Psychological maturity in women during later adulthood: Ego development and adjustment.

Abstract

This study investigated the overlapping and distinctive features of two forms of psychological maturity, adjustment and ego development, in an attempt to provide a more comprehensive model of successful aging. It was expected that differences in adjustment and ego development would be reflected in women's personal descriptors, coping and defending processes, emotional experiences, and life experiences throughout adulthood. Participants in the study were 72 women who were part of a longitudinal study of women who graduated from Radcliffe College in 1964. The sample was divided into four groups: women who were high in both forms of maturity, women who were high only in ego development, women who were high only in adjustment, and women who were low in both forms of maturity. Ego development was operationalized with Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test with high scores representing individualistic or higher levels and low scores representing conscientious or lower levels. Adjustment was operationalized with a median split on either Picano's Index of Adult Adjustment or Ryff's Psychological Well-Being Scales. The results indicated that adjustment was a strong predictor of differences in personal descriptors. In contrast, there were no differences in personal descriptors between women high in ego development and women low in ego development. It is argued that differences in ego development at the post-conscientious levels may not be captured in psychological constructs that focus on observable personality distinctions. Instead, measures that can capture subjective psychological experiences, such as personal concerns or life narratives, may be better able to capture differences among individuals at or above the conscientious level. Differences in coping and defending processes were found to be related to the interaction between ego development and adjustment. Findings from this study suggest that women high in both ego development and adjustment were just as effective as women high only in adjustment in dealing with stressful life experiences. However, women high in both ego development and adjustment did not need to distort reality or distance themselves from troubling affect as a means of coping whereas the women high only in adjustment did.