When Does Maturity Set In?

An anonymous reader writes "Two Dartmouth researchers claim that they are one step closer to discovering at what age human maturity sets in. From the article: 'For the study, Baird and graduate student Craig Bennett looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college. A control group of 17 older students, ranging in age from 25 to 35, were also studied for comparison. The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.'"

Comments

Bullshit study

[rylin]

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
God knows my colleagues agree!

Re:It depends...

[Ucklak]

What an almost pointless study.
Maturity sets in when responsibility is a requirement.
Environment plays a heavy in maturity.
Multiple siblings I'm sure plays a role vs that of an only child as well as a parental death or divorce.
Circle of friends plays a role and none of this is an age requirement.
I've seen 10 year olds whose had a parent killed with more maturity than a 16 year old. That 10 year old will be a more mature 16 year old than a 20 year old drinking it up in a small college town.
A 22 year old with a handle on debt will be more mature than a 34 year old that is a renter in suburbia that is adamant that you can't make money in real estate.

Think about why car insurance gets cheaper at 35

[aegilops]

There has to be a statistical reason why your car insurance is so absurdly high when you're a late teen, with a steady decrease before a significant reduction at the age of 35. Certainly your appetite for risk behind the wheel doesn't completely reflect your all round maturity in life, but I'd suggest a strong correlation.

Aegilops

Control group?

[nordelius]

Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't a suitable control group comprise 18 year olds who didn't go to college? As the experiment stands, you could argue either that:

a) going to college changes your brain
b) being 18 and full of hormones changes your brain
c) both to varying extents

Re:It depends...

[Vellmont]

I think we're talking about generalities here. When one particular person becomes "mature" is really irrelevent. If you were talking about height there's certainly 12 year olds that're taller than a 30 year old. That doesn't mean that there's not such a thing as growth spurts, and an age when most people are "full grown".

I also think there's a difference in brain maturity and being responsible. The researchers aren't studying "being responsible" as that would be quite hard to define and compare among different people in any kind of objective way. What they're studying is difference in brain structure, at different ages. What it sounds like they've found out is that generally speaking there is still brain development going on after age 18. To anyone that ever sees a lot of 18-20 year olds, compared to say anyone over 24 or 25 that really shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Re:It depends...

[Retric]

"nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college" vs "A control group of 17..."

With a sample size that small you realy can't tell anything specific.

I don't know how they can try and publish a study where they look at such a small sample size, and assume the diffrence between the older and younger group's brain is based on maturity. Now if they had tracked 100 people from age 12 to 30 and compared brain scans with their behavior they could get good data but this study is worthless.

Forced Maturity

[SeanDuggan]

When this happens, the oldest child can't seem to let go of this parental sense of responsability for the younger kids. It's almost like part of their childhood has been lost. So I agree. I think it has to do with the presence of responsability. Nothing makes you grow up faster than having to care for a child of your own.
You can see the same thing in the children of alcoholics and the like. Forced to become the responsible adults in the family, they often have to give up on their childhood in the process. Major psychological pitfalls often lie ahead for them.

Personally, I feel every child should have the opportunity to be a child, without major care or responsibility. It's not always been the historical precedent (adolescence, and especially the teenage period are relatively recent inventions within the last century or two), but I think it's been established as something necessary in today's society. Not to say that you shouldn't instill a sense of maturity and responsibility within your kids, but it's more along the lines of keeping their rooms clean and budgeting their allowance, not having to keep up the house finances and ensure that mummy and daddy get tucked into bed after they drink themselves into an alcoholic stupor.