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Course work: theoretical analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature on the problem of the development of self-concept in late adolescence. Definition of basic research concepts

? Ministry of Public Education of the Russian Federation
Magnitogorsk Order “Badge of Honor”
state pedagogical institute

Teplykh Dmitry Anatolievich

I - CONCEPT AS A FACTOR OF PERSONALITY

Graduate work
student of the Faculty of Psychology

Scientific adviser:
Senior Lecturer
Department of O&PP
Kozlovskaya S.N.

Reviewer:
Assistant of the Department of O&PP
Bakhcheeva E.P.

Magnitogorsk
1999

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION........................ ................... .......... ......................... 3 - 6

CHAPTER 1. Self-concept in early adolescence.................................. 7 - 33
1.1 Self-awareness and its place in mental organization
person............................... ................... .......... ......................... 7 - 9
1.2 Concept, meaning and structure of self-concept.................................. 10 - 19
1.3 The formation of self-awareness in early youth as a source
formation of self-concept.................................................................. ............... . 20 - 24
1.4 Features of the self-concept in early adolescence.................................... 25 - 33

CHAPTER 2. Personal self-determination as psychological
neoplasm of early adolescence.................................................................. ........ 34 - 55
2.1 Personal self-determination as psychological
problem.............................. ................... .......... ......................... .. 35 - 45
2.2 Psychological content of personal self-determination
in early youth......................................................... ............. ........ 45 - 55

CHAPTER 3. Practical study of self-concept as a factor
personal self-determination in early adolescence...... 56 - 94

CONCLUSIONS.............................. ................... .......... ........................... 95 - 98
Bibliography.............................. .................. ............ .............. 99 - 105
Applications........................ ................... .......... ........................... 106

INTRODUCTION
The inner world of a person and his self-awareness have long attracted the attention of philosophers, scientists and artists. Consciousness and self-awareness are one of the central problems of philosophy, psychology and sociology. Its significance is due to the fact that the doctrine of consciousness and self-awareness constitutes the methodological basis for solving not only many of the most important theoretical issues, but also practical problems in connection with the formation of a life position.
The ability to self-awareness and self-knowledge is the exclusive property of a person who, in his self-awareness, recognizes himself as a subject of consciousness, communication and action, becoming directly related to himself. The final product of the process of self-knowledge is a dynamic system of a person’s ideas about himself, coupled with their assessment, called the self-concept.
The self-concept arises in a person in the process of social interaction as an inevitable and always unique product of his mental development, as a relatively stable and at the same time mental acquisition subject to internal fluctuations and changes. It leaves an indelible imprint on all manifestations of a person’s life - from childhood to old age.
The period of emergence of the conscious “I”, no matter how gradually its individual components are formed, is considered to be adolescence and early adolescence. Almost all psychologists point to early adolescence as a critical period in the formation of self-awareness and consider the development of self-awareness as a central mental process of adolescence.
The growth of self-awareness and interest in one’s own self among adolescents leads to changes in the nature of the formation and structure of the self-concept. In early adolescence (15-17 years), as part of the formation of a new level of self-awareness, a relatively stable idea of oneself is formed. By the age of 16-17, a special personal new formation arises, which in the psychological literature is designated by the term self-determination.
The complexity and versatility of personal changes in early adolescence, its determining role on the course of further personality development, determines the relevance of our chosen research topic: “Self-concept as a factor of personal self-determination in early adolescence.”
Purpose of the study: to establish the relationship between the content of the self-concept and personal self-determination in early adolescence.
Object of study: boys and girls aged 15-16 years.
Subject of research: the relationship between self-concept and personal self-determination in early adolescence.
The main hypothesis of the study: there is a correlation between the content characteristics of the self-concept and personal self-determination in early adolescence.
Working hypothesis of the study: the content characteristics of the self-concept that influence personal self-determination in early adolescence will differ for boys and girls.

To achieve the goal and test the hypotheses, the following tasks were solved during the research:
1. Based on an analysis of foreign and domestic literature, study the understanding of the phenomena of self-concept and personal self-determination in early adolescence.

To solve these problems, we used the following research methods:
? comparative method
? ascertaining experiment,
? a set of psychological diagnostic methods,
? methods of primary and secondary data processing.
The theoretical significance of the work lies in the fact that, based on an analysis of the literature, we establish a relationship between two scientific concepts, considering the self-concept as a factor of personal self-determination in early adolescence.
The practical significance of our study is that a) we determine indicators of personal self-determination that can be used as tests in further studies of the driving forces of personality development in early adolescence, b) specifying the connection between self-concept and personal self-determination in early adolescence allows us to identify those characteristics of the system of ideas about oneself, the dynamics of which can affect the success of personal self-determination of boys and girls at that age stage of personality development.
The novelty of our research lies in the fact that a) we consider the self-concept as a factor of personal self-determination; b) considering personal self-determination as a phenomenon that has a value-semantic nature, we associate the success of personal self-determination with indicators of the meaningfulness of an individual’s life.

CHAPTER 1. SELF-CONCEPT IN EARLY YOUTH
1.1. SELF-AWARENESS AND ITS PLACE IN THE MENTAL
ORGANIZATIONS OF HUMAN LIFE

A lot of research in Russian psychology is devoted to the problem of self-awareness. These studies are concentrated mainly around two groups of questions. In the works of B.G. Ananyev, L.I. Bozhovich, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinshtein, I.I. Chesnokova, V.V. Stolin, A.G. Spirkina, in general theoretical and methodological aspects, analyzed the issue of the formation of self-awareness in the context of more general problem of personality development. Another group of studies examines more specialized issues, primarily related to the characteristics of self-esteem and their relationship with the assessments of others. A.A. Bodalev's research on social perception sharpened interest in the issue of the connection between the knowledge of other people and self-knowledge. A lot of philosophical-psychological and actually philosophical studies have been published, which analyze problems associated with personal responsibility and moral self-awareness [31,87,89, etc.]. The works of I.S. Kon, in which philosophical, general and socio-psychological, historical and cultural aspects, theoretical issues and analysis of specific experimental data were successfully synthesized, opened up new facets of this, perhaps one of the oldest problems in psychology. Foreign literature on topics related to the psychology of consciousness is also extremely rich - these issues are one way or another present in the works of W. James, S. Freud, C. Rogers, Erickson, R. Burns, W. Frankl and many other outstanding scientists .
Self-consciousness is a complex psychological structure, which includes as special components, according to V.S. Merlin, firstly, the consciousness of one’s identity, secondly, the consciousness of one’s own “I” as an active, active principle, thirdly , awareness of one’s mental properties and qualities, and fourthly, a certain system of social and moral self-esteem. All these elements are related to each other functionally and genetically, but they are not formed at the same time. The beginnings of consciousness of identity appear already in an infant, when he begins to distinguish between sensations caused by external objects and sensations caused by his own body, the consciousness of “I” - from about three years old, when the child begins to correctly use personal pronouns. Awareness of one's mental qualities and self-esteem acquire the greatest importance in adolescence and young adulthood. But since all these components are interconnected, the enrichment of one of them inevitably modifies the entire system.
A.G. Spirkin gives the following definition: “self-awareness is a person’s awareness and assessment of his actions and their results, thoughts, feelings, moral character and interests, ideals and motives of behavior, a holistic assessment of himself and his place in life. Self-awareness is a constitutive feature of personality, formed along with the formation of the latter.”
Self-consciousness has consciousness as its subject, and therefore opposes itself to it. But at the same time, consciousness is preserved in self-awareness as a moment, since it is focused on comprehending its own essence. If consciousness is a subjective condition for a person’s orientation in the surrounding world, knowledge about another, this self-awareness is a person’s orientation in his own personality, a person’s knowledge about himself, this is a kind of “spiritual light that reveals both oneself and the other.”
Through self-awareness, a person becomes aware of himself as an individual reality, separate from nature and other people. He becomes a being not only for others, but also for himself. The main meaning of self-consciousness, according to A.G. Spirkin, should be considered “simply the consciousness of our existing existence, the consciousness of one’s own existence, the consciousness of oneself, or one’s “I”.
Self-awareness is the crown of development of higher mental functions; it allows a person not only to reflect the outside world. but, having distinguished oneself in this world, cognize one’s inner world, experience it and relate to oneself in a certain way. Awareness of oneself as some stable object presupposes internal integrity, the constancy of the personality, which, regardless of changing situations, is capable of remaining itself.
However, A.N. Leontiev, who characterized the problem of self-awareness as a problem of “high vital importance, crowning personality psychology,” regarded it as a whole as “unsolved, eluding scientific and psychological analysis.”
In modern psychological literature there are several approaches to studying the problem of self-awareness. One of them is based on the analysis of those final products of self-knowledge, which are expressed in the structure of a person’s ideas about himself or “I-concept”. What does the term “I-concept” mean, what real psychological meaning is put into it?

1.2. CONCEPT, MEANING AND STRUCTURE OF SELF-CONCEPT

The development of a person’s self-awareness is inextricably linked with the process of self-knowledge as the process of filling self-awareness with content that connects a person with other people, with culture and society as a whole, a process that occurs within real communication and thanks to it, within the framework of the subject’s life and his specific activities.
The phenomena of self-knowledge concern the question of how self-knowledge occurs, including what has already been learned or appropriated, transformed into the “I” of the subject and his personality, and what forms the results of this process take in self-awareness.
As a scientific concept, the self-concept came into use in specialized literature relatively recently, which may be why there is no single interpretation of it in the literature, both domestic and foreign; The closest thing in meaning to it is self-awareness. But self-concept is a less neutral concept, including the evaluative aspect of self-awareness. This is a dynamic system of a person’s ideas about himself, which includes both the actual awareness of his physical, intellectual and other qualities, and self-esteem, as well as the subjective perception of external factors influencing a given personality. R. Burns, one of the leading English scientists in the field of psychology, who seriously studied issues of self-awareness, defines this concept this way: “Self-concept is the totality of all a person’s ideas about himself, coupled with their assessment. The descriptive component of the self-concept is often called the image of the self or the picture of the self. The component associated with the attitude towards oneself or towards one’s individual qualities is called self-esteem or self-acceptance. The self-concept, in essence, determines not just what an individual is, but also what he thinks about himself, how he looks at his active beginning and possibilities for development in the future.”
The self-concept arises in a person in the process of social interaction as an inevitable and always unique result of mental development, as a relatively stable and at the same time mental acquisition subject to internal changes and fluctuations. It leaves an indelible imprint on all manifestations of a person’s life - from childhood to old age. The initial dependence of the self-concept on external influences is undeniable, but later it plays an independent role in the life of every person. From the moment of its inception, the self-concept becomes an active principle, acting in three functional and role aspects:
1. Self-concept as a means of ensuring internal consistency. A number of studies in personality theory are based on the concept that a person always follows a path to achieve maximum internal consistency. Concepts, feelings or ideas that conflict with other representations, feelings or ideas of a person lead to deharmonization of the individual, to a situation of psychological discomfort. Feeling the need to achieve internal harmony, a person is ready to take various actions that would help restore lost balance. An essential factor in restoring internal consistency is what a person thinks about himself.
2. Self-concept as an interpretation of experience. This function of the self-concept in behavior is that it determines the nature of the individual interpretation of experience, because a person has a strong tendency to base not only his behavior, but also the interpretation of his experience on the basis of his own ideas about himself.
3. Self-concept as a set of expectations. The self-concept also determines a person's expectations, that is, his ideas about what should happen. Every person has certain expectations that largely determine the nature of his actions. People who are confident in their own worth expect others to treat them in the same way; those who believe that no one needs them, cannot please them, either behave based on that premise, or interpret the reactions of others accordingly. Many researchers consider this function to be central, considering the self-concept as a set of expectations, as well as assessments related to various areas of behavior.
In many psychological theories, self-concept is one of the central concepts. At the same time, there is still no universal definition or unity in terminology. Terms that some authors use to denote the self-concept as a whole, others use to denote its individual elements. To clarify the terminology of our research, we will use the scheme proposed by R. Burns [7;62], which, in our opinion, on the one hand, most fully reflects the structure of the self-concept, and on the other, organizes the terminology found on the pages psychological literature (see Figure No. 1).
In the diagram, the self-concept is presented in the form of a hierarchical structure. At its top is the global self-concept, which includes all kinds of facets of individual self-awareness. Due to the fact that a person, on the one hand, has consciousness, and on the other hand, is aware of himself as one of the elements of reality, W. James, the first psychologist who began to develop the problems of the Self-concept, considered the global, personal Self (Self) as dual formation in which the I-conscious (I) and the I-as-object (Me) are combined. These are two sides of the same

