An excerpt from the 'Psychology News' :
ADULTS DON'T GROW UP ANYMORE.
British researcher blames formal education
If you believe the adults around you are acting like children , you're probably right.In technical terms , it is called 'psychological neoteny', the persistence of childhood behaviour into adulthood.And it's on the rise.
According to Dr.Bruce Charlton, evolutionary psychiatrist at newcastle upon tyne , human beings now take longer to reach mental maturity-and may never do so at all.
Charlton believes this is an accidental byproduct of formal education that lasts well into the twenties."Formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity", which "counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity" that would occur in late teens or early twenties.
He notes that "academics , teachers scientists and many other professionals are often strikingly immature".He calls them "unpredictable , unbalanced in priorities, and tending to overreact "
Earlier human societies , such as hunter-gatherers, were more stable and thus adulthood was attained in the teen years.Now , however , with rapid social change and less reliance on physical strength, maturity is more often postponed.He notes that markers of maturity such as graduation from college , marriage , and first child formerly occurred at fixed ages, but now may happen over a span of decades.
Thus he says, "in an important psychological sense , some modern people never become adults ."
Charlton thinks this may be adaptive ."In a child-like flexibility of attitudes , behaviours and knowledge " may be useful in navigating the increased instability of the modern world , he says , where people are more likely to change jobs , learn new skills , move to new places .But this comes at a cost of "short attention span , frenetic novelty-seeking , ever shorter cycles of arbitrary fashion ...a pervasive emotional and spiritual shallowness "
He added that modern people "lack a profundity of character which seemed commoner in the past "
ouch.
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