Personality and psychosocial maturity

A career development student, noting a number of test requirements for participants to be aged over 18 years, asked me when our clients become mature enough for testing. It is a really good question.

Firstly, what is personality? It is "the set of unseen characteristics and processes [which] underlie a relatively stable pattern of behaviour in response to ideas, objects, and people in the environment" (Daft, 2008, p. 98). So when our development seems to slow down and get more predictable. But how do we know when our personality is actually 'mature'? Well, we tend to use psychosocial maturity as a proxy for maturity, showing as three "capacities", or "general demands made by all societies on individuals. They are (1) the capacity to function effectively on one's own, or individual adequacy; (2) the capacity to interact adequately with others, or interpersonal adequacy; and (3) the capacity to contribute to social cohesion, or social adequacy (Greenberger et al., 1975, p. 128). So once we can be independent, conduct good interpersonal communication, and fit in, we are probably roughly mature. Roughly.

The field of psychology seemed to once 'assume' that our personality was relatively stable - so therefore mature - when we were aged around 25 years. But do our personalities roughly mature at 25? Well, maybe. 

The development and use of fMRI machines has finally allowed us a glimpse under the hood - so to speak - and we are now realising just how much we do not know about the brain. Some still put maturation as high as 30. For example, instead of being set like concrete our "personality is [...] like 'soft' plaster, [and] does change, albeit only marginally, beyond 30 and across the entire life cycle" (Boyce et al., 2013, p. 289). However, others put this earlier, as "young people may not reach levels of adult maturity until the age of 21 and are developing skills in this domain predominantly between the ages of 16 and 19" (Bryan-Hancock & Casey, 2010, p. 59). What is also quite interesting is that our levels of responsibility and "reasonably foreseeable"-ness changes: research has found that participants "in the 25-year-old group were significantly more inclined to take responsibility for their actions and view behaviours in the long term" (Bryan-Hancock & Casey, 2010, p. 66). I think we can give people tests, but must allow for this being an 'at the present time' test, rather like measuring height against a wall: that it is likely to change the next time we measure it. 

We still need to allow for some level of plasticity, of malleability, in the personalities of our younger career clients. This then will translate into what assessment instruments we may suggest our clients undertake, and how we interpret the results of any tests that are used. So, if we are working with young adults in secondary school or at university, we need to use not only our judgement of their maturity, but fully understand the test guidelines. 

We must ensure that we are professional in our recommendations, that we do not deliver any test which we are not specifically trained for, because we need to be open with our clients about our level of expertise. The CDANZ COE states that members will "Represent services, qualifications, and experience accurately and fully, and only undertake those practices for which they are qualified and in circumstances where they have appropriate experience" (2016).

The answer about being mature? It as you can see, it depends.

Sam

References:

Boyce, C. J., Wood, A. M., & Powdthavee, N. (2013). Is personality fixed? Personality changes as much as “variable” economic factors and more strongly predicts changes to life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 111(1), 287-305. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0006-z

Bryan-Hancock, C., & Casey, S. (2010). Psychological Maturity of At-Risk Juveniles, Young Adults and Adults: Implications for the Justice System. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 17(1), 57-69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218710903268006

CDANZ (2016). Code of Ethics. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://cdanz.org.nz/ModularPage?Action=View&ModularPage_id=26

Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience (4th ed.). Thomson South-Western.

Greenberger, E., Josselson, R., Knerr, C., & Knerr, B. (1975). The measurement and structure of psychosocial maturity. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 4(2), 127-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537437

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Nature versus Nurture

My sister had two children when she was quite young. With the second child she received - and listened to - advice to have the child adopted. It was an open adoption where the child knew about the adoption right from the start, and we kept contact in a kind of cards-and-presents-at-birthday-and-Christmas distant relative way in order to give the adopted family time to build sound relationships.

My sister's children did not met each other until they were 7 and 8 respectively. They had both lived incredibly different lives to that point: philosophically, environmentally, parentally and developmentally. They were both temporarily in the same city and - with permission - I introduced them to each other at a beach. I was forcefully struck... shocked, actually... by their mirror mannerisms, their identical turns of phrase, and their incredible similarity to each other. They were like peas in a pod. This was not a shared generational familiarity caused by having experienced the same kind of schools and growing up in the same country together at the same time: it was much stronger than that. This was close siblings who know each other intimately and live in each other's pockets.

To this point I had been a 'nurture' person. I didn't think that nature played much of a part in who we were and whom we would become. That one meeting began a paradigm shift in my views about the role of nature. Over the years, having watched the siblings do more or the same things at the same age - while noting that luck has played more of a part with one than the other - I have shifted my focus to nature being a significantly stronger force than nurture.

