Methods for studying the mental states of adolescents at work. Features of the psycho-emotional state of middle school students. Psychological problems of adolescents

One of the features of the image of a modern teenager is an attachment to alcohol, which has given rise to such a sociocultural and medical phenomenon as teenage alcoholism. This phenomenon is not new, but in new historical conditions it has manifested itself in a special way. Regular consumption of energy drinks is equally common. This is largely due to the consequences of the rapid growth of capitalist production in Russia in the 1990s, which aroused interest among young people in a new lifestyle, and alcohol consumption was perceived by many teenagers as an accessible way to emancipate and achieve freedom. Unfortunately, dishonest and immoral advertising played a bad role here, which was reflected primarily in the “beer culture”, which put a significant part of young people on the path of beer alcoholism. The reaction of the state and society to this problem and changes in legislation slightly suspended this process.

The problem of drug addiction and early drug addiction also remains relevant. The increased use of drugs by adolescents was in many ways a continuation of what the Russian state and society faced in the late 1980s. - with teenage substance abuse and widespread use of tobacco products. At the same time, the increasing availability of information about narcotic drugs, the increase in the volume and methods of purchasing narcotic drugs, and the expansion of the range of drugs offered have led to new problems that the state and society have to solve today.

Currently, the activities of specialists working with youth and adolescents are developing in several general directions in order to reduce the risk of involvement in the use of drugs and alcohol:

• formation in adolescents of a clear attitude towards rejection of drugs and alcohol through educational work, dissemination of information about the causes, forms and consequences of abuse of psychoactive substances and alcohol, promotion of a healthy lifestyle;
• identifying risk groups among young people and providing them with targeted social, pedagogical and psychological assistance;
• introduction of ways to organize leisure time that exclude the use of drugs and alcohol;
• psychological work aimed at developing strategic motivation (long-term prospects) in young people, supporting the motives for developing a socially successful personality and strengthening the individual’s defense mechanisms against the use of psychoactive substances;
• providing conditions for prosocial activity of adolescents and young people, for participation in socially useful activities, creating conditions for vocational guidance and professional self-realization;
• inclusion of young people in activities to support other members of the risk group, including preventive measures and psychological correction of emotional problems, resolution of conflict situations;
• the formation of value systems of young people related to the development of such ideas as responsibility, rationality, social solidarity.

Teenage delinquency is an extremely pressing problem. There is a noticeable increase in the number of crimes committed by teenagers (over the past five years by 3.5%) and the number of minors who took part in crimes (over the last five years an increase of 4.1%). Today, one of the specific features of juvenile delinquency is its group nature. Moreover, group crime among minors is acquiring signs of organization. Among the crimes committed by teenagers, mercenary and violent acts (theft, robbery) stand out. For example, the largest number of crimes was recorded under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (more than 15 thousand teenagers are convicted annually under this article). Up to 85% of the criminal acts of minors are crimes against property (theft, fraud, robbery, robbery, vehicle theft, intentional destruction or damage to property). Approximately 10-12% of crimes committed by teenagers are crimes against public safety and public health. In addition to traditional crimes (hooliganism, illegal activities with drugs, weapons and explosives, violence), with the development of modern technologies, cyber crime, dissemination of illegal information, hacking, Internet and telephone terrorism have been added.

Researchers often explain the tendency of adolescents to engage in criminal activity by the mutual influence of negative environmental factors and the personality of the minor himself, where aggression is formed that can cause a tendency to violate norms.

Auto aggression and suicide are pressing problems of our time. Every year hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily take their own lives, and even more people make attempts on their lives. According to WHO statistics, in the age group of 15-29 years, suicide ranks 2-3 in the structure of the main causes of death.

Cultural and social causes of auto-aggression and suicide may include psychological problems that arise as a result of rejection or conflict between the individual and the external environment.

Among the main reasons are the following: family breakdown, ethical suffering, low levels of self-esteem, a feeling of little attention from other people, marginalization, a feeling of loneliness, a feeling of misunderstanding and underappreciation, inability to cope with complex mental conditions (external pressure, stress, shock), inability to come to terms with failures, feelings of loss, phobias (for example, dislike of other people).

Traditionally, suicide was considered a type of pathology requiring legal, medical or moral condemnation. The process of depathologizing suicide, carried out in the research of scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries, formed the idea that suicide is a legitimate, conscious decision of an individual, the same as the inalienable right of an individual to manage his own existence. For example, humanitarian approaches to the phenomenon of suicide refute the mandatory connection between psychopathological conditions and suicide (E. Durkheim) and associate suicide with a “religious disease of the intellect” (W. James). Russian philosopher N.A. Berdyaev believed that suicide is caused by a person’s self-absorption and is a consequence of the close interaction between man and the World. As the main reason for the voluntary desire to die, K. Jaspers and D. Hume highlight the loss of the meaning of existence, the emergence of an existential vacuum. Most of the above conclusions about the causes of suicide may apply to the older age group, but the last remark is associated with adolescence. This is due to the fact that in adolescence, an existential vacuum is not formed by repressing previous experience and the meaning of life, but its occurrence is caused by an initial feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness. Society is responsible for the process of developing meanings for the younger generation, considering it the main task of educational and educational activities, which should exclude insincerity, outright lies and everything that can be subject to rethinking and rejection with age.

