Emotions have an influential value in life, for a prosperous life it is essential for people to have a control on their Emotions. A person who fails to control their Emotions faces a lot of problems. Therefore, one needs to be Emotionally matured. Resilience is the capacity of an individual to bounce back to normal life from stressful or difficult situations. A person with high Emotional Maturity can be highly Resilient
Emotional Maturity
‘Emovere’ is a Latin word from which the term ‘Emotion’ is derived; It means a stirred-up condition in an organism which involves internal and external changes in the body. The word Mature means ripe or development. Psychologically maturity means being more flexible. Emotional Maturity is balance between the brain and the emotions, between the inner and the outer world of the individual. Landau (1998) [1]. Emotional Maturity is the capability to handle situations without unnecessarily intensifying them. Instead of using defence mechanisms in problematic situations emotionally matured people fix their problems or behaviours. They are usually accountable to any actions that they do. Franz Alexander, M.D (1948) [2]. An emotionally matured child has the ability to make effective adjustment with himself, with the members of his family and his peers in school or with people in society. It does not mean that a person who is emotionally matured can resolve all the anxiety aroused conditions effectively but, he sees himself with more clearer perspectives in a struggle to achieve good incorporation of feelings, thinking and actions. (Monique Judge, 2017) [3].
It is the ability of a person to recuperate swiftly from the difficult situations. Resilience is the capacity of a person to effectively cope with the difficult situations and to go back to pre-crisis state quickly. Resilience is the dynamic set of skills utilized when facing a difficult situation, encompassing arranged thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Simpson & Jones (2012) [4]. Resilience is defined as: The capacity of the individual to navigate their ways to resources that sustain well-being; The capacity of individual’s physical and social ecologies to provide those resources; and the capacity of individuals, their families and their communities to negotiate culturally meaningful ways to share resources. Michael Ungar (2007) [5]. Resilience may change over time as a function of development and one’s interaction with the environment (Kim-Cohen & Turkewitz, 2012) [6]
Emotionally matured people have higher resilience capacity. When the Emotional Maturity increases the problem-solving ability also increases. Some of the researches which were conducted to examine the relationship between emotional maturity and resilience are as follows:
Ninu Margret Mathew (2009) [7] et al., has conducted a research to examine the relationship between emotional Maturity and Resilience among college students. The results implied that Emotional Maturity and Resilience had significant positive correlation, and also there is significant difference between high and low Emotional Maturity groups on Resilience.
Raje et al., (2014) [8] conducted a research to study Emotional Maturity and Resilience among the juvenile delinquents and non-juvenile delinquents. The primary aim of this research was to study the Emotional Maturity and Resilience among the juvenile delinquent boys and among the school going inmates. Results yielded that there was significant difference in Emotional Maturity among juvenile delinquents and non-juvenile delinquents while there was no significant difference in Resilience among both the groups. The correlation between Emotional Maturity and Resilience among juvenile delinquents was negative and the correlation between Emotional Maturity and Resilience among non-juvenile delinquents was positive.
Rationale of the study
This research is conducted in order to check how emotionally matured the students of psychology are and how this maturity helps them to cope with the difficulties they face or how flexible they are to face tough situations in their lives. According to my personal opinion Psychology Students are more resilient and emotionally matured because the basic topics they learn about are well-being and the psychosomatic problems. And hence, they are well versed with these basics that help them lead an effective life.
Sample of the study
In the present study, 100 Undergraduate and Postgraduate Psychology students from St. Francis college for women, Begumpet, Hyderabad were selected as the respondents of the questionnaire. Purposive sampling Technique was used to select the sample for this study.
Emotional Maturity Scale
Emotional Maturity Scale by Dr Yashwir Singh and Mahesh Bhargava (2010, revised version) is a 48 items questionnaire that measures Emotional stability, Emotional progression, Social adjustment, Personal integration and Independence. It is a five-point scale with five options mentioned as follows: “very much, much, undecided, probably, never”. The items are so stated that if the answer is in positive say very much, a score of five is given; for much four; for undecided three; for probably two and for never a score of one is to be allotted. Therefore, higher the score on the scale, greater is the degree of the Emotional Maturity and vice-versa. If the total score is from 0-80 it should be interpreted as the Emotional Maturity being extremely stable, 81-88 can be interpreted as moderately stable, 89-106 can be interpreted as unstable, 107-240 can be interpreted as extremely unstable. The test-retest reliability of the scale was measured by administering it upon a group of collegiate students (N=150) including male and female students aged 20-24. The time interval between the two tests was of six months. The product moment ‘r’ between the two tests was 0.75. The scale was validated against external criteria i.e., the ‘Gha’, area of adjustment inventory for college students by Singh and Singh. The ‘Gha’ area in inventory measures Emotional adjustment of college students. The number of items of this area is twenty-one. Product moment correlation obtained between total scores on all twenty-one ‘Gha’ items and total scores on EMS was 0.64(N=64).
Adult Resilience Measure
The Resilience Research Centre- Adult Resilience Measure (RRC-ARM) is an adapted version of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM), a screening tool designed to measure the resources (individual, relational, communal and cultural) available to individuals that may bolster their Resilience. It is a questionnaire consisting 28 items with eight sub-scales as mentioned below: Personal Skills, Peer Support, Social skills, Physical caregiving, Psychological caregiving, spirituality, Education and Culture. It is a five-point scale with the options “Not at all, A little, Somewhat, Quite a bit and A lot”. The total score is to be computed according to the answers given by the respondent. The higher the score, the higher will be the levels of characteristics associated with Resilience. Researchers have found construct and concurrent validity support for the instrument. Adequate internal consistency has been reported across a number of studies and test-retest reliability estimates have revealed total and subscale score stability over shot (i.e., two to five weeks) and long intervals (i.e., three months).
