Formation of Living Space in Adolescence

Shilova Natalia Petrovna PhD in Psychology Deputy Head of the Federal Supervision Service for Education and Science 129323, Russia, g. Moscow, pr-d Lazorevyi, 1 npshilova@outlook.com Other publications by this author

IntroductionThe ability to form a harmonious living space is considered by us within the framework of cultural and historical theory as a necessary prerequisite for the development of personality, the effectiveness of its activities in various spheres of life.

Kurt Levin defined living space as a world of mental representations. In his opinion, the child's living space is poorly structured and begins to be structured in adolescence as they grow up. In accordance with the fundamentals of cultural and historical psychology and modern trends in psychological research, adolescence is divided into early and late adolescence. B.G. Ananyev pointed out that early adolescence is characterized by the uncertainty of a young person's position in society, and late adolescence is the initial link of maturity ^[1]. Accordingly, the structure of the living space of early and late youth have differences.

According to Kurt Levin, the space of life is a chain of important events that occur with or around a person. The greater the impact of an event on a person, the more important it is for him ^[10]. In Russian psychology, the scientific tradition of understanding life events as an element of living space has been significantly developed in the works of B.G. Ananyev, E.I. Golovakhi, A.A. Kronik, S.L. Rubinstein. Based on the works of these authors, we conclude that the concept of a "life event", as a specific moment of life or a point in the space of time, has a significant impact on a person, changing him. Based on the ideas of S.L. Rubinstein, we understand life events as conditional moments and turning points of an individual's life path, when, with the adoption of a decision for a more or less long period, the further life path of a person is determined ^[11].

The space of life is characterized not only by qualitative completeness, that is, goals, meanings, finding one's own "I", reflected in significant events, but also by determining the place of the event in the "time perspective", without which the construction of a lifestyle loses all logic. In psychological science, the problem of time perspective was studied by L. Frank, K. Levin, J. Nutten, E.I. Golovakha, A.A. Kronik, V.I. Kovalev and many others ^{[18; 10; 21; 6; 7]}. V.I. Kovalev, developing the theme of time perspective, introduces the concept of "time trans perspective" ^[7]. In his understanding, it is the ability of consciousness to connect the past and the future in the present and thereby summarize, integrate the time of his life.

Following V.I. Kovalev, we use the concept of a temporary trans perspective to study the holistic subjective perception of boys and girls of their own past, present and future. Despite a lot of research on the problem of temporal trans perspective, the aspect of age-related changes within adolescence remains insufficiently developed in its study. The research indicates that in adolescence there is a significant increase in the time perspective, and the choice of profession and vocational education can be considered as the first ideal goal, that is, an event that determines a person's life path for a long time ^{[14; 13; 23; 19]}. In addition, if we take into account the conditional division of adolescence into early and late adolescence ^{[3; 8]}, it becomes important to understand the differences in the importance of vocational education ^{[2; 22; 16; 17; 15; 20]} in these periods. Our work focuses on a new aspect of the study of the topic of the formation of one's own life in adolescence, associated primarily with the content characteristics of psychological time in youth.

The purpose of the study is to describe the age dynamics of the formation of one's own life in adolescence, through differences in the topics of significant events of boys and girls. We assumed that if among the significant events of their own past time, boys and girls of late adolescence have a large number of events related to their studies and professional activities, then there are significantly fewer of them in their ideas about the future.

Methodology and sampling of the studyThe study involved 1,394 boys and girls from 14 to 23 years old.

Among them were 462 schoolchildren (33.1% of the sample), including 251 girls, 211 boys; 454 students of the vocational education system (32.6%), including 253 girls, 201 boys; 478 university students (34.2%), including 312 girls, 166 boys. To form a sample, we sent a link to the study to educational organizations in Russia by e-mail and asked them to attract as many participants as possible.

The main method of research is the method "Past, present, future", which was developed by A.L. Wenger, Yu.M. Desyatikova in 1995 ^[4]. The study participants were asked to write out the five most important events of their past, present and future lives. Additionally, the study participants indicated the time period in which each of their chosen events occurred or will occur.

The analysis of the differences in the temporal perspective of the living space was carried out using the characteristics of the temporal remoteness of the past relative to the present, the future relative to the present and the depth of the living space, which includes all the events of the past, present and future.

In the meaningful analysis of significant events, the categories proposed by Zh. Nutten for a meaningful analysis of the time perspective ^[21]. The participants of the study mentioned events related to: one or another aspect of their personality; with self-development, self-realization, development of the whole personality or any of its sides; with activity aimed at doing something (this category includes both professional activity and study in general); with contacts with other people and communication; with activity associated with the desire to possess certain material values; with recreation and entertainment.