Bullitt- a socio-psychological phenomenon common among teenagers, similar to mobbing, which is a characteristic of negative relationships in the adult community, manifests itself in work groups in the form of bullying or violence by management (bossing) or co-workers (staffing). Bullying involves bullying other children and adolescents by peers in children's and educational institutions. It is a long-term process of inflicting physical or psychological violence on another individual (or group) by an individual (or group) who is not strong enough to resist the harm being caused. Bullying can manifest itself in the forms of both direct physical violence and forms of psychological and emotional (insults, humiliation, bullying, group boycott, all forms of relational aggression). At the same time, psychological bullying in its consequences can be more traumatic than physical bullying, since it significantly reduces the individual’s self-esteem and self-esteem, and develops in him a feeling of insecurity and helplessness. Note that physical bullying is almost always accompanied by psychological bullying.

In most countries, bullying is an extremely acute problem in the education system. The approximate number of bullyig participants in different countries is from 5 to 30% (in some places up to 40%).

Scientists identify several reasons for the appearance and manifestation of bullyig:

• psychological attitude of an individual to choose the position of an aggressor or a victim (“sketch theory”);
• socio-economic factors associated with emphasizing the role of social inequality, poverty, large families, economic problems of families in which “aggressors” grow up, the shortcomings of municipal mass schools with a large number of students, etc.;
• the interaction of three factors - a person’s personal characteristics, environmental characteristics and behavior itself (according to the theory of reciprocal determinism). As the reasons for the emergence and consolidation of bullying in the teenage community, it is necessary to consider environmental characteristics - the socio-economic status of the family, the situation at school, personal characteristics and characteristics of the behavior of “victims” and “aggressors”, as well as such a factor as the “position of the school”, which indicates that the severity and duration of bullying are mainly determined by the position of the school administration;
• the impact of all possible variables involved in bullying (using an integrated (multifactorial) approach), primarily personal characteristics, as well as two groups of environmental factors - the socio-psychological and economic situation in the family, features of group interaction, the phenomenon of rejection in a group, singling out the “extreme” (or “scapegoat”).

One of the most important reasons for the inability of adolescents to resist bullying is poor social skills, especially communication. A negative role is also played by the lack of conflict resolution skills, the typical behavior of a “victim” in response to verbal or physical aggression, the inability to stand up for oneself, the perception of violence as something acceptable, “funny,” etc. Often, victims of continuous bullying, unable to respond and defend themselves, channel their anger and resentment, terrorizing even weaker and defenseless group members, turning into “half-victims, half-offenders.” Anyone can become a victim of bullying.

Among the ways to prevent and counter violence in the educational space, researchers are most effective in building the resilience of personal resources and developing various forms of social support. In particular, social support ensures the development of the ability to effectively cope with stress (including social) through the development of a number of specific socio-psychological effects, the most important of which for victims of bullying are:

• a “buffer effect” that creates a kind of barrier between the negative impact of the situation (in our case, the situation of bullying) and the possible victim of this situation. Social support during bullying can not only alleviate tension, but also neutralize the negative impact of school bullying on the victim;
• a non-directional effect that occurs with a high level of social support, the ability to use it and contributes to increased self-confidence, self-esteem, self-acceptance, and self-esteem.

Developing the ability to find and use various forms of social support can be an important factor in the prevention of bullying.

_INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL "INNOVATIVE SCIENCE" No. 05/2017 ISSN 2410-6070_

PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES

A.E. Artyukhova

Student of the Department of SPP, VlSU, Bobchenko T.G.

Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor SPP, Vladimir State University, Vladimir, Russian Federation

EMOTIONAL STATES IN ADOLESCENCE

annotation

The article discusses the concept of emotional states, their characteristics in adolescence, the prevailing emotional states in adolescents and the level of their expression, the level of anxiety and frustration in adolescence, and groups of problem adolescents are defined.

Keywords

Emotional states, adolescence, anxiety, frustration, group of problem teenagers.

The study of the mechanisms of the emergence of emotional states is relevant for the psychological science of our time, since a person’s mental state affects various types of his activities and the quality of life in general. Such studies in domestic psychology were carried out by E.P. Ilyin, V. Vilyunas, A.O. Prokhorov, L.V. Kulikov, N.D. Levitov. So E.P. Ilyin defines emotional states as mental states that arise in the process of a subject’s life and determine not only the level of information and energy exchange, but also the direction of human behavior.

The emotional states of adolescents are characterized by a number of features: the ease of occurrence of emotional tension and psychological stress, constant changes in mood, the frequent appearance of an affective state, they are more susceptible to the influence of passions, the teenager clings to his emotions, which leads to locking himself in an endless circle of experiences (V.G. Kazanskaya), senior schoolchildren have the highest level of anxiety compared to other ages (V.R. Kislovskaya), they often experience a feeling of guilt, in connection with this they increasingly develop such an emotional state as frustration, but at the same time they are prone to the manifestation of joy is greater than the manifestation of negative emotions (E.P. Ilyin).

The purpose of our research: to identify the prevailing emotional states of adolescents - students of secondary schools and the level of their expression. To achieve this goal, a testing method was used (“Self-assessment of mental states” by G.Yu. Eysenck, “Differential Emotions Scale (DES)” by K. Izard). Research base: MAOU Secondary School No. XX of the city of Vladimir. The study group consisted of 8th grade students (age 14-15 years). The number of subjects was 19 people, 8 boys, 11 girls. Let us describe the results obtained.

1. Test “Self-assessment of mental states” (G. Yu. Eysenck).

41% of adolescents showed a high level of anxiety. Teens with high levels of anxiety experience an unknown, uncertain danger that often exists only in the minds of these teenagers. Most often, they noted such qualities and conditions in themselves as uncertainty, restless sleep, despondency, naivety, and fear of difficulties.

