Positive and negative paradigms of personal functioning and development in the pre-retirement and retirement ages

Budyakova Tatyana Petrovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1739-837X PhD in Psychology Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of Psychology and Psychophysiology, Bunin Yelets State University 399770, Russia, Lipetsk region, Yelets, Kommunarov str., 28, office 1 budyakovaelez@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Pronina Angelika Nikolaevna ORCID: 0000-0001-5454-9830 Doctor of Pedagogy Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Preschool and Special Education, Bunin Yelets State University 399778, Russia, Lipetsk region, village Khmelinets, Molodezhnaya str., 11 antipi-elena@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Historically, the concept of "paradigm" was introduced into the system of scientific terms by T. Kuhn in the middle of the XX century ^[1]. Currently, in the theory of science, a paradigm is understood as the basic structure of conceptual prescriptions: principles, values and methods that guide members of the scientific community in studying phenomena of both nature and public life ^{[2; 3]}.

The paradigmatic approach to the study of the elderly seems to be effective for a number of reasons:

1) paradigms can be evaluated in terms of efficiency and inefficiency;

2) the paradigmatic approach also allows us to consider the studied object in dynamics, using terms entrenched in science: "outdated paradigm", "paradigm shift", "new paradigm", "old paradigm", "paradigm shifts", "paradigm war", "preservation of paradigms" ^{[4; 5; 6]} and others . This makes it possible to use the paradigm concept in a more mobile way in theoretical and applied senses, in particular, when designing paradigms of life. Thus, paradigms can be changed when new data about the object of study or changes in living conditions are received. For example, it is possible to change the interpretation of the paradigm by studying the specifics of old age more deeply, or with deterioration/improvement of living conditions, taking into account the cultural and historical situation, the level of technology development, etc.

3) paradigms can be different, they can coexist next to each other ^[2], hence the task of considering various paradigms in old age, based on the existing conditions of personality functioning and its individual typological characteristics (gender, educational status, etc.). In this sense, it is important that paradigms can be "tried on" because it is through the application ("fitting") of paradigms that it is easier for a particular person to assess their significance for himself personally, taking into account the specifics of his own personality.

In modern gerontology, the paradigms of the elderly and senile age were initially proposed, assessing these ages as if from the side, as a rule, of those who are not yet included in them.

This kind of paradigmatic approach to the study of old age was applied, in particular, by L. Thornston. He will identify five paradigms that typically function in the public consciousness. However, almost all of them boil down to a more general concept of the uselessness of an elderly person to an industrial society. In particular, according to one of the paradigms, an elderly person does not meet the social criteria of an average person, since his level of productivity decreases in all respects: physiological, psychological, communicative, business and others. According to the second, an elderly person is a deviant person because he demonstrates deviant behavior ^[7]. Other paradigms are described within the framework of this approach, for example, the paradigm of contradiction and the paradigm of ageism. It is noted that the paradigm of Ageism is the most natural for public consciousness, all the paradigms opposite to it are perceived as unusual, contradictory ^[8].

Meanwhile, the Western paradigm of ageism is not completely accepted and understandable in domestic realities, unlike the paradigms of suffering and compassion typical of Russia. In addition, an outside view, outside the interests of the elderly person himself, is not enough to build paradigms acceptable to him.

The most famous studies of paradigms of life in old age, in which paradigms are evaluated from the perspective of the oldest person, can be considered the work of D. B. Bromley, performed in the 80s of the last century, although he did not use the term "paradigm", but used the name "life positions" (sometimes this term is translated as "installations"). But since the life position (attitude) does not reflect the full range of important elements of personality (for example, its meanings, principles, etc.), a truncated paradigmatic approach takes place here. D.B. Bromley identified five main life positions: protective, constructive, dependence, hostility towards the world, hostility towards oneself. In general, it can be said that for the first time they were offered the idea of positive and negative life positions /attitudes in old age. At the same time, in general, a positive life position, according to D.B. Bromley, consists in accepting one's age and a calm attitude to the fact of the finiteness of life, while a negative one is expressed in rebellion against aging and fear of death ^[9]. At the same time, the truncated paradigm variant does not make it possible to consider a person more globally with her values, principles and personal meanings and thus does not allow her to provide effective psychological assistance, as well as self-help.

An analysis of the literature shows that the formulation of life strategies (scenarios) has a pronounced cultural aspect ^{[10; 11]}. Because of this, it is obvious that effective life paradigms implemented within the framework of such strategies (scenarios) should reflect the specifics of national culture. Otherwise, the implementation of alien, incomprehensible meanings will not give the expected success. Let's show this by the example of some cultural paradigms.

First of all, we considered culturally oriented studies of the paradigms of aging, carried out in a victimological way^[1], since within the framework of the theory of anti-victim personality that we are developing, the main aspect of positive functioning and development of personality in late ontogenesis is postulated to ensure its safety ^[12].