Global self-concept

Aspects of,
highlighted I-conscious I-as-object
James (process) (contents)

Continuous
interaction

Components of self-esteem
attitudes or acceptance of self image
myself

Trends
behavior

Self-concept as
totality
self-imposed attitudes

Real Self, Ideal Self, Mirror Self
Modalities or or or
presentation presentation presentation
about how I am about how I am about how I am

Aspects physical physical physical
social social social
mental mental mental
emotional emotional emotional

Figure No. 1. The structure of the self-concept
wholes that always exist simultaneously. One of them is pure experience, and the other is the content of this experience (I-as-object). However, we should not forget about the conventions of such a distinction, which, in essence, is only a convenient semantic model. It is impossible to imagine consciousness devoid of content, as well as the content of mental processes that exist in isolation from consciousness. Therefore, in real mental life these elements are so fused that they form a single, practically indissoluble whole. I as an object exists only in processes of awareness and is the content of these processes insofar as a person can be aware of himself. We can separate the result and the process of reflective thinking only conceptually; psychologically they exist together.
As we can see from R. Burns’ definition, the self-concept has descriptive and evaluative components, which allows us to consider the self-concept as a set of attitudes aimed at oneself. Most definitions of attitude emphasize three main elements:

An appropriate reaction, which, in particular, can be expressed in behavior (behavioral component).
In relation to the self-concept, these three elements of attitude are specified as follows:

Let's take a closer look at these three main components of the self-concept.
1. The cognitive component of the self-concept or self-image.
An individual's ideas about himself, as a rule, seem convincing to him, regardless of whether they are based on objective knowledge or subjective opinion. The subject of a person’s perception can, in particular, be his body, his abilities, his social relationships and many other personal manifestations. Specific methods of self-perception leading to the formation of the self-image can be very diverse. When describing himself, a person usually resorts to adjectives: “reliable”, “sociable”, “strong”, “beautiful”, etc., which, in fact, are abstract characteristics that are in no way related to a specific event, thereby a person tries to express in words the main characteristics of his usual self-perception. These characteristics are: attributive, role, status, psychological, etc. can be listed endlessly. All of them form a hierarchy in terms of the importance of elements of self-description, which can change depending on the context, a person’s life experience, or simply under the influence of the moment. This kind of self-description is a way to characterize oneself, the uniqueness of each personality through combinations of its individual traits. The eternal question of whether a person can know himself, how objective his self-esteem is, about the truth of the image I am legitimate regarding its cognitive component, and here it must be taken into account that any attitude is not a reflection of the object in itself, but a systematization of the past experience of interaction of the subject with an object. Therefore, a person’s knowledge of himself can be neither exhaustive nor free from evaluative characteristics and contradictions. This explains the identification of the second component of the self-concept.
2. The emotional-evaluative component of the self-concept or self-esteem. Man as an individual is a self-evaluating being. Self-esteem implies “a certain attitude towards oneself: towards one’s qualities and conditions, capabilities, physical and spiritual strength.” Self-esteem is a personal judgment about one’s own worth, which is expressed in attitudes characteristic of an individual. Thus, self-esteem reflects the degree to which a person develops a sense of self-respect, a sense of his own worth and a positive attitude towards everything that is included in the sphere of his “I”. Therefore, low self-esteem presupposes self-rejection, self-denial, and a negative attitude towards one’s personality.
There are several sources of self-esteem formation that change the weight of significance at different stages of personality development:
- assessment of other people;
- circle of significant others or reference group;
- actual comparison with others;
- comparison of the real and ideal self;
- measuring the results of your activities.
Self-esteem plays a very important role in organizing effective management of one’s behavior; without it, it is difficult or even impossible to determine one’s self in life. True self-esteem gives a person moral satisfaction and supports his human dignity.
3. The behavioral component of the self-concept consists of a potential behavioral response, that is, specific actions that can be caused by the self-image and self-esteem. Any attitude is an emotionally charged belief associated with a specific object. The peculiarity of the self-concept is that, as in a complex of attitudes, the object in this case is the carrier of the attitude itself. Thanks to this self-direction, all emotions and evaluations associated with the self-image are very strong and stable, which has a very strong impact on a person’s activities, his behavior, and relationships with others.
Having identified the three main components of the self-concept, we should not forget that the self-image and self-esteem are amenable to only conditional conceptual distinction, since psychologically they are inextricably linked. The image and assessment of one’s “I” predispose a person to certain behavior; therefore the global self-concept
we consider it as a set of human attitudes aimed at oneself. However, these settings may have different perspectives or modalities.
Usually there are at least three main modalities of self-attitudes (see Figure No. 1).
1. Real Self - attitudes related to how a person perceives his current abilities, roles, his current status, that is, with his ideas about what he is in the present time.
2. Mirror Self - attitudes associated with a person’s ideas about how others see him. The Mirror Self performs an important function of self-correction of a person’s claims and ideas about himself. This feedback mechanism helps keep the Real Self within adequate limits and remain open to new experiences through reciprocal dialogue with others and with oneself.
3. Ideal Self - attitudes associated with a person’s idea of what he would like to become. The ideal self is formed as a certain set of qualities and characteristics that a person would like to see in himself, or the roles that he would like to play. Moreover, a person forms the ideal elements of his Self according to the same basic aspects as in the structure of the Real Self. The ideal image consists of a number of ideas that reflect the innermost aspirations and aspirations of a person. These ideas are often divorced from reality. The contradiction between the real and ideal self is one of the most important conditions for the self-development of the individual.
In addition to the three main modalities of attitudes proposed by R. Burns, many authors identify another one, which plays a special role.
4. Constructive Self (Self in the future). It is he who is characterized by a focus on the future and the construction of a projective model of “I”. The main difference between a constructive self-project and an ideal self is that it is permeated with effective motives and they are more consistent with the attribute “I strive.” Those elements that a person accepts and sets for himself as an achievable reality are transformed into the constructive self.
It should be noted that any of the images of the Self has a complex origin, ambiguous in its structure, consisting of three aspects of the relationship: physical, emotional, mental and social Self.
Thus, the self-concept is the totality of a person’s ideas about himself and includes beliefs, assessments and behavioral tendencies. Because of this, it can be considered as a set of attitudes characteristic of each person, aimed at himself. The self-concept forms an important component of a person’s self-awareness; it participates in the processes of self-regulation and self-organization of the individual, since it determines the interpretation of experience and serves as a source of a person’s expectations.

