Level of Social Maturity among Late Adolescents in a private college at Coimbatore District.

Abstract

Social Maturity is an inevitable aspect in the life of an individual as well as in the society. Adolescent is a developmental stage where an individual encounter changes physically, emotionally and psychologically, which produces personal and social problems as they go ahead in their life. Some of the social problems arise within their peer groups due to their poor adjustment or inability to handle their emotions properly. Social maturity is an ability to behave in an appropriate manner according to the standards and norms set for an individual. When a child shows immature behaviour, it’s ignored, or society won’t mind it whereas every adolescent is expected to behave in a matured manner and when one fails to behave in an acceptable way according to the age, fellowmen’s neglect them. The main aim of this study is to examine social maturity among the college students. Four null hypotheses were formed to examine the social maturity of the late adolescents. A total of sample of 769 students was selected using stratified proportionate random sampling method. A well-structured Social Maturity scale (1998) developed by Dr. Nalini Rao (1998) – 90 items with three dimensions such as (1) Personal Adequacy, (2) Inter – Personal Adequacy, (3) Social Adequacy, used as a tool to collect data along with Socio – demographic details. Karl Pearson test, Z – test was used to analyse the data. The finding of the result indicates that there is a significant relationship between number of family members with social maturity of the respondents. In addition to it there is a significant difference between gender and native background of the respondents and their social maturity.