GENERAL PROBLEM:

On Social Maturity
SPECIFIC PROBLEM:
To assess the social maturity/competence of an individual with the help of the Vineland Social
Maturity Scale (Indian Adaptation), modified by Dr. J. Bharath Raj.
BASIC CONCEPT:
Social Maturity is the process of developing appropriate attitudes for personal, interpersonal, and
social adequacies of an individual, which are essential for functioning effectively in the Society.
Social maturity means knowing what to do and striving for it by following role models to reach
the coveted level of acceptable social behaviour. Social maturity is a complex process. To be
culturally mature, students should be presented to those people who are socially mature so that
they can pattern their behaviour, therefore. The students can try to reach the expectations of the
social system, parents, teachers, siblings, and peers who matter to them. Social maturity deals with
learning to correctly relate to acquaintances, friends, and intimate relationships. It also involves
understanding as to how to honor and respect those in authority; civil, parental, employer, or
spiritual.
Social maturity is defined as the willingness of an individual to take responsibility for developing
his/her community. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), social maturity
is, “a level of behaviour in accordance with the social standards that are the norm for individuals
of a particular age.” Raj (1996) defines social maturity as a level of social skills and awareness
that an individual has achieved relative to particular norms related to an age group.
Hurlock (1956) defined social development as “the means of attaining maturity in social
relationships”. She says that a socially mature individual conforms not so much because he/she
approves of existing patterns of behaviour or because of fear of others but to realize that each
individual must be willing to fit his wishes into the pattern approved by the group as a whole. In
the face of crises and crucial situations, a socially mature person should be able to make judgments,
make decisions, and take appropriate action. They should be allowed to participate in cooperative
activities without having to deal with other people. They can take responsibility for their own
activities to make and keep a large number of friends. They have a well-balanced and objective
opinion of themselves and may assume various roles in response to the demands of various
situations. They identify with the group's goals and put the group's interests ahead of their own.
According to Bilance (1997), “Social development is the promotion of sustainable society that is
worthy of human dignity by empowering marginalized groups, women and men, to undertake their
own development, to improve their social and economic position and to acquire their rightful place
in society.”
Social Development refers to how people develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan,
with particular attention to childhood and adolescence. Healthy social development allows us to
form positive relationships with family, friends, teachers, and other people in our lives. As we
mature, we learn to better manage our own feelings and needs and to respond appropriately to the
feelings and needs of others. Social development can be affected by a child’s personality, the
opportunities they have for social interaction, behaviors learned from parents, and developmental
disorders.
Socialization is the lifelong process through which people learn the values and norms of a given
society. It is an adaptive lifelong learning experience, because society is constantly changing, and
because we may find ourselves in new situations. As individuals, social interaction provides us the
means by which we gradually become able to see ourselves through the eyes of others, and how
we learn who we are and how we fit into the larger world. In addition, to function successfully in
society, we have to learn the basics of both material and nonmaterial culture, everything from how
to dress ourselves to when we sleep to what we sleep on; and from what’s considered appropriate
to eat for dinner and even how to use the stove to prepare it. Most importantly, we have to learn
language whether it’s the dominant language or one common in a subculture, whether it’s verbal
or through signs in order to communicate and to think.
The role of socialization is to acquaint individuals with the norms of a given social group or
society. It prepares individuals to participate in a group by illustrating the expectations of that
group. Socialization is very important for children, who begin the process at home with family,
and continue it at school. Socialization and social development go hand in hand. Without the
proper sources of socialization, a child cannot socially develop and learn to face the society and
survive.
Developmental stages in children are assumed to be temporary and are often characterized by a
dominant feature or a leading characteristic, which gives each period its uniqueness. During a
particular stage, individual progresses towards an assumed goal - a state or ability that she/he must
achieve in the same order as other persons before progressing to the next stage in the sequence.
Also, individuals do vary with respect to the time or rate of development from one stage to another.
These developmental stages are as follows:
1. Prenatal Stage: The period from conception to birth is known as the prenatal period.
Typically, it lasts for about 40 weeks. Prenatal development is also affected by maternal
characteristics, which include mother’s age, nutrition, and emotional state. Disease or
infection carried by the mother can adversely affect prenatal development. Another source
of threat to prenatal development is teratogens - environmental agents that cause deviations
in normal development that can lead to serious abnormalities or death.
2. 2. Infancy (0 to 2 years): The child during infancy, i.e., the first two years of life,
experiences the world through senses and interactions with objects through looking,
hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping. The newborn lives in the present. What is out
of sight is out of mind. According to Piaget, children at this stage do not go beyond their
immediate sensory experience, i.e., lack object permanence. Babies from birth are social
creatures. An infant starts preferring familiar faces and responds to parent’s presence by
cooing and gurgling. The close emotional bond of affection that develop between infants
and their parents (caregivers) is called attachment.