38% of subjects had an average level of anxiety. These are more or less calm teenagers, quite active and sociable, although there are cases when anxiety appears that is not justified by the prevailing circumstances.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL "INNOVATIVE SCIENCE" No. 05/2017 ISSN 2410-6070_

21% of students have a low level of anxiety. Teenagers with a low level of anxiety are sociable and proactive, but they are characterized by weak emotional involvement in various life situations and restraint of feelings.

The results of the study showed that 30% of the subjects had a high level of frustration. Adolescents with a high level of frustration often experience disappointment, anxiety, irritation and even despair. Most often, they indicated that they lose heart when they fail, feel defenseless, sometimes experience a state of despair, in difficult moments they want to be pitied, are lost in the face of difficulties, and consider their shortcomings incorrigible.

37% of the respondents had an average level of frustration. The average level of frustration indicates that frustration occurs, but not very often. Such teenagers are greatly upset by failures, they often experience a state of despair, feel confused in the face of difficulties, and sometimes behave childishly in order to be pitied.

33% of adolescents have a low level of frustration. Such teenagers have high self-esteem; failures and difficulties do not frighten them.

2. “Differential Emotions Scale (DES). K. Izarda.

Teenagers noted that they most often experience the following emotional states: despondency (13%), excitement (11%), attention (10%), composure (10%), pleasure (15%), happiness (18%), joy (13%). ). Less often, adolescents observed the presence of such states as: surprised (8%); amazed (6%); amazed (6%), angry (8%), mad (5%), disliked (7%), disgusted (8%), contemptuous (6%), dismissive (5%), frightened (5%), scary (7%), panic-inducing (7%), shy (5%), timid (9%), regretful (8%), guilty (6%), concentrated (8%), sad (9%).

Based on the results of the study, three groups of problem adolescents can be distinguished. The first group is teenagers with a high level of anxiety; these teenagers often experience such emotional states as despondency, timidity, and fear of difficulties. Preventive work with this group should include increasing the level of emotional stability, developing self-confidence, increasing self-esteem, practicing self-control skills in a traumatic situation, and reducing fears. The second group is teenagers with a high level of frustration; they note such emotional states as excitement, anger, guilt, fear, despondency, and brokenness. Preventive work with this group consists of considering the main causes of frustration and explaining them to teenagers, developing in children a correct understanding of difficulties, nurturing strong-willed character traits, nurturing endurance and self-control, and involving teenagers in active activities. The third group is teenagers with high levels of both anxiety and frustration; they often experience despondency, fear of difficulties, self-doubt, and a feeling of helplessness. Preventive work in this group includes reducing the level of personal and situational anxiety, increasing the level of emotional stability, developing self-confidence, increasing self-esteem, reducing fears, learning ways to relieve muscle and emotional tension, developing the skill of self-analysis, and practicing self-control skills in a traumatic situation. Work should be carried out not only with the teenagers themselves, but also with their parents, the team of teachers at school, and it is also important to create an appropriate psychological atmosphere that contributes to the development of a teenager’s sense of security.

List of used literature:

1. Vilyunas V. Psychology of emotions: a reader. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2004. - 496 pp.: ill. -(Anthology on psychology).

2. Ilyin E.P. Emotions and feelings. -SPb: Peter, 2001. - 752 p.: ill. - (Series “Masters of Psychology”).

3. Kazanskaya V.G. Teenager: difficulties of growing up: a book for psychologists, teachers, parents. - 2nd edition, expanded. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2008. - 283 p.

4. Mental states. Reader / comp. Kulikov L.V. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2010 - 512 s.

© Artyukhova A.E., 2017

INTRODUCTION..4

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF STUDYING THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNET ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE OF A TEENAGER..5

1. Psychological characteristics of adolescence……………………………………………………….………………………….……….5

1.2 Causes and factors for the development of online addiction in adolescence………………………………………………………………………………….…10

1.3 The influence of Internet addiction on a teenager’s personality……………… 21

CHAPTER 2. THE PROBLEM OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNET ON TEENAGERS IN MODERN SCIENCE……………………… …………………28

2.1 The Internet as a media environment and habitat for the younger generation…….. ….28

2.2 Time and nature of teenagers’ stay on the Internet 31

2.3 Psychological characteristics of types of communication among teenagers on the Internet..…………………………………………………………………………………... 32

2.4 Prevention of Internet addiction in adolescents..…………………40

CHAPTER 3. EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE INTERNET ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE OF ADOLESCENTS…………………………………………………………………………………..45

3. 1 Purpose, objectives and research methods.45

3. 2 Organization and conduct of research.45

3.3 Comparative analysis of the obtained results………………………..52

CONCLUSION.65

LIST OF SOURCES USED

INTRODUCTION

The mention of the term “Internet” today can contain meanings not only of a computer, but also of a social nature. The international computer network has become a new media, a publicly accessible means of mass communication, a platform for political and economic transactions, and a place for leisure. The Internet has penetrated into almost all spheres of society, its widespread entry into our everyday life and life occurred much faster than the mass development of such technical inventions of the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries as telephone, radio, television. The Internet provides modern man with many opportunities: communication, searching for necessary information, entertainment, etc., people are interconnected in cyberspace.

By having a developing effect on the ability to perform activities and intellectual abilities, computerized activities can suppress the sphere of interpersonal interaction, limiting real social contacts. Difficulties in establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, excessive use of the computer to the detriment of everything else, increased conflict due to passion for the Internet - these are just some of the criteria for determining the phenomenon of Internet addiction.