So, for example, the cultural life paradigm of yoga has as a key element the liberation of a person from suffering ^[13], and the term victim is defined precisely through the category of suffering, since in victimology a victim means a person who has suffered physical and/or moral suffering as a result of wrongfully inflicted harm ^[12]. However, the "yoga" paradigm, which was born in India, when used in Russia did not give the desired effect in old age, since it was not possible to implement it in its full format due to the lack of experts in its semantic component. Because of this, only some yoga techniques are implemented in practice, focusing on the physiological states of the body, in isolation from the philosophy and psychological attitudes of yoga. At the same time, the declared meaning of yoga is the achievement of the purest meaningless self–awareness or pure bliss ^[13] does not correspond to the values of Russian culture, which recognizes the nonsense of existence as the opposite of reasonableness ^[14]. In Western psychology, loss of life meaning is also recognized as one of the main causes of depression in old age ^[15]. In addition, yoga, even as a practice aimed at maintaining physical and mental health, has a lot of age restrictions, its misuse can cause harm to health. It is also important that the yoga paradigm, being the cultural heritage of India, according to Indian scientists, needs to be protected ^[13], which indicates the need for scientific justification of its techniques and life meanings even for Hindus.

The American culture is dominated by the paradigm of the American dream, the failure of which psychologically makes an elderly person a victim, especially if we are talking about migrants who purposefully came to the United States for the American dream ^[16]. The term "American dream" was introduced into scientific discourse in 1931 by historian James Adams in the context of promising life goals-values that anyone can achieve in a free country if they make proper efforts ^[17]. The realization of the American dream includes both material values (the leading ones are owning your own house and a solid bank account ^[18]) and philosophical ones, in particular, meritocracy and the common good ^[19]. The embodiment of the American dream simultaneously solves the pressing problems of the elderly: it provides guaranteed health care, ensures respect in society, provides a wide range of activities for pastime, that is, creates solid barriers against victimization. However, not everyone can afford such a paradigm, so currently this paradigm is considered to be fading ^[20]. This paradigm can also be applied in Russia only by isolated representatives of the elderly population with appropriate material resources, therefore it is fundamentally ineffective for our country.

Within the framework of the concept of antimictimal personality that we are developing, security paradigms are of interest, which have recently become widespread both in theory and practice ^{[3; 21]}. At the same time, the existing theoretical safety structures mainly relate to various types of professional activity and management. We believe that it is the safety paradigm that is key for life in old age.

In this regard, the negative paradigm in old age is a victim paradigm that contributes to the victimization of a person, that is, turning her into a victim, and the positive one is an anti–victim one that performs the function of preventing victimization, and when it occurs, provides resources to neutralize it.

Summarizing research in the field of age-related development, it can be argued that the life paradigm should be considered as a system of personal elements, which can be conditionally divided into two parts. The first part combines the elements that make up the Self-concept: life meanings, values, attitudes, life positions, etc., the second consists of a list of life principles reflecting the Self-concept. In this sense, life principles are general life formulas based on life meanings, values, etc., allowing us to choose and implement life strategies, which we understand as long–term age plans of a personality ^[22].

In the scientific literature, personal meanings, life positions, values and attitudes have been studied most of all ^{[23; 24; 25]}. The principles as part of the life paradigms of old age and old age have not been practically studied. At the same time, in the public space, in the form of mottos of life or aphorisms of famous people, they have always been in demand by a wide audience. Because of this, we have designated as the goal of our empirical research: the identification of anti-victim and victim life principles in old age within the framework of positive and negative life paradigms.

Materials and methods.

Research methods: a) biographical and autobiographical; b) qualitative content analysis.

Research material: 1) forums on the Internet where the problems of the elderly are discussed. A total of 100 comments were summarized.

Results and their discussion

Biographical and autobiographical methods have become important means of studying personality in old age. In modern research, they are evaluated even as the best indicator of the quality of methodological tools ^[26], since it is the stories of older people about their lives that make it possible to identify complex psychological decision-making mechanisms at late stages of personality development ^[27].

Summarizing the comments of older people on Internet forums, we have formulated both general and specific anti-antimicrobial principles of life in old age. General principles are those that are acceptable to different people, private ones are suitable only for certain categories. Below is an incomplete list of anti-antimicrobial principles formulated by us based on the results of the study.

1. The principle of concreteness, which requires the choice of a paradigm, not like that of others, but one that meets the needs of a particular person and individual living conditions.

2. The principle of anticipativeness, the essence of which is to organize and conduct a timely assessment of all factors that victimize a person in old age: health, material security, etc.

3. The principle of variability: willingness to change the paradigm when essential conditions of life change.

4. The principle of priority, which consists in ensuring, first of all, the most urgent age-related needs.

5. The principle of anxiety, which requires taking into account the criminological situation to ensure readiness for victimological challenges.

