Socio-psychological adaptation of the person of mature age in the crisis periods of her life

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Socio-psychological adaptation of the person of mature age in the crisis periods of her life

Spitska L.V.

Annotation

In the article features of social and psychological adaptation of the person of mature age in the crisis periods of her life are given. The analysis of the motivational structure of the personality, the role of emotional behavior regulators, the stability of cognitive functions, ensuring the efficiency of information processing, individual methods of compensation and overcoming crisis situations in persons of adulthood.

Key words: mature age, personality, socio-psychological adaptation, crisis periods of life.

Анотація

У статті наведено особливості соціально-психологічної адаптації особистості зрілого віку в кризові періоди її життя. Проведено аналіз мотиваційної структури особистості, ролі емоційних регуляторів поведінки, стійкості когнітивних функцій, що забезпечують ефективність переробки інформації, індивідуальні прийоми компенсації і подолання кризових ситуацій у осіб зрілого віку.

Ключові слова: зрілий вік, особистість, соціально-психологічна адаптація, кризові періоди життя.

Аннотация

В статье приведены особенности социально-психологической адаптации личности зрелого возраста в кризисные периоды ее жизни. Проведен анализ мотивационной структуры личности, роли эмоциональных регуляторов поведения, устойчивости когнитивных функций, обеспечивающих эффективность переработки информации, индивидуальные приемы компенсации и преодоления кризисных ситуаций у лиц зрелого возраста.

Ключевые слова: зрелый возраст, личность, социально-психологическая адаптация, кризисные периоды жизни.

Problem definition. Each person is pursued by a variety of dangers - environmental pollution, climate change, overpopulation, urbanization, terrorism, psychological overload connected with increasing requirements for life and growth of its rate and so on. In Ukraine this problem is caused by instability of socio-economic, political, social and psychological processes that negatively affect the mental stability of people and their willingness to overcome difficult and unexpected situations. Effective solution of crises is connected with ability of the society's subjects to keep professional and mental balance in difficult and unusual situations. According to psychologists, while experiencing stress, a person quickly begins to adapt to a situation, finds the right decision. Thus, attention concentration improves; a special mood for overcoming stressful situations and achieving goals appears. However, there are situations where stress threshold exceeds the capacity of a human's organism to cope with it. Self-assessment is an individual's assessment of oneself, one's capabilities, qualities and place among others. Coming into a person's core, it is an important regulator of behavior. It affects peoples' relations with others, their criticality, demands for themselves, relation to success and failure. Thus, it affects the efficiency of activity and further individual's development. It especially applies to the period when a personality is forming. During this period self-esteem is a source of the numerous problems, connected with acute emotions; and frustration and stress conditions are often their consequences. motivational cognitive crisis adult

Analysis of the recent researches and publications. Definition and aggravation of the urgency of problem to protect people from adverse environmental factors in the second half of the XX century is considered to be a prerequisite for creation and dissemination of the concept of stress. The complexity of this problem requires carrying out its development in many areas and by different methods. Among psychologists who were engaged in the problems of human adaptation to stressful situations there were S. Hall, L.S. Vygotsky, M. Klye. In addition, works of such scholars as A.G. Kovalev, F.V. Konstantinov, V.A. Krutetskiy, R. Miller, W.M. Myasishchev, B.D. Parygin, V.I. Slobodchikov, D.M. Uznadze, P.M. Fedoseyev, G.P. Frantsev and others should be mentioned.