3. Early Childhood (2 to 7 years): The child’s growth slows down during early childhood as
compared to infancy. The child develops physically, gains height and weight, learns to
walk, runs, jumps, and plays with a ball. Cognitive development in early childhood focuses
on Piaget’s stage of preoperational thought. The child gains the ability to mentally
represent an object that is not physically present. This ability of the child to engage in
symbolic thought helps to expand her/his mental world. A salient feature of preoperational
thought is egocentrism (self-focus), i.e., children see the world only in terms of their own
selves and are not able to appreciate others’ point of view. Children because of
egocentrism, engage in animism - thinking that all things are living, like oneself. They
attribute life-like qualities to inanimate objects. Another feature of thought during
preoperational stage is characterized by children having a tendency for centration, i.e.,
focusing on a single characteristic or feature for understanding an event. Children due to
socialization develop a sense of who they are and whom they want to be identified with.
The developing sense of independence makes children do things in their own way. Self-
understanding in early childhood is limited to defining oneself through physical
characteristics.
4. Middle & Late Childhood (7 to 11years): As a child grows and is approximately between
7 and 11 years of age intuitive thought is replaced by logical thought. This is the stage of
concrete operational thought, which is made up of operations mental actions that allow the
child to do mentally what was done physically before. Concrete operations are also mental
actions that are reversible. Concrete operations allow the child to focus on different
characteristics and not focus on one aspect of the object. This helps the child to appreciate
that there are different ways of looking at things, which also results in the decline of her/his
egocentrism. The growing cognitive abilities of children also facilitates the acquisition of
language. During middle and late childhood, the child is likely to define oneself through
internal characteristics such as, “I am smart and I am popular”. In addition to defining
oneself through psychological characteristics, children’s self-descriptions also include
social aspects of self, such as references to social groups like being a member of school’s
music club, environment club, or any religious group. Children’s self-understanding also
includes social comparison. Children are likely to think about what they can do or cannot
do in comparison with others. Once children enter school their social world expands
beyond their families. They also spend greater amount of time with their age mates or peers.
Thus, the increased time that children spend with their peers shapes their development.
5. Adolescence (11 to 15 years): Adolescence is commonly defined as the stage of life that
begins at the onset of puberty, when sexual maturity, or the ability to reproduce is attained.
It has been regarded as a period of rapid change, both biologically and psychologically.
Adolescents’ thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic; they become more
capable of examining their own thoughts, others’ thoughts, and what others are thinking
about them. Adolescents’ developing ability to reason gives them a new level of cognitive
and social awareness. Piaget believed that formal operational thought appears between the
age of 11 and 15. During this stage adolescent thinking expands beyond actual concrete
experiences and they begin to think more in abstract terms and reason about them. Logical
thought also influences the development of moral reasoning. Social rules are not considered
 as absolute standards and moral thinking shows some flexibility. During adolescence a
detachment process enables the individual to develop a personalized set of beliefs that are
uniquely her or his own. In the process of achieving an identity the adolescent could
experience conflict with parents and within herself or himself. Those adolescents who can
cope with the conflicting identities develop a new sense of self. Adolescents who are not
able to cope with this identity crisis are confused. The formation of identity during
adolescence is influenced by several factors. The cultural background, family and societal
values, ethnic background, and socio-economic status all prevail upon the adolescents’
search for a place in society. Family relationships become less important as the adolescent
spends more time outside the home and develops a strong need for peer support and
acceptance. Peers and parents are dual forces having major influences on adolescents.
The Vineland Social Maturity Scale was originally devised by E.A.DOLL in 1935 and since then
this test is being used in many parts of the world. It proved itself to be uniquely useful instrument
in measuring Social Maturity of Children and young adults. Since its first publication it has served
the useful purpose of estimating the differential social capabilities of an individual. The very first
attempt to adapt this scale to Indian cultural conditions was done by Rev. Fr. Dr. A.J. Malin while
working at the Nagpur Child Guidance Centre. This scale is being used at many clinics, university
departments and institutions for the mentally retarded. The present manual is only an extended
version of the original manual. Recent experiments and research studies (Goulet and Barclay;
American Journal of Mental Deficiency, may 1963) have shown a consistent and high covariation
between VSMS Social Age (S.A.) and the Stanford Binet M.A., Doll reported a correlation of +=
0.85 and Patterson (1943) reporting a correlation of += 0.96 with Binet Scale on a sample of normal
children. This is clear reflection of how social development and mental development are highly
correlated.