Addictology, the study of addictions, was formed at the intersection of psychology and medicine; Pedagogy and sociology also make a certain contribution. Along with the search and improvement of means of combating traditional types of addictions developing according to the epidemic model, such as drug (including substance abuse), tobacco, and alcohol, there is a clear tendency to develop a broader idea of ​​addiction.

In the list of behavioral types of addiction, Internet addiction is not the least important. Probably, almost any human hobby in its extreme forms allows us to talk about the development of psychological (but, as a rule, not physical) dependence.

Adolescence is a period when rapidly occurring psychological and physiological changes, changes in social requirements and the social sphere for the growing individual often provoke various deviations in behavior, neuropsychological and emotional disorders.

An analysis of studies aimed at studying the psychological consequences of Internet addiction in adolescence showed that:

the number of teenagers and young men using the Internet is constantly increasing;

excessive addiction to the Internet causes a negative impact on the psyche and has a destructive effect on the child;

There is a lack of in-depth research in this area due to the relative novelty of the phenomenon of Internet addiction, which until now has been practically not considered in the Russian-language literature. Extremely few works are devoted to the problem of Internet addiction among teenagers.

To understand the mechanisms of development of mental properties of middle school students, it is necessary to have two main sources in view: natural data (innate biological, including genetic) and social factors (family characteristics, upbringing, training and other forms of social relations that shape personality).

The most interesting in the study of age in general and adolescence in particular are still the classics of Russian psychology: L. S. Vygotsky, D. B. Elkonin, L. I. Bozhovich. The works of such famous scientists as A. P. Krakovsky, V. A. Krutetsky, A. I. Kochetov, D. I. Feldshtein, T. V. Dragunova, L. F. Obukhova, G. A. Tsukerman, S. A. Belicheva and many others. In foreign psychology, various authors turned to the study of adolescence: S. Freud, J. Piaget, E. Erikson, A. Freud, H. Remschmidt, K. Levin, E. Spranger, St. Hall et al.

Domestic research on teenagers that appeared after the 60s of the twentieth century can be divided into pre- and post-perestroika works. The difference between them is that in the latter the two trends discussed above are clearly visible, namely: a certain influence of Western theories, on the one hand, and a focus on modern changes in society, on the other. This can be seen quite noticeably in a number of recent publications covering, among other things, adolescence (works by D.I. Feldshtein, L.F. Obukhova, T.V. Dragunova, G.A. Tsukerman and many others).

There are many studies, hypotheses and theories of adolescence. Most authors define this stage of child development as the transition from childhood to adulthood. According to V. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, the word “teenager” means “a child in his teens.” “In general, this is the period of the end of childhood and the beginning of “growing out” of it” (V. Dahl, 1989).

Psychologists are of the opinion that any age, including adolescence, does not have clear boundaries, and if they exist, they are very conditional. This opinion is dictated by the research of anthropologists (M. Mead, R. Benedict and others), who, while studying a number of tribes, drew attention to the short duration and invisibility of the teenage period there. It was convincingly demonstrated that adolescence is nothing more than a fact of our civilization, that the nature of adolescence depends on the complexity of society, on the distance that it establishes between age groups, on the method of transition from one group to another. After the works of M. Mead and a number of other studies, adolescence begins to be viewed not as a psychological transformation caused by puberty, but as a cultural process of a child’s entry into the social life of an adult.

T.V. Dragunova, analyzing the views on adolescence not only of anthropologists, but also of psychologists and biologists, argues that this period of development in different peoples and cultures proceeds differently and has different age boundaries. She believes that age boundaries can both converge and expand, increasing the transition period. According to the author, the number of years required for the transition from childhood to adulthood has increased significantly in modern society (T.V. Dragunova, 1972).

This idea coincides with the point of view of L.S. Vygotsky, who notes that the three phases of maturation in adolescents in a civilized society often do not coincide: “Puberty begins and ends before the teenager reaches the final stage of his socio-cultural formation” (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984). This mismatch of maturation phases gives rise to considerable difficulties. The fact is that puberty is ahead of organic, and then, in turn, social, which leads to some imbalances in the development of a teenager. The thought of L.S. seems interesting and productive. Vygotsky on the importance of historical time for the development of a teenager. In his opinion, the cultural and historical environment and immediate surroundings most influence this particular age. At the same time, the influence of the environment can both narrow and significantly expand the boundaries of adolescence. The more sexual, organic and social maturation coincide, the shorter the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, and the more they diverge in time, the longer this period becomes, the longer the transition.

According to the German philosopher and psychologist E. Spranger, adolescence is the age of growing into culture. He wrote that mental development is the ingrowth of the individual psyche into the objective and normative spirit of a given era. But examining adolescence requires a clear vision of its boundaries. There are several definitions of the boundaries of this life span. For example, G. Grim limits adolescence to the age of 12-15 years for girls and 13-16 years for boys. According to A. Gezzel, the transition from childhood to adulthood lasts from 11 to 21 years. And J. Birren believes that this period covers 12-17 years. In the classification of D.B. Bramley this age is defined as 11-15 years. The same duration is indicated by the authors of a longitudinal study from the Institute of Human Development at the University of California. J. Piaget refers to adolescence as 12-15 years old (I.V. Dubrovina, 1987).