The correlation analysis of the content features of the highlighted important events was carried out using the Pearson correlation coefficient, since both variables were measured on an interval scale. Significance levels 0.05 and 0.01 were used.

The second method of research is I.S. Cohn's method "I am in 5 years" ^[8]. The study participants received a task: "Please write a description of yourself as you will be in 5 years." There were no restrictions on the amount of writing and the time for completing the task. The task was performed individually on a personal computer, the influence of the people conducting the study was excluded. Within the framework of the study, it was important not to limit the free description and not to set a clear framework. The time range in which the study participant had to think of himself was five years, which allowed the subjects to see a foreseeable perspective for themselves and break away from the present characteristics of their personality. The texts of the letters were studied using content analysis. To ensure validity, the content analysis was carried out by five experts - psychologists and teachers, candidates and doctors of sciences. In case of discrepancies in the interpretation of the data obtained, the results were discussed collectively to make a final assessment.

Research resultsAs a result of the analysis, it was recorded that the average depth of the time perspective, which shows how many years in the past and future important events in the lives of boys and girls participating in the study are scattered, was 15 years, regardless of their age.

At the same time, the ratio of the past and the future in the living space differs significantly depending on age. If, on average, important events of the past take 9.16 years, and the future takes 7.43 years, then correlations show that with increasing age, the "temporal remoteness of the past relative to the present" significantly increases (r = 0.0739, at p =0.0071), and the "temporal remoteness of the future relative to the present" significantly decreases (r = - 0.0965, at p = 0.0008). That is, boys and girls first form a living space by planning important events of their distant future, and later begin to analyze the life events of their past for a longer period of time.

The total number of events named by the study participants is 18,131. The distribution by content criteria is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Meaningful categories of significant events (N = 1394)

Categories:1. one or another aspect of the personality of the subject himself;

2. activity related to self-development, self-realization, development of the whole personality or any of its sides;

3. any activity aimed at doing something: this category includes both professional activity and study in general;

4. everything that concerns contacts with other people, communication;

5. motivation associated with the desire to possess certain material values;

6. activity related to recreation, entertainment.

Thus, a greater number of significant events are associated by boys and girls with studies and professional activities (33%), in second place (22%) events related to communication and contacts with other people, which generally corresponds to existing ideas about adolescence.

  To study the age dynamics, we conducted a statistical analysis of the relationship between the content of these important events and the age of the study participants. The data obtained are presented in Table 1.Table 1.

Statistical relationships between meaningful categories of important events and increasing age (N = 1394)Content categories

05. ** p < .01.

1. one or another aspect of the personality of the subject himself;2. activity related to self-development, self-realization, development of the whole personality or any of its sides;

3. any activity aimed at doing something: this category includes both professional activity and study in general;

4. everything that concerns contacts with other people, communication;

5. motivation associated with the desire to possess certain material values;

6. activity related to recreation, entertainment.

The table shows age differences in the allocation of important life events.

The older young people are, the less often they name events related to entertainment and recreation as important. The older they are, the more events in the field of study and professional activity they assess as significant in the past, and less in the future. And the older the boys and girls, the less often they consider important events of their past and present life related to communication. That is, the future in late youth is no longer associated with leisure and entertainment events, as well as with studies and professional activities.

At the same time, if you look at the topics of important life events highlighted by all the study participants in their own future (Fig. 2), you can see that the trend in the number of events related to communication tends to increase, the trend of study and work events has a slight downward trend, the trend of events aimed at recreation and entertainment also tends to decline.

Fig. 2. Meaningful categories of significant future events (N = 1394)

Categories:1. one or another aspect of the personality of the subject himself;

2. activity related to self-development, self-realization, development of the whole personality or any of its sides;

3. any activity aimed at doing something: this category includes both professional activity and study in general;4. everything that concerns contacts with other people, communication;

5. motivation associated with the desire to possess certain material values;

6. activity related to recreation, entertainment.

The second stage of the study, conducted using the "I am in 5 years" method, allowed us to concretize the content of the living space of the near future of boys and girls not just through naming significant events, but already through a meaningful description of their own future.

