Mental Age Compatibility: Quantification through the Convolution of Probability Distributions

Abstract

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.