2. 1. FORMATION OF SELF-AWARENESS IN EARLY YOUTH
AS A SOURCE OF FORMATION OF SELF-CONCEPT

“The period of emergence of the conscious self,” writes I.S. Kon, “no matter how gradually its individual components are formed, has long been considered adolescence and young adulthood.” The development of self-awareness is the central mental process of adolescence. Almost all domestic psychologists call this age “the critical period for the formation of self-awareness” [10,33, 39, 46, 66, etc.].
Early adolescence is the second stage of a person's life phase, called growing up or adolescence, the content of which is the transition from childhood to adulthood. Let us determine the age range of this stage, because The terminology in the field of growing up is somewhat confusing (see, for example, etc.). In connection with the phenomenon of acceleration, the boundaries of adolescence have moved down and currently this period of development covers approximately the age from 10-11 to 14-15 years. Accordingly, youth begins earlier. Early adolescence (15-17 years old) is only the beginning of this complex stage of development, which ends around 20-21 years old.
The development of self-awareness in adolescence and early adolescence is so vivid and obvious that its characteristics and assessment of its significance for the formation of personality during these periods are practically the same among researchers of different schools and directions. the authors are quite unanimous in describing how the process of development of self-awareness occurs during this period: at about 11 years of age, a teenager develops an interest in his own inner world, then a gradual complication and deepening of self-knowledge is noted, at the same time there is an increase in its differentiation and generalization, which leads to early adolescence age (15-16 years) to the formation of a relatively stable idea of oneself, self-concept; By the age of 16-17, a special personal new formation arises, which in the psychological literature is designated by the term “self-determination.” From the point of view of the subject’s self-awareness, it is characterized by awareness of oneself as a member of society and is concretized in a new, socially significant position.
The growth of self-awareness and interest in one’s own “I” in adolescents follows directly from the processes of puberty, physical development, which is at the same time social symbols, signs of growing up and maturation, which are paid attention to and closely followed by others, adults and peers. The contradictory position of a teenager and a young man, a change in the structure of his social roles and level of aspirations - these factors actualize the question: “Who am I?” ”
The posing of this question is a natural result of all previous development of the psyche. The growth of independence means nothing more than a transition from a system of external control to self-government. But any self-government requires information about the object. With self-government, this should be the object’s information about itself, i.e. self-awareness.
The most valuable psychological acquisition of early youth is the discovery of one’s inner world. For a child, the only conscious reality is the external world, into which he projects his imagination. While fully aware of his actions, the child usually is not yet aware of his own mental states. On the contrary, for a teenager and young man, the external, physical world is only one of the possibilities of subjective experience, the focus of which is himself. Gaining the ability to immerse himself and enjoy his experiences, a teenager discovers a whole world of new feelings, the beauty of nature, the sounds of music, the feeling of his own body. A 14-15 year old boy begins to perceive and comprehend his emotions no longer as derivatives of some external events, but as states of his own “I”. Even objective, impersonal information often stimulates a young person to introspect, to think about himself and his problems.
Youth is especially sensitive to “internal” psychological problems. The older (not only in age, but in level of development) a teenager, the more he is concerned about the psychological content of the action taking place, reality, and the less the “external” event context means to him.
Discovering your inner world is a very important, joyful and exciting event, but it also causes a lot of anxiety and drama. Along with the awareness of one’s uniqueness, originality, and difference from others comes a feeling of loneliness. The youthful “I” is not yet defined, vague, diffuse, it is often experienced as vague anxiety or a feeling of inner emptiness that needs to be filled with something. Hence, the need for communication increases and at the same time the selectivity of communication and the need for privacy increases.
Before adolescence, differences from others attracted the child’s attention only in exceptional, conflicting circumstances. His “I” is practically reduced to the sum of his identifications with various significant others. For teenagers and young men, the situation changes. Orientation simultaneously towards several significant others makes his psychological situation uncertain and internally conflicting. The unconscious desire to get rid of previous identifications makes him active in reflection, and also activates the feeling of his own specialness, difference from others, which causes a feeling of loneliness or fear of loneliness that is very characteristic of early youth.
The development of self-awareness, like any complex mental new formation, goes through a series of successive stages. From this point of view, early adolescence can be characterized as the beginning of the formation of a new level of self-awareness, as a period of development and deepening of integrative qualities. Intensive development of that level of self-awareness will occur in adolescence. Its specific features - increasing the significance for the formation of the self-concept of the system of one's own values and strengthening the personal, psychological, dynamic aspect of perception - allow us to evaluate it as a level characteristic of a mature personality.
One of the main mechanisms of self-knowledge by a teenager or young man of himself and his inner world is personal reflection, which, in contrast to logical reflection aimed at solving problems, is understood as an activity of personal self-knowledge, as a special research act in which a person does not just explore his inner the world, but at the same time also explores himself as a researcher. The phenomenon of personal reflection is reflexive expectations, which are understood as a person’s ideas about what the people who make up his social circle think about him. other people.
In the qualitative development of reflexive analysis, which underlies the formation of reflexive expectations, the following age-related changes are observed:
1). Reflexive analysis concerns mainly the individual actions of a child (9-12 years old), and even in this form it manifests itself only in a small proportion of children.
2). Reflective analysis concerns the character of the person himself. Starting from the age of 12-13, the main thing in reflexive analysis is the study of one’s character, the characteristics of one’s personality.
3). Reflective analysis is carried out with self-bias, a surge of self-criticism is observed, as a result of which one’s own negative character traits and affective experiences about one’s own negative traits are revealed (13-14 years old).
4). Reflexive analysis concerns the character of a person, the characteristics of communication (15-16 years old). At the same time, self-criticism fades into the background, the attitude towards oneself is calm and benevolent. Various difficulties in relationships are explained by a lack of understanding of others. During the transition from adolescence to early adolescence, personal reflection loses its affective connotation in relation to the person’s “I” and takes place against a calmer emotional background.
The depth and intensity of youth reflection depend on many social (social background and environment, level of education), individual typological (degree of introversion-extraversion) and biographical (conditions of family upbringing, relationships with peers, nature of reading) factors, the relationship of which has not yet been sufficiently studied.
The development of personal reflection is reflected in the characteristics of the self-concept in early adolescence.

2.2 FEATURES OF SELF-CONCEPT IN EARLY YOUTH

Psychological research into the formation of a person’s self-concept in the process of his life activity proceeds in several directions. First of all, shifts in the content of the self-concept and its components are studied - which qualities are recognized better, how the level and criteria of self-esteem changes with age, what importance is attached to appearance, and what to mental and moral qualities. Next, the degree of its reliability and objectivity is examined, changes in the structure of the self-image as a whole are traced - the degree of its differentiation (cognitive complexity), internal consistency (integrity), stability (stability over time), subjective significance, contrast, as well as the level of self-esteem. In all these indicators, adolescence differs markedly from both childhood and adulthood; there is a line in this regard between a teenager and a young man.
In early adolescence, there is a gradual change in the “objective” components of the self-concept, in particular, the relationship between the bodily and moral-psychological components of one’s self. The young man gets used to his appearance, forms a relatively stable image of his body, accepts his appearance and accordingly stabilizes the level of aspirations associated with it. Gradually, other properties of the “I” now come to the fore - mental abilities, volitional and moral qualities, on which the success of activities and relationships with others depend.
Judging by the available data, the conitive complexity and differentiation of the elements of the self-image consistently increase from younger to older ages, without noticeable breaks or crises. Adults distinguish more qualities in themselves than young men, young men - more than teenagers, teenagers - more than children. According to research by Bernstein (1980), the ability of older adolescents to reconstruct personal qualities is based on the development at this age of a more fundamental cognitive ability - abstraction.
The interactive tendency, on which the internal consistency and integrity of the self-image depends, intensifies with age, but somewhat later than the ability to abstract. Adolescent and young adult self-descriptions are better organized and structured than children's; they are grouped around several central qualities. However, the uncertainty of the level of aspirations and the difficulties of reorientation from external assessment to self-esteem give rise to a number of internal substantive contradictions of self-awareness, which serve as a source of further development. When adding the phrase “I am in my mind...”, many young men emphasize precisely their inconsistency: “In my mind I am a genius + a nonentity.”
Data on the stability of the self-image are not entirely clear. In principle, it, like the stability of other attitudes and value orientations, increases with age. Self-descriptions of adults are less dependent on random, situational circumstances. However, in adolescence and early adolescence, self-esteem sometimes changes very dramatically.
As for the contrast, the degree of clarity of the image of the Self, growth also occurs here: from childhood to adolescence and from youth to maturity, a person is more clearly aware of his individuality, his differences from others and attaches more importance to them, so that the image of the Self becomes one of the central attitudes of the personality , with which she relates her behavior. However, with a change in the content of the self-image, the degree of significance of its individual components on which the person focuses attention changes significantly. In early youth, the scale of self-esteem becomes noticeably larger: “internal” qualities are recognized later than “external” ones, but older people attach greater importance to them. An increase in the degree of awareness of one’s experiences is often accompanied by hypertrophied attention to oneself and egocentrism. This happens often in early youth
Research on the content of the self-image, conducted under the leadership of I.V. Dubrovina, showed that at the border of adolescence and early adolescence, significant changes occur in the development of the cognitive component of the self-concept, characterizing the transition of self-awareness to a new higher level.
Age-related shifts in human perception include an increase in the number of descriptive categories used, an increase in flexibility and certainty in their use; increasing the level of selectivity, consistency, complexity and systematicity of this information; the use of more subtle assessments and connections; increased ability to analyze and explain human behavior; a concern appears for the accurate presentation of the material, a desire to make it convincing. Similar trends are observed in the development of self-characteristics, which become more generalized, differentiated and correlate with a larger number of “significant persons.” Self-descriptions in early adolescence are much more personal and psychological in nature than at the age of 12-14, and at the same time more strongly emphasize differences from other people.
A teenager’s or young man’s idea of himself always correlates with the group image of “we” - a typical peer of his gender, but never completely coincides with this “we”. High school students evaluate images of their own “I” much more subtly and tenderly than the group “we.” Young men consider themselves less strong, less sociable and cheerful, but more kind and capable of understanding another person than their peers. Girls attribute to themselves less sociability, but greater sincerity, fairness and loyalty.
The exaggeration of one’s own uniqueness, characteristic of many teenagers, usually goes away with age, but by no means by a weakening of the individual principle. On the contrary, the older and more developed a person is, the more differences he finds between himself and his “average” peer. Hence the intense need for psychological intimacy, which would be both self-disclosure and penetration into the inner world of another. Awareness of one's dissimilarity from others logically and historically precedes the understanding of one's deep inner connection and unity with the people around us.
The most noticeable changes in the content of self-descriptions, in the image of the self, are detected at 15-16 years of age. These changes go along the lines of greater subjectivity and psychological descriptions. It is known that in the perception of another person the psychologization of the description increases sharply after 15 years. The increasing subjectivity of self-descriptions is revealed in the fact that with age, the number of subjects increases, indicating the variability, situationality of their character, and the fact that they feel their growth and maturation.
In studies of cognitive dissonance of the self-image, it was found that self-descriptions and descriptions of another person according to this parameter differ significantly (Nisbet, according to V.P. Trusov). A person describes himself, emphasizing the variability, flexibility of his behavior, its dependence on the situation; in the descriptions of the other, on the contrary, indications of stable personal characteristics predominate, stably determining his behavior in a wide variety of situations. In other words, an adult tends to perceive himself, focusing on the subjective characteristics of dynamism, variability, and the other - as an object with relatively unchangeable properties. This “dynamic” perception of oneself arises during the transition to early adolescence at 14-16 years of age.
The formation of a new level of self-awareness in early youth follows the directions identified by L.S. Vygotsky - the integration of the self-image, its “movement” from “outside to inside.” During this age period, a change occurs from a certain “objectivist” view of oneself “from the outside” to a subjective, dynamic position “from the inside.”
V.F. Safin characterizes this significant difference in the way younger and older teenagers view themselves as follows: a teenager is focused primarily on finding an answer, “how he is among others, how similar he is to them,” an older teenager - “what he is like in the eyes of others how different he is from others and how similar or close he is to his ideal.” V.A Alekseev emphasizes that a teenager is a “personality for others,” while a young man is a “personality for himself.” The theoretical research of I.I. Chesnokova indicates the presence of two levels of self-knowledge: the lower - “I and the other person” and the higher - “I and I”; the specificity of the second is expressed in an attempt to correlate one’s behavior “with the motivation that he realizes and which determines it.”
We have already noted that the components of the self-concept are amenable to only conditional conceptual differentiation, since psychologically they are inextricably interconnected. Therefore, the cognitive component of self-awareness, the self-image, its formation in early adolescence, is directly related to both the emotional-evaluative component, self-esteem, and the behavioral, regulatory side of the self-concept.
During the period of transition from adolescence to early adolescence, as part of the formation of a new level of self-awareness, a new level of attitude towards oneself also develops. One of the central points here is the change in the basis for the criteria for evaluating oneself, one’s “I” - they are replaced “from the outside in,” acquiring qualitatively different forms, compared with the criteria for a person’s evaluation of other people. The transition from private self-esteem to a general, holistic one (change of bases) creates conditions for the formation, in the true sense of the word, of one’s own attitude towards oneself, quite autonomous from the attitudes and assessments of others, private successes and failures, all kinds of situational influences, etc. It is important to note that the assessment of individual qualities and aspects of the personality plays a subordinate role in such an attitude towards oneself, and the leading one is some general, holistic “self-acceptance”, “self-respect”. It is in early adolescence (15-17 years old), based on the development of one’s own value system, that an emotional and value-based attitude towards oneself is formed, i.e. “operative self-esteem” begins to be based on the consistency of behavior, one’s own views and beliefs, and performance results.
At the age of 15-16, the problem of the discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self becomes especially acute. According to I.S. Kon, this discrepancy is completely normal, a natural consequence of cognitive development. During the transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond, self-criticism increases. Thus, in the essays of tenth-graders studied by E.K. Matlin, describing their own personality, there are 3.5 times more critical statements than in fifth-graders. GDR psychologists note the same trend. Most often in early youth they complain about weakness of will, instability, susceptibility to influences, etc., as well as such shortcomings as capriciousness, unreliability, and touchiness.
The discrepancy between the real Self and the ideal Self images is a function of not only age, but also intelligence. In intellectually developed young men there is a discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self, i.e. between those properties that an individual ascribes to himself and those that he would like to possess is significantly greater than those of their peers with average intellectual abilities.
One of the important indicators of the behavioral component of the self-concept is the dynamics of the level of aspirations under the influence of success or failure when performing tasks of varying degrees of difficulty. Starting with the classic work of F. Hoppe, the level of aspirations is seen as generated by two contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, to maintain one’s “I”, self-esteem at the highest possible level and, on the other, to reduce one’s aspirations in order to avoid failure and thereby not cause damage self-esteem (F. Hoppe, 1930, according to Dubrovina I.V.,).
Some researchers (see: B.V. Zeigarnik, B.S. Bratus) believe that adolescence is characterized by an active desire to realize in various ways only the first of these tendencies, while a mature personality, on the contrary, is characterized by the ability to separate these tendencies in the course of activity, primarily due to the fact that success or failure in a specific activity is perceived precisely as a specific failure, and not a collapse of self-esteem as a whole.
According to the studies conducted, during the transition to early adolescence, there is a change in the characteristics of the level of aspirations towards greater personal maturity. It is important to note that it goes in the opposite direction to the changes that occur during this period in self-knowledge, self-image and attitude towards oneself. If the latter are characterized, as shown above, by increasing integrity and integrativeness, then the attitude towards the results of one’s own activities is characterized by differentiation, the formation of the ability to separate success or failure in a specific activity from assessing oneself as an individual.
Thus, in early adolescence, as part of the formation of a new level of self-awareness, the formation of a relatively stable idea of oneself, the self-concept, occurs. By the age of 16-17, a special personal new formation arises, which in the psychological literature is designated by the term “self-determination.”
In the next chapter, we consider various approaches to understanding this psychological phenomenon and reveal the psychological meaning of this concept in relation to early adolescence and the relationship between the concepts of “I-concept” and “personal self-determination.”