Researchers are more interested in features of expression of stressful experiences on the psychological level: characteristic rearrangements in the structure of motivational activity, role of emotional behavior controllers, stability of different cognitive functions that ensure the effectiveness of information processing, individual compensation techniques and problem solving are analyzed. Having researched stress from the point of physiological, psychological and behavioral levels, R. Lazarus concluded that physiological stress is a direct reaction of a body, accompanied by "distinct physiological changes over the influence of different external and internal stimuli of physical and chemical nature". According to V.A. Bodrov, psychological stress is a special form of a subject's reflection of a complex, extreme situation in which he or she is located. The specificity of mental reflection is determined by processes of activities, which features (their subjective importance, intensity, duration etc.) are greatly determined by chosen or accepted goals, achievement of which leads the content activity motives. In the process of activity motives are emotionally "filled", they combine with intense emotional experiences, which play a special role in occurrence and course of mental tension condition. D. Gallagher hypothesized that assessment of events depends on the amount of available individual's resources that help to cope with the event. If an individual assesses resources as insufficient, inadequate, the event is perceived as a threat. People, who are usually resistant to stress, adequately assess their resources and perceive stressful events as changes.

According to many psychologists, a personality's structure and the basis of self-assessment are forming in the first five years of life. In studies of A.Z. Zack selfesteem is presented as a means of analyzing and understanding a subject's own ways of solving problems, on which the internal plan, the generalized scheme of an individual's activity is based. B.G. Ananiev suggested that self-esteem was the most complex and multifaceted component of consciousness (a complex process of a mediated self-discovery, which is detailed in time, associated with an individual's movement from singular situational images through the integration of similar situational images in a holistic education - the concept of the self-image).

The aim of the article: presents the particular manifestations of stress on the individual experiences of the socio-psychological level.

Presentation of the basic materials and results of the search. The term "emotional stress" in the scientific literature has undergone a number of transformations similar to those, which the term "stress" has undergone. At first, some authors have tended to understand emotional stress as a situation, which generated strong emotions. It obviously occurred due to the English meaning of the word as "an imbalance of physical force". The concept of stress due to its focus on a holistic understanding of an organism's adaptive reactions attracted the attention of experts on developing modes of a human's life activity in extreme conditions. Being enthusiastic about the study of inclusively negative for a human's organism manifestations of stress, they referred that term to those adaptive emotional responses that accompanied harmful physiological and psychophysiological changes in an organism. Affective experiences that accompany stress and lead to negative changes in human body were accordingly understood under emotional stress. When the information about the existence of a large range of physiological and psychological reactions, similar under negative and positive emotional experiences, i.e. non-specific manifestations of stress can combine with a specifically differentiated emotions, accumulated "emotional stress" began to be understood as a wide range of changes of mental manifestations accompanied by expressed non-specific changes of biochemical, electrophysiological and other correlates of stress.

H. Selye inclined to believe that a sleeping person experienced some stress even in a state of total relaxation [4]. Thus he emphasized that non-specific adaptation activity always existed in the biological system, and not only in situations, which reached a certain critical dangerous level of relations with the environment. Being a part of life activity, nonspecific adaptive processes (stress) along with specific ones help not only to overcome a clear danger, but also to make an effort for every step of life. This remark of H. Selye is not accidental.

Several researchers of biological systems adaptation tend to seek non-specific substrate, which is character to narrow fragments of adaptive activity. Similar searches are legitimate and fruitful in some sense, as one can think.

However, it leads to the fact that the term stress is assigned not to general adaptation syndrome with its physiological, psychological symptoms, but to a separate set of indicators.

Postulate about various forms of stress, about their differentiation can be admitted firstly, when concepts of different levels of difficulty or different hierarchical levels within a complex biological system - environment are defined; and secondly, because complexes of nonspecific symptoms in states, determined by the above mentioned terms, can occur only under this condition; and, finally, thirdly, because of the traditional use of this or that with the same understanding in communities of scientists.

Thus, the term stress occurs in the recent literature as: strongly unfavorable influence, negatively affecting a body; strongly unfavorable for a body physiological or psychological reaction to a stressor's effect (this variant was widely spread, but currently it is almost unused); strong both unfavorable and favorable for a body reactions of various kinds; non-specific features (elements) of physiological and psychological reactions under strong, extreme effects that cause intense manifestations of adaptation activity; non-specific features of physiological and psychological reactions of an organism that occur in any body's reactions [4].

