Mental Age Compatibility: Quantification through the Convolution of Probability Distributions

07/29/2021

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by   Patrick A. Haas, et al.

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We build on the empirical finding that a human being's mental age is normally distributed around the chronological age. This opposes the frequent societal assumption "mental = chronological" which is known to be false in general but entertained for simplicity due to lack of methodology; hence disregarding that, f.e., people of different chronological ages can be much closer in their mental ages. As a quantitative approach on a scientific basis, we set up a general formula for the probability that two individuals of given ages are mentally within a certain range of years and investigate its implications i.a. by critically analyzing popular assumptions on age and computing statistical expectations within populations.