CHAPTER 2. PERSONAL SELF-DETERMINATION
PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY YOUTH

A senior student is on the verge of entering an independent working life. He is faced with fundamental tasks of social and personal self-determination. A young man and a girl should be (are they?) concerned about many serious questions: how to find their place in life, choose a business in accordance with their capabilities and abilities, what is the meaning of life, how to become a real person, and many others.
Psychologists who study issues of personality formation at this stage of ontogenesis associate the transition from adolescence to adolescence with a sharp change in the internal position, which consists in the fact that aspiration to the future becomes the main orientation of the individual and the problem of choosing a profession, further life path is in the center of attention of interests and plans high school students.
A young man (girl) strives to take the internal position of an adult, to recognize himself as a member of society, to define himself in the world, i.e. understand yourself and your capabilities along with understanding your place and purpose in life.
In practice, it has become generally accepted to consider personal self-determination as the main psychological new formation of early adolescence, since it is in self-determination that the most essential thing that appears in the circumstances of the life of high school students lies, in the requirements for each of them. This largely characterizes the social situation of development in which personality formation occurs during this period.

2.1. PERSONAL SELF-DETERMINATION AS
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM

The strengthening of the personal approach in psychology has led to the enrichment of its language with concepts reflecting those aspects of the sphere of personality development that previously remained outside the scope of psychological analysis. Such concepts, in addition to the already discussed concept of “I-concept,” should include the concept of “personal self-determination” or “personal self-determination,” widespread today in psychological and pedagogical literature.
The term “self-determination” is used in the literature in a variety of meanings. This is how they talk about personal self-determination, social, life, professional, moral, family, religious. Moreover, even identical terms often mean different content. In order to come to a fairly clear definition of the concept, it is necessary from the very beginning to distinguish between two approaches to self-determination: sociological and psychological. This is all the more important because quite often there is a confusion of these approaches and the introduction of a specifically sociological approach into psychological research (and psychological theorizing), which leads to the loss of the actual psychological content.
From the point of view of the sociological approach to self-determination (see, for example, it refers to the generation as a whole; it characterizes its entry into social structures and spheres of life. Without considering here the interrelations and relationships of sociology and psychology, research methods, we will only point out that in relation to to self-determination, which in sociology is understood as the result of entering into a certain social structure and recording this result, the psychologist is primarily interested in the process, i.e., the psychological mechanisms that determine any entry of an individual into social structures. criterion, most of the available literature on self-determination refers to a sociological approach; the number of works that examine the actual psychological mechanisms of self-determination is extremely limited.
The methodological foundations of the psychological approach to the problem of self-determination were laid by S.L. Rubinstein. He considered the problem of self-determination in the context of the problem of determination, in the light of the principle he put forward - external causes act, refracted through internal conditions: “The thesis according to which external causes act through internal conditions so that the effect of influence depends on the internal properties of the object means, essentially , that any determination is necessary as determination by others, external, and as self-determination (determination of the internal properties of an object).” In this context, self-determination appears as self-determination, as opposed to external determination; the concept of self-determination thus expresses the active nature of “internal conditions.” In relation to the level of a person, the concept of self-determination for S.L. Rubinstein expresses the very essence, the meaning of the principle of determinism: “its meaning lies in emphasizing the role of the internal moment of self-determination, self-fidelity, non-unilateral submission to the external” [67; 382] . Moreover, “the very specificity of human existence lies in the degree of correlation between self-determination and determination by others (conditions, circumstances), in the nature of self-determination in connection with the presence of consciousness and action in a person.”
Thus, at the level of a specific psychological theory, the problem of self-determination looks like this. For a person, “external causes”, “external determination” are social conditions and social determination. Self-determination, understood as self-determination, is, strictly speaking, a mechanism of social determination, which cannot act otherwise than by being actively refracted by the subject himself. The problem of self-determination, therefore, is a key problem of interaction between the individual and society, in which the main points of this interaction are highlighted: the social determination of individual consciousness (more broadly, the psyche) and the role of the subject’s own activity in this determination. At different levels, this interaction has its own specific characteristics, which are reflected in various psychological theories on the problem of self-determination.
So, at the level of interaction between a person and a group, this problem was analyzed in detail in the works of A.V. Petrovosky on collectivistic self-determination of personality (CSR). In these works, self-determination is viewed as a phenomenon of group interaction. CSR manifests itself in special, specially constructed situations of group pressure - situations of a kind of “strength test” - in which this pressure is carried out contrary to the values accepted by this group itself. It is “the individual’s way of responding to group pressure”; The ability of an individual to carry out an act of CSR is his ability to act in accordance with his internal values, which are also the values of the group.
The approach outlined by S.L. Rubinstein is developed in her works by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, for whom the central point of self-determination is also self-determination, one’s own activity, a conscious desire to take a certain position. According to K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, self-determination is an individual’s awareness of his position, which is formed within the coordinates of the system of relations. At the same time, she emphasizes that the self-determination and social activity of the individual depends on how the system of relations develops (to the collective subject, to one’s place in the team and to its other members) [1; 155].
An attempt to build a general approach to individual self-determination in society was made by V.F. Safin and G.P. Nikov. In psychological terms, revealing the essence of personal self-determination, as the authors believe, cannot but rely on the subjective side of self-awareness - awareness of one’s “I”, which acts as an internal cause of social maturation. They proceed from the characteristics of a “self-determined personality,” which for the authors is synonymous with a “socially mature” personality. In psychological terms, a self-determined personality is “a subject who has realized what he wants (goals, life plans, ideals), what he can (his capabilities, inclinations, gifts), what he is (his personal and physical properties), what he wants from him.” or the collective, society is waiting; a subject ready to function in the system of social relations. self-determination, therefore, is “a relatively independent stage of specialization, the essence of which is the formation in the individual of an awareness of the purpose and meaning of life, readiness for independent life activities based on the correlation of his desires, existing qualities, capabilities and demands placed on him from others and society ". The main criteria for the boundaries and stages of self-determination “should be considered the level of a person’s understanding of the meaning of life, a change in the reproductive type of activity and the completeness of the level of correlation between “want” - “can” - “is” - “demand” from a particular individual.” The stages of self-determination identified by the authors actually represent the currently generally accepted stages of age-related periodization in Russian psychology, identified on the basis of a change in leading activity. As for the “factors and conditions” of self-determination and its particular forms, here the psychological content and psychological criteria are replaced by sociological ones. Thus, “the factors and conditions of self-determination are similar to the factors of socialization,” these are those socially determined events that are usually taken into account as criteria in sociological studies: admission to the Komsomol, completion of the eighth grade, obtaining a passport, a matriculation certificate, voting rights, the possibility of marriage. Private forms of self-determination are directly borrowed from sociological works: these are role, social self-determination and self-determination in the family and everyday sphere. Thus, the authors apply a more sociological rather than a psychological approach to the problem of personal self-determination.
Of interest are the views of different authors on the psychological mechanisms of self-determination.
Although A.V. Mudrik does not have a clear concept of self-determination, the mechanisms of self-determination (identification - isolation) considered by him are of interest. The author says that self-determination of a person presupposes both the assimilation of the experience accumulated by mankind, which in the psychological plane of the “I” proceeds as imitation and identification (assimilation), and the formation in an individual of unique properties inherent only to him, which proceeds as personification (isolation) . Identification, following imitation and conformity, is the leading principle, determining the personification of the individual. That is why identification and personification are a dual process and a mechanism of self-determination.
V.F.Safin and G.P.Nikov consider the driving force behind personal self-determination to be the contradiction between “I want” - “I can” - “I have” - “You must,” which transforms into “I am obliged, I cannot do otherwise.” Based on this, the authors argue that the correlation of these elements, i.e. self-esteem, next to identification, is the second mechanism for personal self-determination, without which personification is impossible. When they interact, the first mechanism primarily serves the behavioral aspect of self-determination, the second - the cognitive one. In other words, the specific form of manifestation of self-awareness - self-esteem - in relation to the self-concept acts as an evaluative aspect, while in relation to self-determination, in principle, it acts as its cognitive aspect, one of the mechanisms, and therefore it is an internal condition for self-regulation of behavior.
In the age aspect, the problem of self-determination was considered most deeply and fully by L.I. Bozhovich (see). Characterizing the social situation of development of senior schoolchildren, she points out that the choice of a future life path, self-determination is the affective center of their life situation. emphasizing the importance of self-determination, L.I. Bozhovich does not give it an unambiguous definition; this is “the choice of a future path, the need to find one’s place in work, in society, in life”, “the search for the purpose and meaning of one’s existence”, “the need to find one’s place in the general flow of life.” Perhaps the most capacious definition of the need for self-determination as the need to merge generalized ideas about the world and generalized ideas about oneself into a single semantic system and thereby determine the meaning of one’s own existence. In his later work, L.I. Bozhovich characterizes self-determination as a personal new formation of high school age, associated with the formation of the internal position of an adult, with awareness of oneself as a member of society, with the need to solve the problems of one’s future.
There is one more point that should be specially mentioned. L.I. Bozhovich recorded an extremely significant characteristic of self-determination, which lies in its two-dimensionality: self-determination is carried out “through the business choice of a profession and through general, devoid of specificity, search for the meaning of one’s existence.” By the end of adolescence, according to L.I. Bozhovich, this duality is eliminated. “However, the psychological side of this process has not been traced by anyone anywhere yet.” We will return to the understanding of this phenomenon in modern psychological literature a little later. Now we note that 15 years after these words were written, S.P. Kryagzhde pointed out the same gap in our knowledge in almost the same words. Considering the problem of choosing a profession, he notes that “neither in the psychological nor in the sociological literature there is an answer to the question of how the transition from romantic orientation to real choice occurs.”
