Ego development and sociometrically evaluated maturity: an investigation of the validity of the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development

The reported study was an attempt to validate the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development (WU-SCT), using a broad, sociometric index of maturity as the criterion variable. Sixty college women living in a sorority house completed the WU-SCT and evaluated one another's readiness for mature functioning in each of four adult social roles: career, marriage, parenthood, and community involvement. The reliabilities and the intercorrelations of the ratings suggested that peers distinguished two facets of maturity. While results support the hypothesized relationship between WU-SCT scores and a global sociometric index of maturity, the test's substantial correlations with indices relating to relatively impersonal roles (career and community) and apparent lack of correlation with indices relating to intimate interpersonal roles (marital and parental) suggests that the validity of the WU-SCT may be less broad than Loevinger's theory would imply. Several alternative interpretations of the data are suggested.