Crisis Behavioural Symptoms Set in Person’s Age Development

Background and aim of study:

Crisis behavioural symptoms set reflecting the deployment of the body’s genetic program is natural in human development or make norm. As a result it cannot be avoided or ignored because it is previously predicted. It can only be weakened or intensified, which depends on the strength of the surrounding social influences (family relationships, peers, education, media space, etc.). This is a prerequisite for the development of a targeted psychological assistance for a person (a substantive analogue: in medicine, individual patient’s care is provided on the basis of the typological symptoms of the disease). At the same time, in the developmental psychology it is not a disease, but a typological norm with individual variants, which specifies the exact age psychological address of a person in his/her life way. There is also a crisis behavioral symptoms set caused by social influences only. Consequently, the actual task is to distinguish between normative and non-normative crisis behavioural manifestations.

Research methods:

During 2010–2019 we used the following methods to define the exact number of crisis behavioral symptoms: 1) organizational (longitude as the main method, comparative cut as an auxiliary method); 2) empirical (analysis of products of activity, analytical observing, biographical method, content analysis, nonstandardized self-reports, applied modelling, psychological conversation, generalization of independent characteristics); 3) mathematical (correlation analysis, data ranking).

Results:

The properties of the concept «symptom» are established: it is a separate experience which points to the clinical picture of the course of age development (frequency and force of manifestations); it is complex of features of the emotional and sensory sphere and personality traits of the person; in the age normative crises it defines the meaning of the concept of «age norm of crisis development» (it is the main characteristic of the optimal course of age related crisis development). As a result, for the first time in our developmental psychology the symptoms of normative crises of “23 years” (or “the crisis of entering adulthood”) and of “33 years” were investigated. Psychodiagnostic tools for studying their gender content were developed. It was found that the crisis symptoms set of these and other age crises (for example, “crisis of 13 years”) signals to the person about the need to pay more attention to his/her physical and mental health. It is often life-threatening, especially in a state of functional tension and extreme situations. Its structure is as follows: general symptoms (a number of all possible symptoms); typical positive and negative symptoms (peak and dominant symptoms that match the strength and frequency of manifestations); concomitant, or auxiliary, negative and positive symptoms (dominant symptoms that do not coincide with the peak symptoms set); atypical, or background symptoms set (negative and positive symptoms that have the lowest frequency and strength of manifestations); peak symptoms (positive and negative symptoms that are mostly revealed in the separate age range compared with the other age intervals of the crisis period); dominant symptoms (positive and negative symptoms which when compared with the other symptoms have the greatest manifestation in a separate age range of the crisis period. Its properties are the following: polarity (alternative displays of negative and positive symptoms), natural character (progressive development of symptoms), three phase dynamics (“rise”, “plateau”, “decline” of symptoms as evidence of their predictability), unique character. At the same time, the symptom of non-normative crises does not have such properties since it consists only of negative symptoms. The coincidence of normative crisis symptoms and non-normative ones shows the existence of “double crisis” which is a special threat to the personal development. The content directions of the psychological preventive measures for the crisis of the developing personality in the conditions of the unfavourable social influence by means of personality oriented approach have been investigated. Such information requires disclosing for the applied Psychology.

Conclusion:

The basic principles of the author’s concept of “personality age crisis development” are as follows: 1) human life is a set of stable and crisis periods, which regularly alternate regardless of social influences (the objective analogue: seasonal nature); 2) the level of mental and physical health of a person is determined by the following signs of age development: “natural correspondence”, “phase”, “cycling nature”; 3) age crisis symptoms set is an external dynamic indicator that signals the actual and potential state of “hidden” behind them internal personal entities.

Keywords:

Copyright:

DOI and UDC:

DOI: 10.26697/ijes.2019.2.37; UDC: 159.942.6-053.6

Information about the authors:

Polishchuk Valeriy Mykolayovych – Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor, Honored Education Worker of Ukraine, Professor of the Department of General Age and Professional Psychology, Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv University, Kyiv, Ukraine.