The works of L.I. Bozhovich give a lot for understanding the psychological nature of self-determination. Firstly, she shows that the need for self-determination arises at a certain stage of ontogenesis - at the turn of late adolescence and early adolescence, and substantiates the need for this need to arise with the logic of personal and social development of a teenager.. Secondly, the need for self-determination is considered as the need for the formation of a certain semantic system, in which ideas about the world and about oneself are merged; the formation of this semantic system implies finding an answer to the question about the meaning of one’s own existence; thirdly, self-determination is inextricably linked with such an essential characteristic of older adolescence and early adolescence as aspiration for the future; and, finally, fourthly, self-determination implies the choice of profession, but is not limited to it (“associated” with the choice of profession). At the same time, the concept of self-determination in L.I. Bozhovich remains quite vague and undifferentiated; Mechanisms of self-determination are not considered either.
I.V. Dubrovina clarifies the problem of self-determination as a central point in early adolescence. Results of the conducted research. allow us to assert that the main psychological new formation of early adolescence should be considered not self-determination as such (personal, professional, more broadly - life), but psychological readiness for self-determination, which presupposes: a) the formation of psychological structures at a high level, especially self-awareness; b) the development of needs that ensure the meaningful fulfillment of the personality, among which the central place is occupied by moral attitudes, value orientations and time perspectives; c) the formation of prerequisites for individuality as a result of the development and awareness of their abilities and interests by each high school student. At the same time, psychological readiness to enter adult life and take a place worthy of a person in it does not presuppose psychological structures and qualities that are complete in their formation, but a certain maturity of the individual, which consists in the fact that a high school student has formed psychological formations and mechanisms that provide him with the opportunity (psychological readiness) for continuous growth of his personality now and in the future.
In foreign psychology, the category “psychosocial identity”, developed and introduced into scientific circulation by the American scientist Erik Erikson, serves as an analogue of the concept of “personal self-determination”. The central point, through the prism of which the entire formation of personality in adolescence, including its youthful stage, is viewed, is the “normative crisis of identity.” The term “crisis” is used here in the sense of a turning point, a critical point of development, when both the vulnerability and the growing potential of the individual are equally exacerbated, and he is faced with a choice between two alternative possibilities, one of which leads to a positive one, and the other to a negative one. directions. The word “normative” has the connotation that a person’s life cycle is considered as a series of successive stages, each of which is characterized by a specific crisis in the relationship of the individual with the outside world, and all together determine the development of a sense of identity.
The main task that faces an individual in early adolescence, according to Erikson, is the formation of a sense of identity as opposed to the role uncertainty of the personal “I”. The young man must answer the questions: “Who am I?” and “What is my path forward?” In the search for personal identity, a person decides what actions are important to him and develops certain norms for evaluating his own behavior and the behavior of other people. This process is also associated with awareness of one's own worth and competence.
The most important mechanism for identity formation is, according to Erikson, the consistent identification of a child with an adult, which constitutes a necessary prerequisite for the development of psychosocial identity in adolescence. A teenager's sense of identity develops gradually; its source is various identifications rooted in childhood. The teenager is already trying to develop a unified picture of the worldview, in which all these values and assessments must be synthesized. In early youth, an individual strives to re-evaluate himself in relationships with loved ones, with society as a whole - physically, socially and emotionally. He works hard to discover the various facets of his self-concept and finally become himself, because all the previous methods of self-determination seem unsuitable to him.
The search for identity can be resolved in different ways. One way to deal with identity issues is to try out different roles. Some young people, after role-playing experimentation and moral quest, begin to move towards one goal or another. Others may avoid an identity crisis altogether. These include those who unconditionally accept the values of their family and choose the career predetermined by their parents. Some young people face significant difficulties on their long-term search for identity. Often, identity is achieved only after a painful period of trial and error. In some cases, a person never manages to achieve a strong sense of his own identity.
The main danger that, according to Erikson, a young man must avoid during this period is the erosion of his sense of self, due to confusion and doubt about the ability to direct his life in a certain direction.
Canadian psychologist Marchais (1966) identified four stages of identity development:
1. Identity uncertainty. The individual has not yet chosen for himself any specific beliefs and any specific professional direction. He hasn't yet faced an identity crisis.
2. Preliminary identification. The crisis has not yet arrived, but the individual has already set some goals for himself and put forward beliefs that are mainly a reflection of the choices made by others.
3. Moratorium. Crisis stage. the individual actively explores possible options for identity in the hope of finding the only one that he can consider his own.
4. Achieving identity. The individual emerges from the crisis, finds his own well-defined identity, choosing on this basis his occupation and ideological orientation.
These stages reflect the general logical sequence of identity formation, but this does not mean that each of them is a necessary condition for the next one. Only the moratorium stage, in essence, inevitably precedes the stage of achieving identity, since the search occurring during this period serves as a prerequisite for solving the problem of self-determination.
The idea of a typology of identity development and options for growing up in early adolescence is gaining increasing popularity in Russian psychology. It is shown that the stages of self-determination (they are also levels and types of personality development) are a holistic formation, where different personal variables are systemically related to each other. Each of them is characterized by its own inherent psychological difficulties.
An idea of the current state of the problem of self-determination would be incomplete without considering professional self-determination. Of the entire range of issues related to self-determination, issues of professional self-determination have been developed in psychology in the most detail. It is not our intention to analyze the extensive literature on professional self-determination (see). We will dwell only on a few characteristics of this type of self-determination related to our problems, in particular, on the question of the connection between social (social choice) and professional self-determination. Thus, S.P. Kryagzhde notes that at the initial stage of professional self-determination it is of a dual nature: either a choice of a specific profession is made, or a choice of only its rank, a professional school is a social choice. Referring to a number of authors who note this phenomenon, S.P. Kryagzhde points out that if a specific professional self-determination has not yet been formed, then the young man (girl) uses a generalized option, postponing its specification for the future. Thus, according to the author, social self-determination represents limiting oneself to a certain range of professions; This is, as it were, a qualitatively lower level of professional self-determination. This understanding, however, is not generally accepted. Thus, F.R. Filippov, who also understands social orientation as an orientation towards certain types of work, emphasizes the independent significance of this orientation for the formation of a life plan. Apparently, here we should talk not only about orientation to the nature of work, but about a broader and personally significant orientation to a certain place or, more precisely, level in the system of social relations, to a certain social status.
Thus, despite the seemingly detailed study of the problem of professional self-determination, the most important questions remain unresolved: what is the connection between social and professional self-determination, and most importantly, what lies behind both. The unresolved nature of these problems is explained by the lack of a unified theory of self-determination in adolescence and youth.
In modern psychological literature, the most complete and successful, in our opinion, approach to creating such a theory was proposed in the works of the domestic psychologist M.R. Ginzburg. Further, based on this approach, we consider the psychological content of personal self-determination in early adolescence.

2.2. PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTENT OF PERSONALITY
SELF-DETERMINATION IN EARLY YOUTH

The basis from which the author approaches solving the problem of self-determination is the idea of the value-semantic nature of personal self-determination.
For such an understanding of the problem of personal self-determination, an extremely significant point should be noted: the level of personality is the level of value-semantic determination, the level of existence in the world of meanings and values. As B.V. Zeigarnik and B.S. Bratus point out, for the individual, “the main plane of movement is moral and value-based. Let us emphasize a few more provisions of these authors (see also B.S. Bratus, P.I. Sidorov), which are close to M.R. Ginzburg’s understanding of these problems and allow us to better understand his approach to self-determination. So, the first point is that the existence of meanings in the world is an existence on the actual personal level (this was pointed out by L.S. Vygotsky); the area of meanings and values is the area in which the interaction between the individual and society occurs; values and meanings are, strictly speaking, the language of this interaction. The second point is the leading role of values for the formation of personality: Confession of values consolidates the unity and self-identity of the individual, for a long time determining the main characteristics of the personality, its core, its morality, its ethics. Value is acquired by the individual, since “... there is no other way to deal with value other than its holistic and personal experience. Thus, the acquisition of value is the acquisition by a person of himself. And the third is the functions of semantic education identified by B.V. Zeigarnik and B.S. Bratus: the creation of a standard, an image of the future and the assessment of activity from its moral, semantic side.
Value orientations are elements of the personality structure that characterize the content side of its orientation. In the form of value orientations, as a result of acquiring values, the essential, most important for a person is recorded. Value orientations are stable, invariant formations (“units”) of moral consciousness - its basic ideas, concepts, “value blocks,” semantic components of a worldview that express the essence of human morality, and therefore general cultural and historical conditions and prospects. Their content is changeable and mobile. The system of value orientations acts as a “collapsed” program of life activity and serves as the basis for the implementation of a certain personality model. The sphere where the social turns into the personal and the personal becomes social, where individual value and worldview differences are exchanged is communication.
Value is one of the main mechanisms of interaction between the individual and society, the individual and culture. This position is central to the so-called humanistic-axiological approach to culture, according to which culture is understood as a world of embodied values; “the scope of application of the concept of value is the human world of culture and social reality.” Values are people's generalized ideas about goals and norms
etc.................

A person’s self-concepts in the process of his life go in several directions. First of all, shifts in the content of the Self - the concept and its components - are studied - which qualities are recognized better, how the level and criteria of self-esteem changes with age, what importance is attached to appearance, and what to mental and moral qualities. Next, the degree of its reliability and objectivity is examined, changes in the structure of the self-image as a whole are traced - the degree of its differentiation (cognitive complexity), internal consistency (integrity), sustainability (stability over time), subjective significance, contrast, as well as the level of self-esteem. In all these indicators, adolescence differs markedly from both childhood and adulthood; there is a line in this regard between a teenager and a young man.