It seems that the boundaries of adolescence are most adequately delineated in the periodization of ontogenesis proposed by D.B. Elkonin, in which the emphasis is on the emergence of new mental formations caused by the change and development of leading types of activity. The boundaries of adolescence in this periodization are set between 11-15 years (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

Let's consider the main neoplasms in adolescence. The unevenness, inconsistency, and complexity of mental development in adolescence are not accidental. Development is characterized by those more or less stable mental characteristics that have developed, as well as new qualities of personality and activity that first appear at a given age with the existing education of a given child. These new qualitative changes in the personality structure, behavior, and activities of the child L.S. Vygotsky called mental new formations of age (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984). And in adolescence, there are psychological characteristics that are inherent in primary school age, and new psychological formations characteristic of this age stage of development.

The main neoplasm of adolescence, according to L.S. Vygotsky, is that now “a new character enters the drama of development, a new qualitatively unique factor - the personality of the teenager himself... In connection with the emergence of self-awareness, an immeasurably deeper and broader understanding of other people becomes possible for the teenager. Social development, which leads to the formation of personality, acquires in self-awareness a support for its further development” (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984).

As many authors note, the central point in the sphere of a teenager’s feelings is the “sense of adulthood.” The teenager begins to feel like an adult, strives to be and be considered one. He rejects his belonging to children, but he does not yet have a feeling of true full-fledged adulthood, but he has a great need for recognition of his adulthood by others.

D.B. Elkonin considers the most important new developments of adolescence to be the formation of self-esteem, a critical attitude towards other people, the desire for “adulthood” and independence, and the ability to obey the norms of collective life (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

The main new development of this age, according to Sprangler, is the discovery of the “I”, the development of reflection, awareness of one’s own individuality and its properties; the emergence of a life plan, an attitude toward consciously building one’s own life; gradual integration into various spheres of life. This process goes from the inside to the outside: from the discovery of the “I” to practical inclusion in various types of life activities (I.S. Kon, 1989).

Many psychologists (Gezzel, Levin, Erikson, Blos) used the concept of “developmental task.” Thus, E. Erikson writes that adolescence is built around an identity crisis, consisting of a series of social and individual choices, identifications and self-determinations. Feelings of one’s uniqueness, individuality, and dissimilarity from others appear; in the negative version, a diffuse, vague “I” (E. Erikson, 1996).

The main idea of ​​J. Piaget about the characteristics of adolescents is that they develop a new age-related ability - hypothetico-deductive thinking. According to the scientist, the main intellectual new formation of this period is the ability to reason with the help of verbally formulated hypotheses, rather than manipulations with specific objects; thinking develops to the stage of formal operations.

Michel Clé notes that the development of the intellectual sphere of a teenager is characterized by qualitative and quantitative changes that distinguish it from a child’s way of understanding the world. The formation of cognitive abilities is marked by two main achievements: “the development of the ability for abstract thinking and the expansion of time perspective” (M. Kle, 1991). According to M. Klee, adolescence is also characterized by important changes in social connections and socialization, as the predominant influence of the family is gradually replaced by the influence of the peer group. These changes occur in two directions, in accordance with two development tasks:

1) release from parental care;

2) gradual integration into a peer group.

Many psychologists note that in adolescence, all cognitive processes without exception reach a very high level of development. The main new feature that appears in the psychology of a teenager compared to a child of primary school age is a higher level of self-awareness. Adolescence is the time of formation of true individuality, independence in learning and work.

Adolescence is a period of increased emotionality, which manifests itself in mild excitability, passion, and frequent mood changes in adolescents (I.V. Zapesotskaya, 2006).

Emotions arise only about such events or results of activity that are associated with motives. In activity theory, emotions are defined as a reflection of the relationship between the result of an activity and its motive. If, from the point of view of motive, the activity is successful, positive emotions arise; if negative, vice versa.

Based on materials obtained in the research of I.S. Kon and other psychologists, it can be argued that during adolescence a certain, relatively stable orientation of the personality already takes shape (I.S. Kon, 1989). It determines the moral side of his personality, as well as many features of his behavior in activity.

So, needs underlie all other drivers of human behavior, including the highest ones. Motives are a special series of incentives for behavior.

Among the specific human drivers of behavior, self-esteem occupies a special place. Its formation is closely related to the process of self-awareness, which develops especially intensively in adolescence. It is at this age that children often focus on the assessment of others, and self-esteem and self-respect are especially intensively formed.

The process of formation of self-awareness and, above all, such an important component of it as self-esteem, closely correlates with various psychological states of a teenager, in particular, such as anxiety, fears, self-doubt, etc. These are unique emotional indicators of the development of both self-esteem and self-awareness.

As noted by A.I. Zakharov, the fears experienced by teenagers are largely due to one of the main contradictions of this age: the contradiction between the teenager’s desire to be himself, to preserve his individuality and at the same time to be together with everyone, i.e. belong to the group, correspond to its values ​​and norms (A.I. Zakharov, 2000). To resolve it, a teenager has two ways: either withdraw into himself at the cost of losing connections with peers, or give up excellent freedom, independence in judgments and assessments and completely submit to the group. In other words, the teenager faces the choice of either egocentrism or conformism. This contradictory situation in which a teenager finds himself is one of the main sources of his fears, which have obvious social conditioning.

One of the first places in this series is the fear of not being oneself, which essentially means the fear of change. Its “provocateur” is the teenager’s experiences caused by changes in his body image. Therefore, adolescents are so afraid of their own physical and mental deformity, which paradoxically is expressed in their intolerance of such shortcomings of other people or in obsessive thoughts about the deformity of their figure.

Adolescents are also characterized by fears of attack, fire, and getting sick, which is especially typical for boys, as well as the elements and confined spaces, which are more typical for girls. All of them are in the nature of fears and are in one way or another connected with the fear of death.

