In our day to day, we may have to deal with immature people on several occasions. These people have very little responsible behavior that can make us lose our nerves and think to ourselves "but how immature!". However, what does it mean to be emotionally immature and what do these types of people have in common?
In this Psychology-Online article we teach you how to spot emotional immaturity with 12 main characteristics of this type of people.
Index
- What is emotional immaturity
- Difficulty spending time alone
- few childhood memories
- Little awareness of moods
- everything is always good
- They minimize the speeches of others
- Difficult relationship with emotions
- They avoid responsibilities
- Lack of empathy
- Egocentrism
- divert conversations
- defensive and manipulative behavior
- dependent relationships
What is emotional immaturity.
Emotional maturity has nothing to do with the age of the parents. In fact, some people may reach maturity levels higher than their parents even before reaching puberty. Emotional immaturity is the
Emotionally immature people have Difficulty tolerating your emotions and they feel so uncomfortable with them that they tend to express themselves aggressively or withdraw completely into themselves. For example, a father may be emotionally immature if he yells at his child when his emotions or thoughts are opposed to yours, or a friend who does not want to speak to us again after a fight that he has generated same. This behavior often stems from an inability to observe the other person's discomfort and to tolerate the mere existence of different emotions. Other people's points of view can seem threatening and fear breeds intolerance.
However, emotional immaturity is not a diagnostic label, so a person cannot be diagnosed as "emotionally immature." Despite this, there are many behaviors that characterize people with emotional immaturity and can help us detect them.
Difficulty spending time alone.
In order to be alone with oneself, it is necessary to tolerate the appearance of all kinds of emotions, especially when they are negative. For this reason, people with emotional immaturity have great difficulties spending time alone, since only emotionally mature people are able to consciously accept the presence of negative moods.
In this way, the emotionally immature person will feel the need to continually relate to others. others to avoid being alone in the face of feelings such as anger, fear, envy or anger. shame.
Few childhood memories.
Not all people can claim to have had a completely happy and reassuring childhood. Even with the best intentions of parents, children's development cannot always remain free of difficulties and frustrations.
Therefore, if we have difficulties accessing memoriesof our childhood, perhaps we should ask ourselves first of all how much remains to be emotionally reworked in relation to everything we have experienced in the first period of our lives.
Little awareness of moods.
When establishing a conversation with people with emotional immaturity it is easy to realize that these types of people they lack proper awareness about what the changes in their moods mean. Everything seems new to them, as if the emotions linked to their experiences never really belonged to them.
Everything always goes well.
The person with problems managing their emotions may find it difficult to enter into a been in a bad mood, so, at first glance, it is possible that he appears as someone happy and glad that tends to affirm that everything is going well in his life.
In the work, relational, family sphere, as well as in personal ambitions, everything is described as optimal and free of problems. This is due to the lack of adequate resources to deal with difficult moods, such as feelings of anger, grief over a loss or insecurity.
They minimize other people's speeches.
When emotionally immature people engage in a conversation that threatens their emotional balance, often break off confrontation abruptly and consider it insignificant and useless. They mostly just hold on to some firm belief, usually wrong, such as the fact that many of people's problems are from "thinking too much."
In this way, these people avoid getting to the bottom of the issue and exposing themselves to the possibility of having to make their emotions and moods visible.
Difficult relationship with emotions.
Emotionally immature people are unable to express their emotions and his reactions are always exaggerated. If they get angry, for example, they can raise their voices and be very rude. On the other hand, the priorities of this type of people are usually related to fun, that is, everything that does not have to do with responsibilities, such as family or work.
Therefore, emotionally immature people they are very impulsiveespecially when they have to manage their own money. Since they are not capable of objectively evaluating certain situations, they tend to buy everything they need without taking into account the costs or consequences of their actions.
They avoid responsibilities.
Avoiding responsibilities is the only way for these types of people to acquire that security that they don't really have. For this reason, it is not surprising that emotionally immature people have fear of commitment, not only with your partner, but with all types of commitment, such as looking for a job or buying a house.
People with emotional immaturity do not understand how important it is to make decisions of this type and view commitment as limiting, rather than a necessary factor in achieving goals important.
Lack of empathy.
emotionally immature people are unable to recognize and understand the emotions of others and use stereotypes to define the behavior of those around them. In this way, they are unable to put themselves in the shoes of others and understand when a person is in difficulty.
If you want to know more about this topic, in the following article you will find How to practice empathy in my life.
Egocentrism.
Another characteristic of emotionally immature people is that They think they are the center of the universe. Are self centered people who think that the world revolves around them and that it is enough to ask for a wish of theirs to be fulfilled. In fact, they have difficulty understanding other people's point of view or anything that goes beyond their needs and benefits.
Therefore, their attention is focused only on what is best for them and it will not be easy to make them change their point of view. In addition, they often come across as capricious individuals by arrogantly stating their point of view.
Divert conversations.
People with little emotional maturity they flee from conversations that go beyond superficiality and they feel uncomfortable talking about their emotions or anything that involves reflection and introspection.
In turn, they try to bury all negative feelings and prefer to avoid what causes suffering instead of trying to work on their personal conflicts. Over time, this can trigger painful emotional consequences.
defensive and manipulative behavior
It is quite common for emotionally immature people to display defensive behavior. For this reason, when a conflict arises they can easily deny responsibility, meticulously defending each of her actions and lying about any involvement or responsibility in situations in which they are involved, to the point of offending the other person in order to intimidate her
It is important to comment that there is a big difference between trying to explain oneself to show one's own point of view and defending oneself to be right at all costs, since this is a manipulative behavior that intends to generate in the other person a feeling of shame or guilt.
dependent relations.
emotionally immature people they tend to be very dependent. Often they remain dependent on their parents even after reaching a certain age because they have not acquired the ability to accept that they have responsibilities and that others are not a means to achieve their goals goals. In a certain sense, they need others, but not out of love, but out of necessity.
In this way, emotionally immature people have dependency relationships on others to feel safe and show a kind of discomfort when being alone. In your relationships, partners or friends are just a means to avoid your thoughts and emotions in moments of solitude.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to detect emotional immaturity, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotions.
Bibliography
- Biasioni, A. (2019). Five Seconds of Emotional Immaturity. Recovered from: https://online-psicologo.eu/cinque-segni-di-immaturita-emozionale/
- Bocconi, D. (2022). Emotional immaturity: the 5 characteristics. Recovered from: https://danielabocconi.it/immaturita-emotiva-le-5-caratteristiche/
- LePera, N. (2021). Manifesto dell'autoguarigione. Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.
- Radavelli, M. (2022). YoEmotional mmaturity: is it? Recovered from: https://matteoradavelli.it/immaturita-emotiva-esiste/
- Italian Service of Psychology Online (2020). Le caratteristiche delle persone emotionally immature. Recovered from: https://psicologi-online.it/persone-emotivamente-immature/
