Fear of growing up declines as adults gain experience

As young adults, many millennials feared growing up more than past generations. But they've come around to it as they age, finds research published by the American Psychological Association.

The study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, examined how "maturity fears" – the fear of growing up and desire to return to the safety of childhood – changed among college students between 1982 and 2002, and then among those same cohorts 20 years later. Overall, the researchers found that later generations of college students feared growing up more than their predecessors. However, among all the generations, those fears abated as the participants grew older.

Our findings suggest that fears about growing older are not necessarily fixed; they appear to decrease for many people as they gain experience navigating adult roles and responsibilities. At the same time, more recent generations of college students consistently reported higher maturity fears, which suggests that broader societal factors like economic uncertainty, social pressures and concerns about the future may be shaping how young people view adulthood."

April Smith, PhD, study author, Auburn University

Smith and her colleagues examined data from 1,200 total college students collected in 1982, 1992 and 2002. The survey asked participants to rate their agreement with statements such as "I wish that I could return to the security of childhood" and "The happiest time in life is when you are a child." Overall, among both men and women, college students in 2002 (millennials) had significantly higher levels of maturity fears than those in 1992 (Generation X), and the 1992 college students had higher levels than college students in 1982 (baby boomers).

The participants then answered the same questions 20 years later (in 2002 for the baby boomers, 2012 for the Generation X students, and 2022 for the millennials). The researchers found that maturity fears decreased with age among almost all the cohorts, for both men and women – the only exception was the 1982 men. That decrease was much steeper for the younger cohorts compared with the older ones, so that all of the generations had more similar levels of by midlife.

That could be because, in general, people's fears tend to abate through exposure to the feared outcome – in this case, aging – according to Smith. Young adults may fear aging in part because they view it as something out of their control, and those fears may subside as people gain security and financial independence and successfully navigate the responsibilities of adulthood.

The biggest unanswered question, according to Smith, is why newer generations reported higher maturity fears in the first place.

"Our study shows that these cohort differences exist, but it doesn't tell us exactly what's driving them. Future research should examine the role of factors such as economic uncertainty, climate concerns, major societal disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growing influence of social media," she says. "If people perceive the future as increasingly uncertain, it would make sense that growing older might feel more daunting than it did for previous generations."