In early adolescence, there is a gradual change in the “objective” components of the self - concepts, in particular, the relationship between the bodily and moral-psychological components of one’s self. The young man gets used to his appearance, forms a relatively stable image of his body, accepts his appearance and accordingly stabilizes the level of aspirations associated with it. Gradually, other properties of the “I” now come to the fore - mental abilities, volitional and moral qualities, on which the success of activities and relationships with others depend. The cognitive complexity and differentiation of the elements of the self-image consistently increase from younger to older ages, without noticeable breaks or crises. Adults distinguish more qualities in themselves than young men, young men - more than teenagers, teenagers - more than children.

The integrative tendency, on which internal consistency and integrity of the self-image depends, intensifies with age, but somewhat later than the ability to abstract. Adolescent and young adult self-descriptions are better organized and structured than children's; they are grouped around several central qualities. However, the uncertainty of the level of aspirations and the difficulties of reorientation from external assessment to self-esteem give rise to a number of internal substantive contradictions of self-awareness, which serve as a source of further development. When adding the phrase “I am in my mind...”, many young men emphasize precisely their inconsistency: “In my mind I am a genius + a nonentity.”

Data on the stability of the self-image are not entirely clear. Self-descriptions of adults are less dependent on random, situational circumstances. However, in adolescence and early adolescence, self-esteem sometimes changes very dramatically. Moreover, the significance of the elements of self-description and, accordingly, their hierarchy can change depending on the context, the life experience of the individual, or simply under the influence of the moment. This kind of self-description is a way to characterize the uniqueness of each personality through combinations of its individual traits (2, p. 33). Burns R.W. Development of self-concept and education. -M., 1986

As for the contrast, the degree of clarity of the image of the Self, growth also occurs here: from childhood to adolescence and from youth to maturity, a person is more clearly aware of his individuality, his differences from others and attaches more importance to them, so that the image of the Self becomes one of the central attitudes of the personality , with which she relates her behavior. However, with a change in the content of the self-image, the degree of significance of its individual components on which the person focuses attention changes significantly. In early youth, the scale of self-esteem becomes noticeably larger: “internal” qualities are recognized later than “external” ones, but older people attach greater importance to them. An increase in the degree of awareness of one’s experiences is often accompanied by hypertrophied attention to oneself and egocentrism. This happens often in early youth.

Similar trends are observed in the development of self-characteristics, which become more generalized, differentiated and correlate with a larger number of “significant persons.” Self-descriptions in early adolescence are much more personal and psychological in nature than at the age of 12-14, and at the same time more strongly emphasize differences from other people.

Young men consider themselves less strong, less sociable and cheerful, but more kind and capable of understanding another person than their peers. Girls attribute to themselves less sociability, but greater sincerity, fairness and loyalty.

The exaggeration of one’s own uniqueness, characteristic of many teenagers, usually goes away with age, but by no means by a weakening of the individual principle. On the contrary, the older and more developed a person is, the more differences he finds between himself and his “average” peer. Hence the intense need for psychological intimacy, which would be both self-disclosure and penetration into the inner world of another. Awareness of one's dissimilarity from others logically and historically precedes the understanding of one's deep inner connection and unity with the people around us.

A person describes himself, emphasizing the variability, flexibility of his behavior, its dependence on the situation; in the descriptions of the other, on the contrary, indications of stable personal characteristics predominate, stably determining his behavior in a wide variety of situations. In other words, an adult tends to perceive himself, focusing on the subjective characteristics of dynamism, variability, and the other - as an object with relatively unchangeable properties. This “dynamic” perception of oneself arises during the transition to early adolescence at 14-16 years of age.

The formation of a new level of self-awareness in early youth follows the directions identified by L.S. Vygotsky, - integrating the image of oneself, “moving” it “from the outside to the inside.” During this age period, a change occurs from a certain “objectivist” view of oneself “from the outside” to a subjective, dynamic position “from the inside.”

V.F. Safin characterizes this significant difference in the way younger and older teenagers view themselves as follows: a teenager is focused primarily on finding an answer, “how he is among others, how similar he is to them,” while an older teenager is focused on “how he is in the eyes of others, how different he is.” from others and how similar or close he is to his ideal.” The theoretical research of I.I. Chesnokova indicates the presence of two levels of self-knowledge: the lower - “I and the other person” and the higher - “I and I”; the specificity of the second is expressed in an attempt to correlate one’s behavior “with the motivation that he realizes and which determines it.

The transition from private self-esteem to a general, holistic one (change of bases) creates conditions for the formation, in the true sense of the word, of one’s own attitude towards oneself, quite autonomous from the attitudes and assessments of others, private successes and failures, all kinds of situational influences, etc. It is important to note that the assessment of individual qualities and aspects of the personality plays a subordinate role in such an attitude towards oneself, and the leading one is some general, holistic “self-acceptance”, “self-respect”.

It is in early adolescence (15-17 years old), based on the development of one’s own value system, that an emotional and value-based attitude towards oneself is formed, i.e. “operative self-esteem” begins to be based on the consistency of behavior, one’s own views and beliefs, and performance results.

At the age of 15-16, the problem of the discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self becomes especially acute. According to I.S. Kon, this discrepancy is completely normal, a natural consequence of cognitive development. During the transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond, self-criticism increases. Most often in early youth they complain about weakness of will, instability, susceptibility to influences, etc., as well as such shortcomings as capriciousness, unreliability, and touchiness.

The discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self is a function of not only age, but also intelligence. In intellectually developed young men there is a discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self, i.e. between those properties that an individual ascribes to himself and those that he would like to possess is significantly greater than that of their peers with average intellectual abilities.

From the above, it follows that there is a need to individualize education and training, to break the usual stereotypes and standards aimed at average, statistically average individuals! A student’s educational work should be intense, intense and creative. In this case, one must take into account not only objective individual differences, but also the subjective world of the developing personality, self-esteem, and self-concept. Appealing to the creative potential of students, we must take care of increasing their self-esteem and self-esteem, see the psychological difficulties and contradictions of growing up and tactfully help resolve them. A school psychologist could be of great help here.

1.2 Psychological characteristics of late youth - students

The leading activity in adolescence is educational and professional activity, therefore this period is associated with studenthood.

The term “student” is of Latin origin, translated into Russian means “hard working, studying, that is, acquiring knowledge.” Students are a special social category, a specific community of people organizationally united by an institute of higher education. Historically, this socio-professional category emerged during the emergence of the first universities in the 11th-12th centuries. Students include people who purposefully, systematically acquire knowledge and professional skills, and are supposedly engaged in hard academic work. As a social group, it is characterized by a professional orientation, a well-formed attitude towards the future profession, which are a consequence of the correctness of professional choice and the adequacy and completeness of the student’s understanding of the chosen profession. A student as a person of a certain age and as a person can be characterized from three sides:

1. With psychological, which represents the unity of psychological processes, states and personality traits. The main thing in the psychological side is mental properties (direction, temperament, character, abilities), on which the course of mental processes, the emergence of mental states, and the manifestation of mental formations depend. However, when studying a specific student, it is necessary to take into account the characteristics of each given individual, his mental processes and states.

2. With social, which embodies social relations, qualities generated by the student’s belonging to a certain social group, nationality, and so on.

3. With biological, which includes the type of higher nervous activity, the structure of analyzers, unconditioned reflexes, instincts, physical strength, physique, facial features, skin color, eyes, height, and so on. This aspect is mainly predetermined by heredity and innate inclinations, but within certain limits it changes under the influence of living conditions. (thirty)

The study of these aspects reveals the qualities and capabilities of the student, his age and personal characteristics. Thus, if we approach a student as a person of adolescence, then he will be characterized by the smallest values of the latent period of reactions to simple, combined and verbal signals, the optimum of the absolute and differential sensitivity of the analyzers, and the greatest plasticity in the formation of complex psychomotor and other skills. Compared to other ages, adolescence shows the highest speed of working memory and switching of attention, solving verbal and logical problems, and so on.

Thus, student age is characterized by the achievement of the highest, “peak” results, based on all previous processes of biological, psychological, and social development. The merit of posing the problem of students, acting as a special socio-psychological and age category, belongs to the psychological school of B.G. Ananyeva. In the studies of B.G. Ananyev, N.V. Kuzmina, Yu.N. Kulyukin, A.A. Reana, E.I. Stepanova, as well as in the works of other researchers (P. A. Prosetsky, E. M. Nikireev, V. A. Slastenin), a large amount of empirical material has been accumulated from observations, experiments and theoretical generalizations on this problem.

If we study the student as an individual, then the age of 18-20 years is the period of the most active development of moral and aesthetic feelings, the formation and stabilization of character and, most importantly, mastery of the full range of social roles of an adult: civil, professional and labor, etc. In the process of moral development, the formation of the student’s social personality occurs, i.e. the formation of such moral and ethical traits as the readiness and need to communicate with people, overcoming an indifferent attitude towards them, the emergence of interest in people, the readiness and ability to work together with them and to establish comradely and friendly relations on this basis. At the same time, friendly relations with teams or groups of people do not exclude, but, on the contrary, prepare the ground for the emergence of individual friendship. (Markelova V.A., 10.) This period is associated with the beginning of “economic activity,” by which demographers understand the inclusion of a person in independent production activities, the beginning of a work biography and the creation of his own family. The transformation of motivation, the entire system of value orientations, on the one hand, the intensive formation of special abilities in connection with professionalization, on the other, distinguish this age as the central period for the formation of character and intelligence. This was a time of sports records, artistic, technical and scientific achievements. (thirty)

Studies devoted to the personality of a student (V.T. Lisovsky, B.G. Ananyev, A.V. Dmitriev, I.S. Kon, V.T. Litovsky, Z.F. Esareva, etc.) show the inconsistency of the inner world , the difficulty of finding one’s identity and forming a bright, highly cultural individuality. Student age is also characterized by the fact that during this period many optimum developments of intellectual and physical strength are achieved.

The time of studying at a university coincides with the second period of adolescence or the first period of maturity, which is characterized by the complexity of the formation of personal traits - a process analyzed in the works of such scientists as B.G. Ananyev, A.V. Dmitriev, I.S. Kohn, V.T. Litovsky, Z.F. Esareva and others. A characteristic feature of moral development at this age is the strengthening of conscious motives of behavior. Those qualities that were completely lacking in high school are noticeably strengthened - purposefulness, determination, perseverance, independence, initiative, and the ability to control oneself. Interest in moral problems (goals, lifestyle, duty, love, fidelity, etc.) increases. At the same time, experts in the field of developmental psychology and physiology note that a person’s ability to consciously regulate his behavior at the age of 17-19 is not fully developed. Unmotivated risk and inability to foresee the consequences of one’s actions, which may not always be based on worthy motives, are common. So, V.T. Lisovsky notes that 19-20 years is the age of selfless sacrifices and complete dedication, but also of frequent negative manifestations.

Youth is a time of introspection and self-esteem. Self-esteem is carried out by comparing the “ideal self” with the real one. But the “ideal self” has not yet been verified and may be accidental, and the “real self” has not yet been comprehensively assessed by the individual himself. This objective contradiction in the development of a young person’s personality can cause internal self-doubt in him and is sometimes accompanied by external aggressiveness, swagger, or a feeling of incomprehensibility.

