In our daily lives, we may have to deal with immature people on several occasions. These people have very unresponsible behaviors that can make us lose our temper and think to ourselves “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 detect emotional immaturity with 12 main characteristics of this type of people.
What is emotional immaturity
Emotional maturity has nothing to do with the age of the parents. In fact, it is possible for some people to reach levels of maturity beyond those of their parents even before reaching puberty. Emotional immaturity consists of inability to “tolerate” and it is much more common than you think.
Emotionally immature people have difficulties tolerating your emotions and they feel so uncomfortable with them that they tend to express themselves aggressively or to withdraw completely into themselves. For example, a father may be emotionally immature if he yells at his child when his emotions or thoughts are opposite to his own, or a friend who does not want to talk to us again after a fight that he himself has caused. This behavior often comes from an inability to observe the other person’s discomfort and to tolerate the simple 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 “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 types of emotions, especially when they are negative. Therefore, people with emotional immaturity have great difficulties spending time alonesince 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 interact with others to avoid finding themselves alone in the face of feelings such as, for example, anger, fear, envy or shame.
Few childhood memories
Not everyone 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 memories from our childhoodperhaps we should first ask ourselves 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 you establish a conversation with people with emotional immaturity, it is easy to realize that these types of people lack adequate 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 have difficulty entering a state of bad mood, so, at first glance, they may appear as someone happy and cheerful who tends to affirm that everything is going well in his life.
In the workplace, relationships, family, as well as in personal ambitions, everything is described as optimal and problem-free. This is due to the lack of adequate resources to deal with difficult-to-manage moods, such as feelings of anger, pain from loss, or insecurity.
They minimize other people’s speeches
When emotionally immature people engage in a conversation that threatens their emotional balance, They often interrupt the confrontation abruptly and consider it insignificant and useless. They mainly limit themselves to clinging to some firm, usually erroneous, belief, such as the fact that many of people’s problems are due to “thinking too much.”
In this way, these people avoid going into the depths of the matter and exposing themselves to the possibility of having to make their emotions and moods visible.
Difficult relationship with emotions
Emotionally immature people are not able to express their emotions and his reactions are always exaggerated. If they get angry, for example, they may raise their voice and be very rude. On the other hand, the priorities of this type of people are usually related to fun, that is, everything that has nothing to do with responsibilities, such as family or work.
Therefore, emotionally immature people They are very impulsive, especially when they have to manage their own money. As they are not able to objectively evaluate certain situations, they tend to buy everything they need without taking into account the expenses 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 really do not have. For this reason, it is not surprising that emotionally immature people have fear of committingnot only with your partner, but with all types of commitments, 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 consider commitment as something limiting, rather than a necessary factor to achieve important goals.
Lack of empathy
Emotionally immature people They are unable to recognize and understand the emotions of others and they 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, you will find in the following article.
Egocentrism
Another characteristic of emotionally immature people is that they believe they are the center of the universe. They think that the world revolves around them and that all they have to do is ask for a wish of theirs to be satisfied. 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 show themselves as capricious individuals by arrogantly expressing their point of view.
Divert conversations
People with little emotional maturity They flee from conversations that go beyond superficiality and 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 rather than 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 can easily deny responsibilitymeticulously defend each of their actions and lie about any involvement or responsibility in situations in which they are involved, to the point of offending the other person in order to intimidate them.
It is important to comment that there is a big difference between trying to explain yourself to show your own point of view and defending yourself to be right at all costs, since this is something that aims to generate a feeling of shame or guilt in the other person.
Dependent relationships
Emotionally immature people They tend to be very dependent. Often, they continue to depend 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 achieving their goals. In a sense, they need others, but not out of love, but out of necessity.
In this way, emotionally immature people have relationships of dependence 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 loneliness.
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.
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Bibliography
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- Bocconi, D. (2022). Emotional immaturity: the 5 characteristics. Retrieved from: https://danielabocconi.it/immaturita-emotiva-le-5-caratteristiche/
- LePera, N. (2021). Manifesto dell’autoguarigione. Milan: Sperling & Kupfer.
- Radavelli, M. (2022). Yoemotive mmaturità: is it? Retrieved from: https://matteoradavelli.it/immaturita-emotiva-esiste/
- Online Italian Psychology Service (2020). The characteristics of emotively immature people. Retrieved from: https://psicologi-online.it/persone-emotivamente-immature/