(Non)adult Generation: A Model for Studying the Generational Relativity of Maturity Assessment

Abstract

The fact of the lengthening of childhood is currently not disputed by psychologists and researchers and is the reason for the revision of the generally recognized age limits of childhood. The article considers both classical (including biological, sociological, demographic and socio-psychological) criteria of growing up and modern ideas about these criteria. An analysis of the chronology of changes in views in this area is made, including the reasons for these changes in today’s digital context. Based on the thesis about the variability of growing-up scenarios in the modern world, the difference in the views corresponding to this variability among representatives of different generations, and, as a result, the possible “conflict between fathers and children”, the authors propose a model for studying the generational relativity of the assessment of maturity. The model is described at each level of possible research (behavioral representations of adulthood, interpretation of these representations, system of attitudes, value orientations). The purpose of creating the model is substantiated, namely, the analysis of the conflict of generations both at the level of everyday ideas and at deeper levels of differences (including value orientations). Through the prism of social constructionism, a conclusion is made about the decreasing usefulness of highlighting specific parameters and components of maturity in the conditions of modern digital society.