Adolescence, according to E. Erikson, is built around an identity crisis, consisting of a series of social and individual personal choices, identifications and self-determinations. If a young man fails to resolve these problems, he develops an inadequate identity, the development of which can proceed along four main lines: 1) withdrawal from psychological intimacy, avoidance of close interpersonal relationships; 2) erosion of the sense of time, inability to make life plans, fear of growing up and change; 3) erosion of productive, creative abilities, inability to mobilize one’s internal resources and concentrate on some main activity; 4) the formation of a “negative identity”, refusal of self-determination and the choice of negative role models (E. Erikson).

Stolyarenko L.D. highlights the psychological characteristics of late youth (18-25 years) - maturity in mental and moral terms: peak intellectual capabilities; character stabilization; conviction, established worldview; feeling new; courage, determination; ability to get carried away; optimism; independence; straightforwardness; criticality and self-criticism; self-esteem is contradictory, which causes internal uncertainty, accompanied by harshness and swagger; skeptical, critical, ironic attitude towards teachers and the regime of the educational institution; maximalism and criticality, a negative attitude towards the opinions of elders are preserved; rejection of hypocrisy, hypocrisy, rudeness, the desire to influence by shouting; making responsible decisions: choosing and mastering a profession, choosing a style and one’s place in life; choosing a life partner, creating your own family, sexual activity; formation of professional thinking, self-affirmation in the professional and social sphere, struggle for one’s “place in the sun”; mastery of a set of social roles for an adult, the beginning of “economic activity.”(30)

Personal development in adolescence is influenced by relationships that develop in the process of educational activities and in the process of communication.

“The most important form of relationship is the relationship between people - subject-subject relationships, which have naturally received the widest discussion in psychology. At the same time, communication, which is based on subject-subject interaction, acts as a special form of relationship (V. G. Ananyev, A L. Bodalev, V. N. Myasishchev, B. F. Lomov, etc.).

Lomov in this regard, noting: “Communication is one of the most important aspects of the individual form of human existence as a social being” (9. P.36). And further: “And in the process of communication, this specific form of human interaction with other people (we are talking about the individual level of being), there is a mutual exchange of activities, ideas, ideas, attitudes, interests, etc. (reference to K. Marx [T 3.S. 440-441]). In communication, a system of relations “subject - subject(s)” is formed, developed and manifested. This is precisely what constitutes the specificity of the basic connection that characterizes communication. Communication considered in this regard acts as an independent and specific form of activity of the subject. Its result is not a transformed object (material or ideal), but a relationship with another person, with other people” (9.P. 38). Understanding the specifics of such activity is extremely important. Communication is “processing of people by people.” And the understanding and evaluation of individual communication itself as a subject of psychological research is extremely important. Revealing the space and meaning of the phenomenon of communication, B.F. Lomov emphasizes: “The concept of “communication” covers a special category of really existing relationships, namely the relationship “subject - subject(s).” In the analysis of these relations, not just the actions of one or another subject or the influence of one subject on another are revealed, but also the process of their interaction, in which assistance (or opposition), agreement (or contradiction), empathy, etc. are revealed.” .

According to the definition of A.V. Petrovsky, “to communicate” means to relate to each other, consolidating existing or forming new relationships” (17. p. 21). In a single process of communication, three sides are distinguished: communicative (transfer of information), interactive (interaction) and perceptual (mutual perception) We can say that the perceptual side acts as a factor in the formation of an attitude towards the Other, and the interactive and, to a lesser extent, communicative side as a manifestation of the attitude.

In adolescence, there is an increase in the need for communication, an increase in time for communication and an expansion of its circle.(11)

In parallel with the expansion of the circle of communication, its individualization also occurs. During adolescence, the ability to establish friendships develops.(11)

Adolescence is the last age of expanding the circle of friends. Indeed, a baby communicated mainly with his mother, a young child - with his mother and with his family, a preschooler gets the opportunity to meet the first significant other adult - a kindergarten teacher, communication with peers begins to play a big role . A junior schoolchild enters the first truly social space - school. A teenager is actively exploring the streets of his neighborhood, a student is exploring the entire city. At the end of adolescence, mastering a profession, starting a family, raising a child begins - there is much less time for interpersonal communication. Maybe that’s why the so-called peak of interpersonal communication occurs in adolescence. The activity of communication in youth is also influenced by the social stereotype of a student’s perception. A student is “a carefree, cheerful person, poorly financially secure, has many friends, manages to study and communicate.” Society is lenient towards him, he is forgiven a lot, and his parents reinforce this attitude by telling funny stories from their past.(32)

The first years of the institute are characterized by communication within broad groups (from the study group to the entire course). It centers around shared celebrations and recreation.(32)

Already here the importance of fashion as a means of interpersonal communication is decreasing, which was typical for many teenagers. To blend in with a group, you do not need to conform to a specific clothing style or use any external accessories. In this regard, the attitude towards another changes; not only appearance, but also personal qualities in a peer begin to be valued.(32)

During further studies at the institute, friendly groups of 5-8 people are usually gradually formed on the basis of common interests. Friends appear outside the institute. The exchange of information begins to play an important role in communication. In the final years of the institute, the importance of companies in general decreases, preference is given to dyadic communication (communication in pairs). Transition from the system of relations “I – Others” to the system “I – Other”. (30)

Apparently, it is at this time that young people approach a crisis of intimacy, that is, the development of true openness and closeness in interpersonal contacts (E. Erikson). It should be noted that uncertainty about one’s identity, i.e. incomplete resolution of the crisis of meeting with adulthood can lead to the formation of isolation, the inability to establish stable close contacts with other people, necessary for a feeling of happiness in life. The “Image of Self” turns out to be not strong enough to connect with another. A person seems to be afraid of losing his identity by entering into a close relationship with someone. A special kind of tension arises, unable to withstand which the young man “isolates” himself or enters into formal relationships.(30)

However, a number of authors believe that a necessary condition for resolving the crisis of intimacy is not only the successful resolution of the crisis of meeting with adulthood, but also the presence of certain characteristics in the “image of the Self.” As stated by J. Powell. these characteristics can be described using various terms: self-acceptance, positive self-attitude, positive self-concept, self-love, etc. He cites a description of this phenomenon given by R. Fex, according to whom the so-called self-love is “a sense of self-esteem, self-worth,” awareness of one’s own uniqueness and faith in one’s capabilities (10)

Summarizing what has been said, we can conclude that the successful resolution of the crisis of intimacy, that is, the development of true openness and intimacy in interpersonal contacts, should, if necessary, be preceded by serious internal work on self-acceptance.(32)

It is clear that friendships established in youth do not always retain their significance throughout later life. But the ability to make such connections is formed mainly during this period. And you can observe adults suffering from the lack of such ability. They can continue to live in isolation or fluctuate from a position of almost complete merging with a person to a sharp, unmotivated withdrawal from him. Sometimes this removal is also accompanied by unmotivated conflicts.(32)

Thus, the study of attitudes towards another requires “looking inside” what happens during communication. Attitudes towards others in adolescence are formed and developed through communication. The attitude towards another is of great importance in the subjective world of adolescents; its role is significant in determining their mental well-being, in determining the pattern of their behavior.

Sex is often spontaneous, unregulated, which cannot but affect the general sexual culture of young people. 2. Social regulation and channels for sexual education of young people Puberty (puberty) is the central psychophysiological process of adolescence and youth. These processes have a significant impact on emotions, psyche and social behavior...

Assistance in the development of the personality of adolescents. 2. Based on the understanding of loneliness as a complex, multifaceted, ambivalent mental phenomenon, which is a determinant of deformed development and a resource for personality development in adolescence, a typology of loneliness was developed, which made it possible to qualify loneliness as a problem and as a resource of personal development and outline...

Sexual relationships for girls. In the group of young men, no such relationships were found. Conclusion The purpose of our study was to identify the relationships between parental and family social climate and ideas about romantic relationships in adolescence. The study was conducted from May 1 to May 20, 2008, at OSU and OGMA. The study involved university students: OSU and OGMA, in...

In early adolescence, there is a gradual change in the “objective” components of the self-concept, in particular, the relationship between the bodily and moral-psychological components of one’s self. The young man gets used to his appearance, forms a relatively stable image of his body, accepts his appearance and accordingly stabilizes the level of aspirations associated with it. Gradually, other properties of the “I” now come to the fore - mental abilities, volitional and moral qualities, on which the success of activities and relationships with others depend.

Judging by the available data, cognitive complexity And differentiation of self-image elements consistently increase from younger to older ages, without noticeable breaks or crises. Adults distinguish more qualities in themselves than young men, young men - more than teenagers, teenagers - more than children. According to research by Bernstein (1980), the ability of older adolescents to reconstruct personal qualities is based on the development at this age of a more fundamental cognitive ability - abstraction.

The integrative tendency on which internal consistency depends, integrity of self image, increases with age, but somewhat later than the ability to abstract. Adolescent and young adult self-descriptions are better organized and structured than children's; they are grouped around several central qualities. However, the uncertainty of the level of aspirations and the difficulties of reorientation from external assessment to self-esteem give rise to a number of internal substantive contradictions of self-awareness, which serve as a source of further development. When adding the phrase “I am in my mind...”, many young men emphasize precisely their inconsistency: “In my mind I am a genius + a nonentity.”

Information about stability of self-image are not entirely clear. In principle, it, like the stability of other attitudes and value orientations, increases with age. Self-descriptions of adults are less dependent on random, situational circumstances. However, in adolescence and early adolescence, self-esteem sometimes changes very dramatically.

Concerning contrast, degree of clarity of the image of the Self, then growth also occurs here: from childhood to adolescence and from youth to maturity, a person becomes more clearly aware of his individuality, his differences from others and attaches more importance to them, so that the image of the Self becomes one of the central attitudes of the personality with which he correlates his behavior. However, with a change in the content of the self-image, the degree of significance of its individual components on which the person focuses attention changes significantly. In early youth, the scale of self-esteem becomes noticeably larger: “internal” qualities are recognized later than “external” ones, but older people attach greater importance to them. An increase in the degree of awareness of one’s experiences is often accompanied by hypertrophied attention to oneself and egocentrism. This happens often in early youth

Research on the content of the self-image, conducted under the leadership of I.V. Dubrovina, showed that at the border of adolescence and early adolescence, significant changes occur in the development of the cognitive component of the self-concept, characterizing the transition of self-awareness to a new higher level.

Age-related shifts in human perception include an increase in the number of descriptive categories used, an increase in flexibility and certainty in their use; increasing the level of selectivity, consistency, complexity and systematicity of this information; the use of more subtle assessments and connections; increased ability to analyze and explain human behavior; a concern appears for the accurate presentation of the material, a desire to make it convincing. Similar trends are observed in the development of self-characteristics, which become more generalized, differentiated and correlate with a larger number of “significant persons.” Self-descriptions in early adolescence are much more personal and psychological in nature than at the age of 12-14, and at the same time more strongly emphasize differences from other people.