6. The principle of vulnerability, which consists in realizing the special vulnerability of an elderly person compared to other ages.

7. The principle of responsibility, which means taking independent responsibility for yourself and your life.

8. The principle of forgiveness. Its essence is to learn to forgive insults and treat people through the prism of goodwill.

Here are illustrations of some principles based on the materials of forums on the Internet to show the formulation technology. For example, the principle of concreteness in the materials of the forums looked like a requirement to live within your means and get satisfaction from what you have, not to envy the more successful and wealthy, not to spend money on something that simply raises the status, but only on what is really needed for a safe life. We have formulated this in scientific language as a principle requiring the choice of a paradigm, not like that of others, but one that meets the needs of a particular person and individual living conditions. In O.Strizhitskaya's study, a similar principle was designated as modern asceticism and the opinion was expressed that it is unacceptable for domestic pre-retirees and pensioners ^[28]. Our study did not confirm this hypothesis.

The principle of anxiety is fundamentally important, requiring consideration of the criminological situation to ensure readiness for victimological challenges. In old age, criminological information should be especially monitored, since it is pre-retirees and pensioners who most often become victims of certain crimes (fraud, blackmail, threats, etc.). In forums, this principle was designated as "not to lose vigilance", "carefully assess risks in ambiguous situations", and in general fixed on the requirement of careful victimological analysis different life circumstances and increasing victimological literacy.

Evaluating verbal texts, we can say that, in general, the judgments of people claiming to formulate life principles are quite global and require concretization. For example, a formulation is often proposed that claims to be a vital principle in old age: "We must stay afloat." Here the idea is so generally formulated that it cannot be effectively implemented. We have transformed this option into the principle of responsibility, when it is clear that we must talk about independence in solving our own problems.

At the same time, victim principles of life in old age were also established. Here are two of the most striking of them, which fix the personality on passivity, lack of initiative, and as a result – a feeling of hopelessness and suffering. These are: 1. Principle 3t: ottoman, TV, telephone. 2. The 3d principle: we finish, we live, we finish.

Table 1 shows the ratio of victim and anti-victim principles among the study participants.

Table 1

The ratio of anti-victim and victim principles

Despite the fact that the anti-victim principles turned out to have more adherents, there is still little difference between them and people who chose victim principles. This is evidence of a problem with formulating guidelines for the future at a later age.

The study also highlighted special principles reflecting the individual typological properties of an elderly person's personality: his family and gender statuses, as well as health status. So, one of the life principles of "letting go of children" applies only to those elderly people who have children. Table 2 provides alternative statements on this principle.

Table 2

The principle of "letting go of children" (illustrations)

The analysis and generalization of the positive and negative positions presented in Table 1 leads to the conclusion that the content of the principle of "Letting go of children" is as follows: it is necessary to give children the opportunity to live by their rules, regardless of whether the parents live nearby or separately. At the same time, children must take responsibility for their parents. Taking into account different life situations and material possibilities, this principle still has one general meaning.

Gender characteristics were also identified, which were reflected in the formulation of private anti-victim and victim principles of life. So, the principle of "not being a grandmother", although formulated in the form of denial, has an anti-antimicrobial meaning, which consists in taking care of your appearance and wardrobe, which does not allow you to simply passively suffer from age-related aging. The principles of "I am good as I am", "my husband loves me like this" have the opposite victim meaning. Following these principles does not include mechanisms for controlling your weight, hair color, hairstyle, and skin condition. A woman begins to look much older than her age and her peers, which causes her envy, irritation, and provokes the formation of personal complexes.

The results of the study showed that a paradigm shift, depending on various factors, also means a change of principles. In this case, the general principle may become a particular one, taking into account the change in living conditions. Thus, changing the health status requires adjusting the general principle of responsibility. In the case of a disease in which outside help is needed, it should have a different wording: "to mean a demand from a stronger party in social relations: the State or the family to ensure victimological protection of an elderly person." In the comments, this principle was formulated in different ways, but the meaning was similar. For example, there was such a comment: "If you feel sick, go out to people, ask for help."

Conclusions

1. A positive paradigm in old age is an anti-victim paradigm, that is, a behavior model based on an anti–victim Self-concept that ensures the safety of an individual in old age, and an ineffective one is victimized, contributing to the transformation of an elderly person into a victim of circumstances, primarily subjective.

2. We agree with V. I. Slobodchikov and G. A. Zuckerman that paradigms should reflect changes in socio-historical realities ^[29], but we also believe that paradigms should change with changes in the living conditions of a particular person and her health status.

3. Life principles within the framework of life paradigms can be both general and specific, depending on individual personality characteristics (gender, health, etc.).

Financing

The research was carried out at the expense of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 23-28-00306, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-00306 / "Conceptual foundations of the functioning and development of an anti-antimicrobial personality in old age".

^[1] Victima (Latin) – victim.