I have done a lot of reflection about family patterns since. In the leadership field, there is a great deal of evidence to say that nature is responsible for 40% of our leadership skill, and nurture for 60% (Jackson & Parry, 2011). Despite the evidence for 40/60, I 'believe' that we are influenced by roughly 90-95% nature and 5-10% nurture... from what I have seen in my family.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post. US-born psychologist, Robert Plomin, has just published a book, "Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are" (UK: Allen Lane). His book proposes that “hereditarian” science is our strongest influence; that our biological DNA inheritance not only determines who we are, but also what we achieve; suggesting that our nature-influenced approach to education plays a much larger part in our lives than we would like to think. Andrew Anthony in the Guardian writes about an interview with Robert Plomin in which (29 Sep 2018):

He finds that genetic heritability accounts for 50% of the psychological differences between us, from personality to mental abilities. But that leaves 50% that should be accounted for by the environment. However, Plomin argues, research shows that most of that 50% is not attributable to the type of environmental influences that can be planned for or readily affected – ie it’s made up of unpredictable events. And of the environmental influences that can be moderated, much of it, he argues, is really an expression of genetics.

The big breakthrough in the past few years is polygenic testing, which is able to correlate multiple genes – often thousands – with behaviour differences. No one yet understands the complex relationships between different genes, but Plomin points out that this is not necessary for predictive purposes. Polygenic testing, he says, comes up with heritability estimates that correspond to a whole range of physical and psychological traits. The larger the study group, the more accurate the predictions – and, as more and more people have their genome mapped, the study groups are growing all the time.

“We’re explaining more variance in GCSE scores than you can predict with anything else, including parents’ educational level and socioeconomic status,” says Plomin.

Robert Plomin and Andrew Anthony raise the spectre of Nazism: that if some have superior genes, then what does that do for the hope of the remainder? Robert Plomin talks about needing not only the courage to speak out in a climate which is equality and nuture-focused, but for the possibility of the idea of heritability to be investigated with less bias and political fear. The issues of right-wing ideological focus is considered for its impact on whether the poor are poor because they have poor genes, so we needn't invest in them, versus the left-wing opportunity to target those who will have learning difficulties early and work on bringing them up to speed. They also talk about the potential reaction to hereditarianism within academia: it is likely to be an unpopular hypothesis.

I understand their caution, and the skepticism of those working in this field who may be seeing our global 'self-made man' story potentially being deconstructed. However, I feel that having an understanding of heritability could make us more vigilant about educating children about the family foibles that may trap them at certain times of their lives, and so reduce the likelihood or impact of bad choices at times of high risk. If this research over time is shown to be legitimate, our education systems could be much more targeted in ensuring that all of us could succeed despite our genes.

I wouldn't underplay the strength of a mere 5%. I have personally seen that change lives.


Sam

References:

• Anthony, A. (29 Sep 2018). So is it nature not nurture after all? The Observer Science Column. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/29/so-is-it-nature-not-nurture-after-all-genetics-robert-plomin-polygenic-testing
• Jackson, B. & Parry, K. (2011). A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publications Ltd.

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Making Lasting Change

A LinkedIn compadré, Stephen Landry, reposted a great Deepak Chopra article on the Collaborative Career Conversations group over this past weekend.

I read the article, and found it contained a great six step process to help all of us with changing our unwanted behaviour. A simple list, which if we can remember, will help us better deal with everything that life throws at us.

So I tweaked Mr Chopra's list myself, to better suit what I say, and the things I am aware of; for example, that an adrenalin rush lasts 90 seconds. If you can hold tight for 90 seconds, you will be past the immediate emotion and you can then think straight again.

I also added a fabulous line from a friend of mine who is a bit of a buddhist and meditator and who regularly asks "how does this behaviour benefit me?"; a very powerful phrase indeed.

In today's world, journalling ideas is as likely to be sound recorded than written down, so I changed "write" and "note" to record.

The list is:

1. Notice what you're about to do.
2. Pause, close your eyes and wait 90 seconds until your adrenalin rush goes.
3. Ask yourself “how will this behaviour benefit me?”
4. Record how you feel.
5. Record when you make a better choice.
6. Appreciate your good choices and celebrate the fact that you made them.

Then I put it in a poster. And have posted this online for you to share with an image of the sky for so we can use it to inspire big, blue sky change thinking.

Feel free to download and share, but please acknowledge the author (reference below). (to download, click image, once open, right mouse, then 'save').

• Reference:Chopra, Deepak (28 September 2013). The Secret to Personal Change. USA: LinkedIn. Retrieved 30 September 2013 from http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130928001037-75054000-the-secret-to-personal-change?goback=.gde_4658233_member_277139634 (word edits & image by Sam Young)

Sam

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