  In general, most often in the essays there is a construction that is a combination of vague positive expectations ("everything will be fine") with a certain slice of current feelings ("everything is fine now", "there are difficulties now", "everything is bad now"). In order to understand the construct of the future that boys and girls see in their living space, we conducted a content analysis of the submitted essays. The content analysis was carried out by five experts - psychologists and teachers, candidates and doctors of sciences. Considering the results we obtained at the first stage, first of all we were interested in the problems of personal life perspective, coming to the fore in the letters of boys and girls and related to the categories highlighted in significant life events, but at the same time described in detail. Thus, we found that first of all the problems relate to the issues of study and professional activity (37.1% of all statements), communication – building interpersonal relationships (19% of all statements) and the description of personal characteristics (32% of all statements) in the context of each age are shown in Fig. 3.Fig. 3. Analysis of the content of letters in the context of each age (N = 1394)

The figure shows that personal characteristics, as well as study and professional activity have an equilibrium value at the age of about 17 and about 23 years, which determines the boundaries of late adolescence. At the beginning and end of this age, these two issues are of equal importance for boys and girls, with a tendency to increase the discussion of the topics of study and professional activity. Within the age of late adolescence, the formation of maturity occurs due to the interaction of two themes. So, at about the age of 19, the number of appeals to the topic of personal characteristics increases twice relative to the topic of professional activity and study. Further, from the age of 20 to 21, there is a tendency to increase the discussion of the topic of personal characteristics. The topic of building interpersonal relationships – communication tends to a slight stable growth, with a slight jump in 21 years. Thus, the age of late youth makes it possible to form the living space of the future through finding a balance of the desired characteristics of one's own personality and ideas about one's capabilities in the field of professional activity and study, as well as through strengthening the importance of building interpersonal relationships. The decrease in the significance of important events in the field of professional activity and study with increasing age occurs due to the fact that they begin to be viewed through the prism of their own personality characteristics.

DiscussionThe analysis of the research problem of the formation of living space in adolescence has shown that not only perspective, but also retrospect is important in it.

At the beginning of this work, we assumed that adolescence is heterogeneous and the formation of living space occurs differently in early and late adolescence.

The data of our study showed that in young men and girls of early adolescence, the length of the planned life path to the future is much longer than in young men and girls of late adolescence. This conclusion opens up a new special facet in the formation of life plans in youth, for example, it was previously proved that early youth is characterized by an insufficient balance of the time perspective and the lack of clear life orientations, i.e. an understanding of the goals and tasks that they face in the near future ^[12]. Thus, the study of the long-term perspective is more significant for representatives of early youth. We also showed that in young men and girls of late adolescence, the length of the planned life path to the past is much longer than in young men and girls of early adolescence. I.A. Kurus and I.V. Ponamarenko, this orientation is associated with poor academic performance and experiencing the crisis of youth ^[9]. Our data shows a slightly different aspect. We have shown that, growing up, boys and girls attach less importance to recreation and entertainment and communication, and the events of study and professional activity seem important to them as part of the analysis of their past, and not the formation of the future.

When talking about the future, boys and girls mainly seek to identify areas of professional activity and study, as well as their own personal characteristics. This fact is also indicated by other researchers ^{[2; 3; 8; 14]}. Moreover, Volokhova V.I., Koshenova M.I., Shabanov D.M. point out that the content characteristics of psychological time in different periods of youth are really not identical, and they significantly correlate with the status of identity of the individual, and such a relationship is of greater importance precisely in the period of early adolescence ^[5]. According to the data we received, on the contrary, at the beginning and end of the age of late adolescence, boys and girls devote about an equal number of statements to these topics, for example: "I am sure that I will graduate from the university I chose, become an economist, but at the same time I will remain as cheerful and carefree as now" with a tendency to increase the subject of professional activities and studies. But within the period of late adolescence itself, around the age of 20-21, there is a change in the priority of topics, and a tendency to increase appears in the topic of discussing one's own personal characteristics, for example: "I see us as a happy creative person who belongs to himself and can freely express his thoughts and share ideas with like—minded people, travels a lot, because self-development is our priority." Comparing our data with the literature analysis given at the beginning of the article, we can say that one of the elements of becoming mature in late adolescence is finding a balance between the desired characteristics of one's own personality and ideas about one's capabilities in the field of professional activity and study.

ConclusionBased on the data obtained, we can formulate new hypotheses about the tasks of development in youth and about the meaning of this period for human development as a whole.

One of the main directions of the psychological component in working with this part of the youth should be associated with awareness of building their lives. The study showed that in the past life space of young men and girls of late adolescence, study is very important, and communication is not important, unlike young men and girls of early adolescence. With increasing age in youth, recreation and entertainment become less important. The revealed differences allow us to conclude that early adolescence is rather the age of increasing the time perspective of the future, and late adolescence is the age of self–acceptance, through the analysis of the past.

The idea of themselves in the future is associated by young men with professional activity and study, as well as with the characteristics of their own personality. At the same time, at the boundaries of the age of late adolescence, these topics are equivalent and tend to increase the discussion of the topics of professional activity and study, and during the age of late adolescence, a balance of the desired characteristics of one's own personality and ideas about one's capabilities in the field of professional activity and study is formed, which requires special attention in the context of all educational and educational activities at the time of graduation in organizations of higher professional education.