Currently the first of these options of understanding of the term "stress" is hardly used due to the introduction the term "stressor" for a stressful agent's indication by H. Selye. Disadvantages of these two definitions are in the following: they ignore non-specification of adaptation process. Non-specification of some of its features is substituted by the idea of the urgency of the whole process. Such well known at this time evidences about the fact that non-specific features of adaptive processes occur both in negative and positive effects on the body are not taken into consideration in the first four definitions of "stress". Non-specification of physiological and psychological adaptation processes manifest in different, according to power, effects. The intensity of adaptive activity depends on the significance of an acting factor for an organism.

Therefore, the last of the interpretations of the term stress can be considered the most appropriate. The most important thing is to understand stress as non-specific physiological and psychological manifestations of adaptive activity under strong, extreme influences on a body, meaning stress in the narrow sense in this case. Nonspecific manifestations of adaptive activity under any significant factors for a body can be named as stress in a broader sense [1].

The adaptation process of an individual is always aimed at changes in people's perception of a situation and deformation of the response on it. Problems of adaptation are closely related to such concept as socialization.

The concept of socialization and adaptation are closely related. T. Shibutani treats socialization as a continuous adaptation of a living organism to the environment and ability to adapt to the reactions of others. T. Parsons determines adjustment as the main mechanism of socialization. Most researchers argue that adaptation can be seen as a part of socialization and its mechanism. So, there are two types of adaptation - psychophysiological and socio-psychosocial, which are interrelated. Thus, socio- psychological adaptation is mastering of a role by a person while he or she is entering a new social situation; it is a specific process of socialization.

Adaptation is only one element of socialization together with the other, no less important one - active individual, his or her artistic selective attitude to the environment, active interpretation of social experience, transformation of existing social conditions and forms. Thus, socialization presents as a unity of adaptation and activity of an individual: learning norms and values of the social environment occurs in the interdependence and interconnectedness with an individual's activity [6].

If we analyze the literature on the problem of adaptation of children for adulthood, we can notice a difference in approaches, and above all - in age, national and international researches on the issue. The biggest difference is that the problems of adaptation of children to adulthood are mostly considered by national scientists as problems of high school students. American researchers believe the adaptation is a characteristic feature of more mature age group - students, and, generally, young people aged about 20 years. This difference seems to be even more paradoxical because an earlier start of work is traditional in western society, even in situations when the financial state of their families does not require this. This is, primarily, connected with education system, when the U.S. high school graduates are 19 years ( in our country a "student" of such age doesn't only finishes schooling, but also serves military service).

State of young people who are in transition between adolescence and youth, one cannot equalize with the usual process of growing up. Children suddenly become naughty, weak, irritable, they are observed a sudden change of mood. They are overwhelmed by anxiety, their sleep is disturbed and efficiency is reduced. They begin to suffer from unexplained illnesses and rush to extremes in selecting high ideals. Often it seems that they are hostile to themselves, and to parents. During this period, they can leave school, job, romantic admiration or change nothing, but take offense at all. These are the most striking manifestations of crisis, e.g. of adolescence [7].

The behavior of young people, who are reaching adulthood and at enmity with themselves, disturb themselves and their parents. Crisis is needed to complete formation of a person. K.G. Jung calls it individuation, Maslow - self-actualization, others - integration or autonomy. S. Gail considers this phenomenon as achievement of authenticity, referring to achieving the internal state in which young people learn about all the potential possibilities and find force to fully implement them.

The question concerning the duration of the process of achieving authenticity is quite an important one. All people are children before sexual maturation. Juvenile period lasts twenty years, and then we observe relative authenticity. And somewhere between thirty-five - forty years, in the middle age, we either spiritually weaker, or achieve true maturity, which gives us spiritual prosperity and contributes to the manifestation of true personality's traits.