The number of fears in the area of ​​interpersonal relationships, noted at previous ages, also increases at this age. One of the stimulants of such fears is the lack of emotionally warm relationships with parents, as well as conflictual relationships with them. This narrows the teenager’s social circle and leaves him alone with his peers. Since the value of communication at this age is extremely high, the teenager is afraid of losing this only channel of communication.

The consequences of fears are manifold, but the main one is increasing uncertainty, both in oneself and in other people. The first becomes a solid basis for wariness, and the second for suspicion. As a result, this results in a biased attitude towards people, conflict and isolation of the “I”. All this A.I. Zakharov also qualifies it as a manifestation of obsessive fears or anxiety. Obsessive fear (anxiety) is perceived by a teenager as something alien, occurring involuntarily, like some kind of obsession. Attempts to cope with it on your own only contribute to its strengthening and the growth of anxiety.

It has been established that at 13-14 years of age the feeling of anxiety is significantly higher than at 15-16 years of age. Moreover, if for the former it practically remains unchanged, then for the latter at 15 years of age it significantly decreases in comparison with the previous period, and at 16 years of age it rises sharply again.

And one more interesting fact. If at 13-14 years old (grades 7-8) there are no differences in the level of anxiety between boys and girls, then at 16 years old (grade 10) this level is higher for girls than for boys. Thus, anxiety at the age of 13-14 is an age characteristic that overlaps individual developmental characteristics, which is desirable to take into account in terms of preventing the mental development of a teenager.

Comparing the dynamics of anxiety with the dynamics of self-esteem, it is easy to detect their close interdependence, especially in high school. The higher and more adequate the self-esteem, the less anxiety and the more confidence in oneself and one’s capabilities (A.M. Prikhozhan, 2000).

Another feature in the development of a teenager’s self-awareness is a heightened sense of self-esteem. Often a teenager feels that they want to humiliate him. He, as noted above, is generally characterized by an increased need for human kindness. He reacts painfully to falsehood and pretense, although he often behaves in a similar way (T.V. Molodtsova, 1997).

So, although 15-16-year-old teenagers have all aspects of a person’s self-awareness, there is no need to talk about its completeness and formation. This conclusion is also true for the period of early adolescence (16-17 years old).

As for early adolescence, it is difficult to talk about the structural readiness of self-awareness. Some of its components are just being formed.

The emotional distress of adolescents is not directly related to the material well-being of the family and is not always related to those parameters that are considered important at this age: studies, communication with peers. It turns out that teenagers suffer most from the loss or significant deterioration of emotional contacts with their parents (no matter how “adult” and independent of their parents they try to appear to themselves and others).

Unfortunately, parents for the most part, busy with their own problems, do not very often think about what price their growing children can and do pay for their employment. But the emotional depression of modern teenagers leads to delayed social development, character conflicts and, ultimately, maladjustment in society.

Thus, the boundaries of adolescence (between 11-15 years) are most adequately delineated in the periodization of ontogenesis proposed by D.B. Elkonin, in which the emphasis is on the emergence of new mental formations caused by the change and development of leading types of activity. Most researchers define middle school age as the transition from childhood to adulthood (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

New developments of adolescence include: the formation of self-esteem, a critical attitude towards other people, the desire for “adulthood” and independence, the ability to obey the norms of collective life, and the development of the intellectual sphere. Adolescence is a period of increased emotionality, which manifests itself in slight excitability, passion, anxiety, and frequent mood swings in adolescents.

Sections: School psychological service

Social situation of adolescent development

The age in question rarely attracts special attention from researchers. It is considered one of the most stable periods of a person’s life - adults do not notice any (or almost any) new problems in their relationships with children, which is perhaps why they “take a break” from parental and teacher concerns, communicating with children from ten to twelve.

In domestic developmental psychology, the age under study falls on the period of early adolescence. One way or another, school is the most important social space (except for family and neighbors), where a child’s life events unfold, in which he solves his most important developmental problems.

It is believed that the most important among them is the establishment and implementation of social connections. The solution to this particular problem involves experiencing oneself as the owner of the secret of one’s own Self (opaque to others). The child begins to intensively guard the boundaries of his own psychological space using a wide variety of means, which look to the observer as the appearance of secrecy, as if subtext in the child’s relationships with other people. At the same time, this is connected with the structuring of their psychological space - children create various kinds of hiding places, secluded places, notebooks, collections (for themselves). They decorate (as best they can) their personal items - bicycles, notebooks, books, beds and the like. Often this looks like damage or staining, as it is far from aesthetic perfection. In this way, children indicate the belonging of a thing, it acquires, as it were, more personal properties, it becomes their own. It is the thing that at first has for the child the properties of a secret, known only to him. Such a “secret” thing denotes the degree of permissibility of the influence of another. The boundaries of psychological space become tangible; even their accidental destruction causes a storm of feelings in the child. It seems that this is how new things are born with social connections. They begin to be regulated by a conscious measure of influence, and this is the opportunity to say “no” to another person, and the demonstration of oneself as “fake”, when one can pretend, invent or, as they say, manipulate not only others, but also oneself.