Thorndike was the first psychologist to have thought of three type of intelligence i.e., Abstract
Intelligence, Social Intelligence and Mechanical Intelligence. It is true that individuals vary in the
amounts of these intelligence they possess. Some may have better social intelligence that the other
two. However it is recognized by one and all that social intelligence may prove himself
unsuccessful in the day to day affairs inspite of possessing high amounts of mechanical and
abstract intelligence.
The use of this scale at the Nagpur Child Guidance Centre has confirmed its usefulness with the
mentally retarded children. The results to date appear so promising that the use of this scale at
many other clinics, guidance center may bring forth further valuable information. With the
eventually produce a scale that can be widely used in our country.
It is important to remember in this context that this instrument just not only provides a measure of
Social Age and Social Quotient. It will also indicate the deficits and social assets in growing child.
With the presently popular social skills, training procedures these information’s would go a long
way in training the retarded children to be socially self-sufficient.
Although the original VSMS by Doll goes up to the level of XXV years + level, the Nagpur
Adaption stops at XV year level. As most of the clinical procedures of assessment and training are
more often limited to the upper age of 15 years, it serves the purpose well. The only thing is that
after the discovery of the deficits and assets, the therapeutic programmes should be sorted out and
tried that the child is made more sociable, more adaptable. The modern Behaviour Therapy
procedures encompass a wide spectrum of such procedures and they should be suitably tried with
these children.
The Vineland Social Maturity Scale (VSMS) is designed to measure social maturation in eight
social areas: Self-help General (SHG), Self-help Eating (SHE), Self-help Dressing (SHD), Self-
direction (SD), Occupation (OCC), Communication (COM), Locomotion (LOM), and
Socialization (SOC). The scale consists of 89 test items grouped into year levels. VSMS can be
used for the age group of 0-15 years.
Shrivastava & Sansanwal (2015) in their research on ‘Social Maturity as a function of number of
children, mother’s educational level and their interaction’ found that children whose mother’s
educational level was above graduation were found to have better social maturity. Child with
sibling group was found to be socially more adjusted than only-child group. But only-child and
child with siblings were found to attain social maturity to the same extent irrespective of the
educational levels of parents.
Dr. Madhuri and Dr. Poonam Choudhary (2018), in their paper ‘Social Maturity of Adolescents in
relation to their Home Environment’, found out that the home environment has an effect on social
maturity, which indicates that excessive control, overprotectiveness, and strict punishment to the
adolescent by family prevents the development of social maturity of an adolescent. This study
concluded that the social maturity of adolescents would be higher when they perceive their home
environment and parents as loving, nurturing, and permissive and lower when the home
environment and parents are perceived as controlling, punishing, and depriving. So, it can be
concluded that social maturity can be improved by providing a conducive and favourable
environment for adolescents.
Thus, with reference to the above discussion, the aim of this experiment is to assess the social
maturity/ competence of an individual, using Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Indian Adaptation),
modified by Dr. J. Bharath Raj.

METHODOLOGY:

PRELIMINARIES:
Name of the participant:
Age of the participant:
Sex of the participant:
Educational Qualification of the participant:.
Date of the test administration:
Time of the test administration:
MATERIALS REQUIRED:
1. Paper
2. Pen
3. Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Indian Adaptation), modified by Dr. J. Bharath Raj.
4. Scoring Manual
DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST:
The Vineland social maturity scale was originally developed by E. A. Doll in 1935 and was later
adapted by Dr. J. Bharath Raj and has since been used in many parts of India. This scale not only
supplies social age (SA) and social quotient (SQ) measures but also shows the social deficits and
social assets in a growing child. It is for the ages of 0 to 15 years. It is also a good measure to find
mental retardation as well as superior intelligence. The test consists of 89 items measuring 8
different domains of social maturity: Communication skills (COM) General self-help ability
(SHG) Locomotion skills (LOC) Occupation skills (OCC) Self-direction (SD) Self-help eating
(SHE) Self-help dressing (SHD) Socialization skills (SOC).
This scale requires reactions from a parent alongside the participant which ensures that reactions
are stamped precisely as guardians are generally expected to have an exact review of their
youngster's turn of events. Normally, the mother is requested to have reactions and the participant
is situated close to her and clear/right reactions when the parent is off-base or uncertain. Likewise,
the scale provides a general social rest measure as well as the development age level for each of
the domains of social development, enhancing the capacity to recognize formative gaps.
PRECAUTIONS:
1. The participant must not unnecessarily hurry to complete the task.
2. The participant must complete all the questions.
3. All extraneous variables must be eliminated or controlled.