Soviet psychologists, beginning with L.S. Vygotsky, unanimously considered the innovation of teenage period is a sense of adulthood. However, the focus on adult values and comparing themselves with adults often makes a teenager see themselves relatively small, dependent again [5]. However, unlike a child, he or she does not consider such state to be a normal one and seeks to overcome it. Hereout contradiction of feeling of adulthood comes - a teenager is eager to be an adult and at the same time knows that the level of claims is not quite confirmed and justified.

A need for releasing from custody and control of parents, teachers, elders in general, as well as from their established rules and regulations is one of the major needs of adolescence. How does this age trend in relations of students with the most meaningful to them specific adult, who is not only older but also authorized representatives of society in the whole - parents and teachers, appear?

A parent family as the primary unit of society, the impact of which a child undergoes earlier of all, when it is the most susceptible, is still the most important and influential of all the factors of socialization, which are considered separately. Family conditions, including social status, occupation, financial and education level of parents, largely determine the way of a child's life. In addition to conscious, targeted education, which is given by parents, the entire family atmosphere affects a child, and the effect of this action is piled with age, reflecting in personality's structure.

There is virtually no social or psychological aspect of behavior of adolescents, which would not depend on the family conditions in the present or in the past. However, nature of such relations changes. If a child's academic performance and duration of training depended mainly on the material level of the family in the past, currently this factor is less influential. But the huge role is played by parental education. According to social psychologist E.K. Vasilyeva, in parents with higher education the proportion of children with high achievements is three times higher than in the group of families with lower parental education in seven classes. This relation maintains even in high schools, when children already have skills of independent work and do not need immediate help parents [2].

Behavior of young people, who are reaching adulthood and are at enmity with themselves, disturbs them and their parents. The crisis is needed to complete formation of a person.

Self-assessment is an individual's assessment of oneself, one's capabilities, qualities and place among others. It affects peoples' relations with others, their criticality, demands for themselves, relation to success and failure. Thus, it affects the efficiency of activity and further individual's development. Self- esteem of a teenager has an important difference from introspection. It is closely related to the level of claims of a man. Divergence between claims and real possibilities leads to the fact that a person starts improperly evaluate oneself, so that behavior becomes inappropriate - emotional breakdowns, increased anxiety etc. occurs.

Self-esteem of a teenager outwardly expresses in the way a person evaluates capabilities and results of others (e.g. humiliates them with exaggerated self-esteem).

In native psychology the influence of self-esteem on a human's cognitive activity (perception, representation, solving of intellectual problems), place of a selfesteem in a system of interpersonal relations is shown, methods of forming of selfesteem, and in case of its deformities - methods of transformation by nurturing, are defined.

That level of self-esteem and self-awareness that a child acquires in early years usually remains for all life. He or she is corrected by teen-age and youth, changed by midlife crisis and old age. However, the thesis that in the first five years of life a person acquires 80% of one's individual, fully applies to one's self-esteem. That's the problem with self-esteem that in the future causes neurosis and nervous disorders, alcoholism, and suicide.

Stressful situation has a significant impact on personality. A.O. Prokhorov emphasizes its importance for the emergence of new personality's structures, such as appearing of new values, changing of attitude towards people, start of a consciousness of life etc. [6].

Conclusions

Self-esteem of a personality is the result of evaluation by a person his or her qualities, themselves, success in their own activity, assessment of a person by other people, basing on a person's value system. Self-esteem is a subjective formation in a human's psyche, but it is a reflection of norms and values that exist in society and in interpersonal relations. Self-esteem is related to one of the central human needs - a need for self-affirmation, with a desire of a man to find one's place in life, establish oneself as a member of society in the eyes of others and one's own mind. One's own attitude to themselves and self-esteem of a person, as well as some forms of activity: communication, behavior, activities and experiences of a personality are gradually forming under the influence of others' assessment. Most of the conditions and factors of a successful exit from a stressful situation have psychological and moral character, because they are reflecting features of a person's behavior and interactions of people. If one cannot prevent a stressful situation, it is necessary, first of all, to overcome negative emotions, born by it, actualize one's intellectual capacity and life experience.

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