Maturity: Being Considerate :: Psychology Essays

Maturity: Being Considerate According to Webster's dictionary, maturity is due care or consideration. There are many different kinds of maturity depending on what a person places their emphasis on. One type of maturity, intellectual, is caring about your personal well being. The level of one's intellectual maturity shows their ability to handle certain tasks set before them. A person who is considerate of others shows signs of social maturity. The ability to interact with others is necessary in order to function as part of this society. Different types of maturity can be independent of each other; you can have a high level of intellectual maturity and a low level of social maturity or vise versa. As you will see from e-mails of former students, levels vary greatly from one person to the next. Maturity is not only how you interact with others, but also how you manage your own responsibilities and affairs. An intellectually mature person demonstrates certain characteristics. The ability to follow instructions shows that you are willing to do things correctly in order to learn from the experience. To illustrate this point, say a student had difficulties using a particular program for an assignment. Even though this person disliked using the program that was required for the assignment, he understood the importance of doing his work correctly and he finished it despite the inconvenience. An example of a student who follows directions poorly is that of the student who just pasted in random responses for his log entry instead of doing the assignment as instructed. Another quality that a person must possess is open-mindedness. Being willing to explore new ideas and ways of doing things enriches a person's life. A Christian who is willing to learn the theory of evolution in order to broaden his mind set and to secure his beliefs is a good example of this characteristic. However, one student in particular believes that he does not need to use the library as a source in research because he believes that his information is better and more relative to his subject, which demonstrates his close mindedness because he is not willing to use other sources for information. A person's ability to understand their weaknesses and utilizing their abilities to the maximum shows their intellectual maturity. Take Timothy for example, he cannot grasp the concept of mathematics, so instead of failing the course, he takes the initiative to hire a tutor in order to assure that he will pass the class.