Children at this age can invent their own biography, especially when they meet new people, and this acquaintance cannot develop into a long-term one. This is a special form of lying that is not associated with any punishments or simply consequences. Usually, parents rarely know about its existence; only in a retrospective analysis can an adult find evidence of such behavior at the “end of childhood” (10-12 years). This is one of the options, as the children call it, of the white lie. Often its content is inspired by possible family secrets - origin, degree of relationship, proximity to authority figures, and the like. The child can “try out” these fictitious facts of his own biography in communication with peers, but usually they do not meet with much interest. This phenomenon should be very important, although, unfortunately, it has been little studied in the specialized literature. It can be assumed that the fairly high degree of its prevalence indicates the need for such “tests of oneself” as a moment in the development of the child. In addition to this phenomenon, the changing reading interests of children can also be explored as another facet of “testing oneself.” At the end of childhood, they are more attracted to literature about their peers and their real lives, about possible events and adventures. In the mental reality of the child, conditions appear for the director’s influence on his own life.

The child tries out his possibilities of change in relationships with other people, focusing on the content of his self-concept and the concept of another person, where the most important formation appears - the unit of measurement of relationships, the measure of correctness, as G.S. called it. Abramova. (1) This unit originates in the experience of another person’s influence on the objective boundaries of psychological space (“You broke my toy,” “You ruined my drawing,” “You threw away my sticks”) and is associated with the experience of pain or negative feelings based on loss the subject of part of its properties. An object on which another person has had a destructive influence becomes flawed and incorrect.

Younger teenagers often give the impression of pedants; they are very worried if the correctness known to them is violated, especially in relation to themselves, for example, if, in their opinion, injustice manifests itself.

The measure of correctness is associated with children’s awareness of the fact that relationships between people are built on the basis of norms. These norms are alien to the person himself; they must be mastered so that other people do not cause pain by destroying the boundaries of psychological space. The measure of correctness, the requirement to comply with it, is the basis for the development of the child’s moral consciousness, aimed at preserving and developing the boundaries of psychological space by strengthening its opacity for others. The resentment of children of this age towards adults is almost always associated with the fact that they violate the boundaries of psychological space and make the child’s secret self obvious to others. It is difficult to observe the state of a child whose mother shames him in front of the whole class for skipping school. The mother believes that she is doing the right thing, but no one will truly know what fear of a test stopped a ten-year-old boy from entering the school doors. He was afraid of being a bad student, he was afraid of being a “wrong student”, he was honestly afraid, he honestly built his relationships with adults as a correct (good) boy, but it didn’t work out.

Modern psychologist Lorenz Kohlberg studied children's attitudes towards moral dilemmas. The child was placed in a situation of an imaginary moral dilemma, in which he was not a participant, but could appreciate the position of a person for whom following the correct norms came into conflict with the interests of other people. Children had to evaluate a specific person's action as good or bad.

Many psychologists use the results obtained by L. Kohlberg to study the characteristics of the moral development of a particular child, focusing on the content of the stages of development described by him. They are given in the table, taking into account the approximate age limits.

For children in early adolescence, the dominant tendency is to “meet the expectations of others.” The readiness to respond to the influence of others is combined with the need to protect the boundaries of one’s psychological space in order to preserve one’s Self. This is one of the main contradictions of this period, which is resolved by the creation and mastery of a measure of correctness (that is, justified, justified, necessary) in regulating the relationships of others to the Self and I'm talking to myself.)

In line with the resolution of the main contradiction of this age, through the embodiment of the experienced measure of correctness in his abilities to organize his life, the child masters the most important human quality - hard work. Hard work– this is not a volitional quality, it is one of the basic, integral properties of a person, which is associated with the perception of life as feasible in accordance with one’s own efforts to organize it, that is, hard work manifests that attitude towards life, which could be expressed like this: “This my life".

At this time, all the child’s work skills are included in his psychological space as stable elements that organize him, since all his skills are associated with the experience of the expediency of the efforts spent on organizing his self. At this time, a modern child can master many “adults” at a very fast pace. skills related to working with machines (computers, cars, etc.), working with tools, that is, tools. It is their properties that seem to embody the possible final goals of action, which makes the initiatives of the child using these tools quite concrete
and feasible.

In modern conditions, this potential readiness of children to organize their lives is realized in conditions where social reality itself is very complex and the concept of an organized life becomes very vague.

This gives rise to a very difficult problem for adolescents in constructing a measure of correctness in assessing and understanding social relationships. A child's skill as it develops in object-based activities does not necessarily manifest itself in social relationships or at school.

Development of intelligence in adolescence

School in modern culture becomes a special instrument with its own goals and objectives; it becomes that school within a school that has to be mastered according to specific laws, which often look quite fantastic (1).
Armed with imagination and the ability to act according to the rules (modeled on adult relationships), the child is in school. Imagination helps him act.
School childhood is a stage in the formation of a child’s individuality. Its content can be briefly presented as follows: learn to correlate general and particular, generic and specific properties of objects, things and phenomena, relationships between people, learn to organize your behavior in accordance with these properties.
Requirements, rules in relations with other people, norms of objective actions reveal the patterns of objects. The world is ordered by a system of scientific knowledge and concepts that a child needs to master.

The child’s judgments are based on everyday experience, expressed in words as means of thinking. Scientific type of thinking, which a child acquires at school, orients him towards general cultural patterns, norms, standards, patterns of interaction with the outside world. The concept of a number, a word, a literary image, and so on, actions with the properties of the objective world, which form the basis of scientific thinking, make available to the child’s direct experience such aspects of reality that were inaccessible to him in personal experience.

Along with knowledge, books – textbooks – enter a child’s life. Working with them is one of the first steps in mastering self-education skills
Under the guidance of a teacher, a student learns to work on a text, just as he learns to understand a learning task, learns to check his work against a model, and learns to evaluate it correctly.