A teenager’s or young man’s idea of himself always correlates with the group image of “we” - a typical peer of his gender, but never completely coincides with this “we”. High school students evaluate images of their own “I” much more subtly and tenderly than the group “we.” Young men consider themselves less strong, less sociable and cheerful, but more kind and capable of understanding another person than their peers. Girls attribute to themselves less sociability, but greater sincerity, fairness and loyalty.

The most noticeable changes in the content of self-descriptions, in the image of the self, are detected at 15-16 years of age. These changes go along the lines of greater subjectivity and psychological descriptions. It is known that in the perception of another person the psychologization of the description increases sharply after 15 years. The increasing subjectivity of self-descriptions is revealed in the fact that with age, the number of subjects increases, indicating the variability, situationality of their character, and the fact that they feel their growth and maturation.

In cognitive research dissonance of the self image It was found that self-descriptions and descriptions of another person according to this parameter differ significantly (Nisbet, according to V.P. Trusov). A person describes himself, emphasizing the variability, flexibility of his behavior, its dependence on the situation; in the descriptions of the other, on the contrary, indications of stable personal characteristics predominate, stably determining his behavior in a wide variety of situations. In other words, an adult tends to perceive himself, focusing on the subjective characteristics of dynamism, variability, and the other - as an object with relatively unchangeable properties. This “dynamic” perception of oneself arises during the transition to early adolescence at 14-16 years of age.

The formation of a new level of self-awareness in early youth follows the directions identified by L.S. Vygotsky - integrating the image of oneself, “moving” it “from outside to inside”. During this age period, a change occurs from a certain “objectivist” view of oneself “from the outside” to a subjective, dynamic position “from the inside.”

V.F. Safin characterizes this significant difference in the way younger and older teenagers view themselves as follows: a teenager is focused primarily on finding an answer, “how he is among others, how similar he is to them,” an older teenager - “what he is like in the eyes of others how different he is from others and how similar or close he is to his ideal.” V.A Alekseev emphasizes that a teenager is a “personality for others,” while a young man is a “personality for himself.” The theoretical research of I.I. Chesnokova indicates the presence of two levels of self-knowledge: the lower - “I and the other person” and the higher - “I and I”; the specificity of the second is expressed in an attempt to correlate one’s behavior “with the motivation that he realizes and which determines it.”

We have already noted that the components of the self-concept are amenable to only conditional conceptual differentiation, since psychologically they are inextricably interconnected. Therefore, the cognitive component of self-awareness, the self-image, its formation in early adolescence, is directly related to both the emotional-evaluative component, self-esteem, and the behavioral, regulatory side of the self-concept.

During the period of transition from adolescence to early adolescence, as part of the formation of a new level of self-awareness, a new level of attitude towards oneself also develops. One of the central points here is the change in the basis for the criteria for evaluating oneself, one’s “I” - they are replaced “from the outside in,” acquiring qualitatively different forms, compared with the criteria for a person’s evaluation of other people. The transition from private self-esteem to a general, holistic one (change of bases) creates conditions for the formation, in the true sense of the word, of one’s own attitude towards oneself, quite autonomous from the attitudes and assessments of others, private successes and failures, all kinds of situational influences, etc. It is important to note that the assessment of individual qualities and aspects of the personality plays a subordinate role in such an attitude towards oneself, and the leading one is some general, holistic “self-acceptance”, “self-respect”. It is in early adolescence (15-17 years old), based on the development of one’s own value system, that an emotional and value-based attitude towards oneself is formed, i.e. “operative self-esteem” begins to be based on the consistency of behavior, one’s own views and beliefs, and performance results.

At 15-16 years old it is especially strong the problem of discrepancy between the real I and ideal self. According to I.S.Kon, this discrepancy is completely normal, a natural consequence of cognitive development. During the transition from childhood to adolescence and beyond, self-criticism increases. Thus, in the essays of tenth-graders studied by E.K. Matlin, describing their own personality, there are 3.5 times more critical statements than in fifth-graders. GDR psychologists note the same trend. Most often in early youth they complain about weakness of will, instability, susceptibility to influences, etc., as well as such shortcomings as capriciousness, unreliability, and touchiness.

The discrepancy between the real Self and the ideal Self images is a function of not only age, but also intelligence. In intellectually developed young men there is a discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self, i.e. between those properties that an individual ascribes to himself and those that he would like to possess is significantly greater than that of their peers with average intellectual abilities.

One of the important indicators of the behavioral component of the self-concept is the dynamics of the level of aspirations under the influence of success or failure when performing tasks of varying degrees of difficulty. Starting with the classic work of F. Hoppe, the level of aspirations is seen as generated by two contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, to maintain one’s “I”, self-esteem at the highest possible level and, on the other, to reduce one’s aspirations in order to avoid failure and thereby not cause damage self-esteem (F. Hoppe, 1930, according to Dubrovina I.V.,).

Some researchers (see: B.V. Zeigarnik, B.S. Bratus) believe that adolescence is characterized by an active desire to realize in various ways only the first of these tendencies, while a mature personality, on the contrary, is characterized by the ability to separate these tendencies in the course of activity, primarily due to the fact that success or failure in a specific activity is perceived precisely as a specific failure, and not a collapse of self-esteem as a whole.

According to the studies conducted, during the transition to early adolescence, there is a change in the characteristics of the level of aspirations towards greater personal maturity. It is important to note that it goes in the opposite direction to the changes that occur during this period in self-knowledge, self-image and attitude towards oneself. If the latter are characterized, as shown above, by increasing integrity and integrativeness, then the attitude towards the results of one’s own activities is characterized by differentiation, the formation of the ability to separate success or failure in a specific activity from assessing oneself as an individual.

Adolescence is the period of a person's life between adolescence and adulthood. Psychologists differ in determining the age limits of adolescence. In Western psychology, the prevailing tradition is to combine adolescence and youth into an age period called the period of growing up, the content of which is the transition from childhood to adulthood, and the boundaries of which can extend from 12/14 to 25 years.

In domestic science, youth is defined within the boundaries of 14 - 18 years and is considered as an independent period of human development, his personality and individuality. The age of 15 - 17 years is called early adolescence or the age of early adolescence.

Features of mental development in early adolescence are largely related to the specifics of the social situation of development, the essence of which today is that society sets before the young person the urgent, vital task of realizing professional self-determination during this period, and not only in the internal sense in the form of a dream, an intention to become someone in the future, but in terms of a real choice. If earlier this task was solved mainly by family and school, today parents often find themselves disoriented in the matter of choosing a profession and unauthoritative in the eyes of the child.

A fundamentally important characteristic of the modern situation is noted by B. D. Elkonin, defending the position that the historical period we are experiencing in the development of childhood can be characterized as a crisis; he sees the essence of this crisis in the gap, the divergence of the educational system and the system of growing up. Nowhere is this gap more clearly visible than in early adolescence. Growing up takes place outside the educational system, and education takes place outside the system of growing up. There may be two leading activities. The question of leading activity in early adolescence, which has always been debatable, remains open today.

The task of choosing a future profession and professional self-determination fundamentally cannot be successfully solved without and without solving the broader task of personal self-determination, including the construction of a holistic plan for life, self-projection of oneself into the future. L. I. Bozhovich considered looking to the future, building life plans and prospects to be the affective center of a senior schoolchild’s life. She associated the transition from adolescence to early adolescence with a change in attitude towards the future. She argues that a teenager looks at the future from the position of the present, and a boy or girl looks at the present from the position of the future.

The solution of these central tasks for a given age affects the entire process of mental development, including the development of not only the motivational sphere, but also the development of cognitive processes. By the age of fifteen to sixteen, general mental abilities have already been formed, but throughout early adolescence they continue to improve. Boys and girls master complex intellectual operations, enrich their conceptual apparatus, their mental activity becomes more stable and effective, approaching in this respect the activity of adults.

A specific feature of age is the rapid development of special abilities, often directly related to the chosen professional field. Differentiation of the orientation of interests makes the structure of the mental activity of a boy or girl much more complex and individual than at younger ages. In boys, this process begins earlier and is more pronounced than in girls. Specialization of abilities and interests makes many other individual differences more noticeable.

In early adolescence, the process of developing self-awareness continues. In youth, the discovery of oneself as a unique individual is inextricably linked with the discovery of the social world in which one will live. The questions addressed to oneself in the process of self-analysis and reflection by a young man, unlike a teenager, are more often of an ideological nature, becoming an element of social, moral or personal self-determination. Many psychologists consider self-determination as the main new formation that sums up early adolescence.

This idea of the central neoplasm of early adolescence is essentially close to the idea of identity - the concept most often encountered when describing this age by foreign researchers. The famous American psychologist E. Erikson, who coined this concept, understands identity as a person’s identity with himself and integrity. Identity is a feeling of acquisition, adequacy and personal ownership of one’s own Self, regardless of changing situations. E. Erikson associates youth with an identity crisis, which “occurs at that period of the life cycle when every young person must develop, from the effective elements of childhood and the hopes associated with the foreseeable coming of age, his main prospects and path, that is, a certain working integrity; he must determine the significant similarity between how he expects to see himself and what, according to the evidence of his heightened senses, others expect from him.”

If a young person successfully copes with the task of finding an identity, then he will have a sense of who he is, where he is and where he is going. Otherwise, “role confusion” or “identity confusion” occurs. Often “confused identity” is the result of a difficult childhood or difficult life. Research has shown, for example, that girls who exhibit sexual promiscuity at this age very often have a fragmented idea of their personality and do not correlate their promiscuity with either their intellectual level or their value system. In some cases, boys and girls strive for a “negative identity,” that is, they identify themselves with an image opposite to what their parents and friends would like to see. According to E. Erikson, in the search for one’s own identity, it is better to even identify oneself with a hippie, with a juvenile delinquent, even with a drug addict, than not to find one’s self, one’s own identity at all.

A feature of youth can be called its closeness to the history of the country, its special consonance with the era. I.V. Dubrovina notes that people, as a rule, retain their love for the rest of their lives for the music that they discovered and fell in love with in their youth, for the style of clothing that dominated then, for the type of female and male beauty that was in price and which was personified in their favorite actresses and actors, finally, to the values and ideals to which they were committed when entering adulthood.

Youth is a unique period of a person’s entry into the world of culture, when he has not only the intellectual, but also the physical opportunity to read a lot, travel, go to museums, concerts, as if being charged with the energy of culture for the rest of his life. If this chance is missed in youth, such a fresh, intense and free introduction to culture, not bound by professional, parental or any other needs, is often impossible in the future.

Youth is valued by everyone - this is an age that is bitter to part with, to which many would like to return, which in this sense is even dangerously overestimated to the detriment of other ages.

But this subjective and objective value and significance of youth make it especially important to successfully solve the developmental tasks that are set before a person in early adolescence. Researchers name various tasks, which depends on the general concept of age development shared by one or another author, and on the specific historical conditions of personality development at a given age stage.

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