Role of Economic Class in Ascertaining Social and Emotional Maturity of Adolescents

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to assess and compare the social and emotional maturity of 277 randomly drawn class XI students of Pantnagar, Uttarakhand across family economic class. A self-designed questionnaire was used to study the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents of the present study. Social and Emotional maturity of the respondents were assessed employing Rao's Social Maturity Scale and Emotional Maturity Scale, respectively. The study revealed that adolescents from higher and upper middle class family were significantly more personally adequate than those from rest of the classes whereas, on social adequacy component, adolescents from higher class were observed to be significantly lower than those from rest of the family classes. Adolescents from higher income family were seen to be significantly more socially adjusting and independent than those specifically from lower income family. On the whole adolescents from higher income family were seen to be significantly more emotionally mature in comparison to the ones from other classes. Social maturity and emotional maturity were found to be significantly and positively correlated with each other across family economic class.