Alienation and Emotional Maturity
Abstract Despite the lengthy interest in alienation, scholars have not addressed the question of differential individual response to social and personal problems. Research has indicated that the alienated are less likely to confront their problems, e.g., alienation correlates negatively with utilization of medical services and marital adjustment scores. Emotional maturity, on the other hand, has been found related to better marital adjustment, etc. One under-utilized approach, therefore, is to consider alienation as a manifestation of inadequate socialization. A study of 582 lowerclassmen in a midwest university found virtually zero correlations between social background factors and alienation, but significant, inverse relationships between alienation and emotional maturity. However, despite the link between alienation and emotional maturity, we suggest that further research be directed toward the interaction between personality and situation, based on the proposition that individuals may manifest alienat...