Abstract
Background: Psychological neoteny is broadly defined as the retention of youthful personality characteristics into adulthood and is positioned as a biologically based process that has allowed humans to adapt to an increasingly complex social environment by maintaining youthful characteristics into adulthood. The emergence of psychological neoteny in modern society and its utility in the context of the complexity of human society makes it a valuable concept in understanding emerging human behaviour. Despite this, there is limited research within the field, which evidences a largely theoretically based literature in which a clear conceptual structure of the construct is relatively absent and a strong empirical foundation for the hypotheses put forward is lacking. The dearth of empirical work may be attributed, in part, to the lack of psychometric tools with which to measure aspects of neoteny⎯as the development of measurement scales with desirable reliability and validity properties is a critical element in the evolution of a fundamental body of knowledge in a specific field of study (du Preez et al, 2008)...
D.Phil. (Industrial Psychology)