Abstract:
The purpose of this study was toexplore the factors of psychosocial maturity in emerging adults. Psychosocial maturitywas defined as the ability to think and make judgement likea mature adult. Our psychosocial maturity scale was developed based on studies from Steinberg andCauffman (1996) and Monahan, Steinberg, Cauffman, and Mulvey (2009, 2013). The scale consisted of 6 factors with 70 initial items. Participants are 213 emerging Thai adults (18 25 years old, mean age = 22.8). The data was analyzed usingexploratory factor analysis with principal component analysis andoblique rotation. The results showed that psychosocial maturity consists of 5 factors(KMO = .703, 33.46% of cumulativevariance). After considering the items with factor loadings, the authors proposed the modified psychosocial maturity scale which has 35 total items. The 5 factors are (1) Consideration of future consequence (10 items), (2) Self-knowledge and self-efficacy(10 items), (3) Impulse control (5 items), (4) Suppression of aggression (6 items), and(5) Consideration of others (4 items). The Thai psychosocial maturity scale was shorter withless items compared to the previous scales and with acceptable psychometric properties. This scale could be used as an optional measure in the future research on psychosocial maturity.