Inferring from the results obtained, there are few significant conclusions which can be drawn in this study. The first hypothesis in the present research states that there is a relationship between Emotional Maturity and Resilience and the results of the study implies that there is a moderate positive correlation between Emotional Maturity and Resilience. Ninu Margret Mathew (2009) has conducted a research to find out if there is a “Relationship between Emotional Maturity and Resilience among college students”; the results of this study implied that there is significant relationship between Emotional Maturity and Resilience. Emotionally matured people tend to be well versed with their emotions and are also good at understanding others emotions; this can help them analyse complex situations that they face and then to cope back from it.
The study also acknowledges that there is low positive correlation and significant relationship between Emotional Stability and Psychological Caregiving. Emotionally stable persons perceive higher psychosocial support and are desirous to commence relationships. Such people are often seen as more competent and attractive due to their inherent quest for learning Turban & Lee, (2007). There is low positive correlation and significant relationship between Emotional Stability and Culture. Mohammad Amin Wani (2017) et al. has conducted a research titled “Emotional Stability among Annamalai University students”; the results of this study implied that the students of General Category are more emotionally stable than that of the students of Scheduled Caste. From this we can conclude that culture plays a role in an individual’s Emotional Stability. There is low positive correlation and significant relationship between Social Adjustment and Psychological Caregiving. Families that share more quality time with their adolescent children results in better psychological and Social Adjustment. Crouter (2004). Cutronaet (1994) says from his study that, parents’ interactions with children that are not psychologically controlling have a positive influence on their Social adjustment. There is low positive correlation and significant relationship between Social Adjustment and Education. Tinto’s (1975) “theory of departure” says that student comes to the institutions and engage in the Social environment; such interactions of a student can determine whether the student will successfully complete their studies. There is moderate positive correlation and significant relationship between Personality Integration and Personal Skills. Individuals with high Personality Integration have faith in their ability to succeed. They solve their problems mostly by their own initiative and effort. They feel confident in dealing with the problems of every day effectively. AK Srivastava (2017). There is moderate positive correlation and significant relationship between Personality Integration and Psychological Caregiving. Development of Personality Integration takes place in a conducive environment (families and friends) with proper emotional and psychological support. N. Sivakumar et al. (2012). There is low negative correlation and significant relationship between Independence and Peer Support. If an individual is capable of meeting his/her own needs it can decrease his/her burden on friends. Peer support is thus negatively correlated with independence. The more peer supports an individual gets, the more dependent he will be. There is moderate positive correlation and significant relationship between Independence and Education. Education helps us to elevate our knowledge which in turn can help us stay independent by making decisions with our own knowledge and experiences we acquired from education and academics.
Limitations
The main limitation of this study was that, it had a small sample size. The generalizability of this study may be limited by the nature of the sample size and also because the researcher had used purposive sampling not much generalization can be done. The research was done using self-report questionnaires, so there is a possibility that the responses given by the respondents to be false.
It is concluded that Resilience increases with an increase in Emotional Maturity. It has also been concluded that Emotional Stability increase with an increase in Personal Skills, Social Skills, Physical Caregiving, Psychological Caregiving, Spirituality, Education and Culture; Emotional Stability declines with an increase in Peer Support. It has also been concluded that Emotional Progression increase with an increase in Personal Skills, Peer Support, Social Skills, Physical Caregiving, Psychological caregiving, Spirituality, Education and Culture. It has also been Concluded that Social Adjustment increase with an increase in Personal Skills, Social Skills, Psychological Caregiving, Education and Culture; Social Adjustment declines with increase in Peer Support, Physical Caregiving and Spirituality. It has also been concluded that Personality Integration increase with an increase in Personal Skills, Peer Support, Social Skills, Physical Caregiving, Psychological caregiving, Spirituality, Education and Culture. It has been concluded that Independence increases with an increase in Personal Skills, Social Skills, Psychological Caregiving, Spirituality, Education, Culture; Independence declines with increase in Peer Support and Physical Caregiving.
References
- Dutta, J., & Rajkumar, S. (2016, December 12). A Study on Emotional Maturity and Intelligence of Secondary School Students of Assam. In International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR). Retrieved from https://www.ijsr.net/archive/v5i12/ART20163532.pdf
- J. Saul, M., Sydney, M., & Pulver, E. (n.d.). The concept of emotional maturity*. In Science Direct. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X65800037
- Judge, M. (n.d.). Why Emotional Maturity and Emotional Intelligence Are Important for Healthy Relationships. In THEROOT. Retrieved from https://www.theroot.com/why-emotional-maturity-and-emotional-intelligence-are-i-1821030316
- G, S., & K, J. (2012, September). How important is resilience among family members supporting relatives with traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury? In NCBI. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23012693
- Ungar, M. (2016, May). The Resilience Research Centre Adult Resilience Measure (RRC-ARM). In Resilience Research Centre. Retrieved from http://www.resilienceresearch.org/files/CYRM/Adult%20-%20CYRM%20Manual.pdf
- Cohen, K. J. (2012, November 24). Resilience and measured gene-environment interactions. In NCBI. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23062298
- Margret, N. M. (2009). EMOTIONAL MATURITY AND RESILIENCE AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS. In ACADEMIA. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/30805598/emotional_maturity_and_resilience_among_college_students
- Raje, D., & Srivastava, N. (2014). A Study of Emotional Maturity and Resilience among the Juvenile Delinquents and Non-Juvenile Delinquents. In I-scholar. Retrieved from http://www.i-scholar.in/index.php/ijhw/article/view/88750