Includes in a child's life dialogue not only with the teacher, but also with scientific text. The peculiarity of such a dialogue is that it forms in the child a scientific picture of the world - it reveals to him objectively existing patterns, which gradually become elements of his thinking. Along with mastering the content of the system of scientific concepts, the child masters the methods of organizing educational work.

Actions planning, control, evaluation acquire a different content, since action in the system of scientific concepts presupposes a clear identification of interconnected individual stages. What am I doing? How am I doing? Why do I do this and not another? In the answers to such questions about one’s own actions, reflection is born, a qualitatively new property of the human psyche.

The younger teenager begins to focus on general cultural patterns of action, which he masters in dialogue with adults. Dialogue necessarily presupposes mutual understanding, the possibility and necessity of accepting the point of view of another person. In this sense, the younger teenager's communication with the teacher opens up for him new forms of cooperation with others. Already by the sixth grade, a student can exercise control not only over his own work, but also over the work of his classmates, and can complete academic work independently or in pairs with a friend. New types of cooperation with other people improve the child’s system of moral assessments, introducing a new quality into it - an assessment of the labor expended, both one’s own efforts and the efforts of others. The result of educational work is scientific thinking.

The specificity of the teaching is that it is arbitrary in nature, that is, it is not determined by the external, situational properties of things. When solving, for example, a problem about the number of apples, it does not matter at all for the learning situation whether these apples are tasty or not, what color they are. In order to highlight the essential properties and relationships of things, the child must learn to set himself a learning task (what should I do?), find ways to solve it (how and with what help can I solve it?), evaluate himself (what can I do? ?), control yourself (am I doing the right thing?). All this is gradually being formed in educational activity of the child. But without the help of adults, a child will not learn to control himself.

When a child himself learns to set a goal for an educational action and find means to achieve it, his behavior acquires the characteristics of true arbitrariness.

The arbitrariness of behavior, the control of one’s mental processes, and the internal plan of action will be determined by the content of the child’s relationships and interactions with adults as the bearer of socially significant methods of action and truly moral relations.

An adult will contribute to the development of a child’s individuality if he forms in him a theoretical, scientific type of thinking that allows him to pay attention to the most significant connections and relationships of the world around him. But not always in their work teachers and parents fulfill such requirements necessary for the complete mental development of a teenager. And “we often see how students, moving from class to class, are increasingly burdened by the burden of learning, how many of them avoid it,” writes the famous teacher Sh.A. Amonashvili.

To help children learn, it is necessary to clearly imagine that the most important component of scientific thinking, which a child masters at school, is not only to identify what is essential in the world around him, but also the ability to justify, evaluate, and control his actions, his choice of one or another method of action. This means that when assessment Adults should proceed from learning results based on special criteria that reflect the true indicators of the child’s development, and not the success in performing certain particular, albeit rather complex, actions.

If there is a younger teenager in the family, how do they ask him about school affairs: what grade did he get today or what did he learn today. The difference in questions also reflects the essence of the problem of decreased interest in learning in early adolescence. In the question of assessment, only the result is involuntarily given importance, and the assessment measures the abilities, hard work and other qualities of the student. The result of the teaching is very important, but it is not expressed only in the assessment. It is expressed in the child’s real knowledge and skills. The difficulty arises in the fact that parents, often without realizing it, adjust their attitude towards their child in accordance with his school success. A child’s success in learning is determined by many factors, including parents’ faith in his strengths and capabilities, real help and support from parents, and not another lecture about a bad grade or pointless efforts to rewrite homework several times.

To change your attitude towards a child’s successes and failures in learning, you need to understand what caused them. Maybe there is an idol on his way, which, according to Sukhomlinsky, lies in wait for the child at school. Idol is an assessment. Assessment often becomes very important in a child's life. On the part of the adult, it must assume, first of all, criteria that are known to the child himself. Then the assessment becomes meaningful, and the child learns to evaluate his progress in mastering the material. Self-learning will encourage the child to continue learning. In this regard, parents can do a lot for their children if they themselves try to see the meaningful side of the assessment and teach this vision to the child, and not focus blindly on the social meaning of assessments.

Modern research shows that a child cannot constantly be in a situation of consuming ready-made knowledge. He wants and knows how to teach him. Be active and independent in educational and cognitive activities. He acts and is formed in it as a personality. In order for this to happen, so that the child is as greedy for knowledge as he was in preschool age, and just as eager to act like an adult, parents must encourage him in his studies in every way, welcoming the slightest successes and not focusing on temporary failures. Sometimes this is not easy to do; it requires the joint work of the teacher and parents. But it justifies itself all the more because its goal is always noble: creating favorable conditions for personal development. Coming to school not only at the request of the teacher, not only with claims of his “bias,” but coming to him as a like-minded person, as a person who is interested in the development of your child - this is a new relationship for parents that arises with the admission of the child to school. Implementing them can be no less difficult than restructuring ideas about the child himself, and even his own methods of education. But they need to be built in a worthy manner, since both you and the teachers are for the child representatives of the adult world, where he so strives to get.

The younger teenager is just developing general ways of orienting himself in the essential properties of things and phenomena. He is still just learning to distinguish between the random and the natural in all areas of human life, he is just developing criteria for assessing himself and others. He is still just learning to act from the standpoint of his assessment, arbitrarily choosing a method of behavior. If adults do not give him real, meaningful assessments, he will replace them with fetishes and idols that hide the essence of things and human relationships. Without seeing, without knowing, without grounds for free choice and evaluation, he will follow the random properties of things. about stereotypes and templates.