong, and there is an awareness that rules must sometimes be broken for justice to be achieved.
Life stages
Many psychologists today see the last years as a succession of key stages, each relating to life events at different ages. In this approach, there may be no specific point at which maturity is reached. Instead, a different mindset is appropriate at each stage, such as ambition in early adulthood or pride in one’s achievements in late adulthood.
Psych logistics formulated one influential life-stage theory that includes a notion of increasing maturity, Erik Erikson. He equated maturity in adulthood with the achievement of ‘ego integrity, which is achieved cumulatively through the resolution of specific crises at key stages during adult life. For example, in middle adulthood, the crisis of ‘generativity’ (continuing creative input into work or family life) versus ‘stag nation’ (loss of interest in life’s activities) occurs. According to Erikson, if the outcome of this crisis is positive – that is, stagnation is avoided – a positive outcome at the next stage (old age) is also more likely. Emotional problems lingering from previous stages – even from childhood – can be resolved at later stages, but often with greater difficulty.
Emotional maturity
In recent years, the notion of emotional maturity has become a popular focus for self-improvement books and articles. But what does it mean to be emotionally mature? An ability to take a considered, constructive approach to life is perhaps key, rather than being propelled helplessly by one’s enthusiasms or held back by fear of failure or lack of self-worth. Finding a way to ‘live well’ in relation to oneself and others – recognizing the validity of other people’s feelings and accepting the limitations that our history inevitably places on us – is also important.
The challenge of happy adjustment to the later years of life certainly requires such an approach. The middle is a point when we become aware of our mortality and evaluate what we are likely to achieve in our lives as a whole. Bringing our hopes and achievements into line with one another so that a sense of fulfillment tempers the inevitable frustrations of later years is perhaps the challenge of maturity.
