graduate work

1.4 Features of mental states in adolescents

The transition period is usually spoken of as a period of increased emotionality, which manifests itself in mild excitability, passion, frequent changes of mood, etc. However, in this case it is necessary to distinguish between general emotional reactivity and various specific affects and drives. Some features of the mental reactions of the transition period are rooted in hormonal and physiological processes. Physiologists explain adolescent mental imbalance and its characteristic sharp mood swings, transitions from exaltation to depression and from depression to exaltation with an increase in general excitation during puberty and a weakening of all types of conditioned inhibition.

However, the emotional reactions and behavior of adolescents, not to mention young men, cannot be explained only by hormonal changes. They also depend on social factors and conditions of upbringing, and individual typological differences often prevail over age differences. One of the first places is occupied by the emotional and psychological atmosphere in the family. The more restless and tense she is, the more vividly the adolescent’s emotional instability will manifest itself (Lebedinskaya K.S., 1988).

The greater the amplitude of mood swings and nervous breakdowns, the greater the likelihood of developing first accentuations of character and personality, and then psychopathy. The psychological difficulties of growing up, the inconsistency of the level of aspirations and the image of “I” often lead to the fact that the emotional tension typical of a teenager also grips the years of youth.

Emotional problems in adolescence have different origins. Adolescent body dysmorphomania syndrome - preoccupation with one's body and appearance, fear or delusions of physical disability. The sharp increase in the number of personality disorders in adolescence is mainly due to the fact that children do not have such disorders at all due to the underdevelopment of their self-awareness. Painful symptoms and anxieties that appear in adolescents are often not so much a reaction to the specific difficulties of age itself, but rather a manifestation of the delayed effect of earlier mental trauma (Craig G., 2008).

An increase in anxiety in adolescence may be a consequence of certain intrapersonal conflicts and inadequate development of self-esteem, as well as conflicts between adolescents both with peers, communication with whom is of particular importance, and with adults (parents, teachers), with whom the teenager actively fights for autonomy. At this age, the process of learning ways to overcome life’s difficulties and negative mental states is still actively ongoing, a special role in the success of which belongs to emotionally supportive relationships on the part of the reference group. Successful mastery of these methods can prevent the consolidation of anxiety as a stable personal formation (Dubinko N.A., 2007).

The frustration theory loses sight of the fact that the psychological significance of frustration actually plays the most important role for each individual person. Depending on the general situation and characteristics of the individual, his life (adaptive) experience, the strength of frustration can be different. Consequently, it is the psychological significance in this case that determines whether a person’s reactions will be aggressive or not. In this regard, E. Fromm (2004) pointed out that the determining factor for predicting the consequences of frustration and their intensity is the character of the individual. Its uniqueness determines, firstly, what causes frustration in a person and, secondly, how intensely and in what way he will react to frustration.

Typical characteristics of adolescents are also irritability and excitability. Physiologists explain this by rapid puberty that occurs during this period of life. A distinctive feature of the physiological manifestations of adolescents is that they can react emotionally to weak stimuli and not respond to strong ones. Finally, there may be a state of the nervous system when irritability generally causes an unexpected, inadequate reaction.

During this period of life, girls may experience mood swings, increased tearfulness, and touchiness. Boys exhibit motor disinhibition, they are excessively mobile, and even when they sit, their arms, legs, torso, and head are not at rest for a minute (Kraig G., 2008).

Changes in appearance are potentially more painful for girls than for boys, since appearance is more important to them. Therefore, in girls, the self-concept correlates more strongly with the assessment of the attractiveness of their body than with the assessment of its effectiveness. Confidence in one's own physical attractiveness is also interconnected with success in interpersonal communication and is manifested in self-presentations of appearance. A correctly formed self-image, compliance with physical development standards accepted in a group of peers and friends is emotionally experienced by girls more strongly and more often influences the generalized self-attitude, and is also a determining factor in social recognition and position in the group, successful gender identification (Rice F., 2010 ).

Mental development in adolescence is directly related to changes in the teenager’s relationships with peers and parents. While communication with peers takes on the character of an urgent need for him, in relations with parents there is a desire for isolation and emancipation. Friendships become especially significant during this period, implying the desire for complete understanding and acceptance of the other. Although the ability to understand the emotions of another person at this age is at the initial stage of its development, there is a gradual increase with age in the abilities of empathy and assistance, which are components of the general ability of empathy. According to I.M. Yusupov (2002), empathy is a holistic psychological phenomenon that connects the conscious and subconscious levels of the psyche, the purpose of which is “penetration” into the inner world of another person or an anthropomorphized object. Data from foreign researchers indicate strong connections between empathy and moral behavior. It is the ability to empathy, helping to reduce general anxiety and aggressiveness that increases in adolescence, that is the basis for friendly relationships. Highly empathetic children tend to explain their failures in interpersonal interaction by internal reasons, on the other hand, children with low empathy scores give them an external assessment. In addition, it was experimentally revealed that an attitude towards a sympathetic attitude towards another contributes to the emergence of a feeling of guilt for the observed ill-being of the object, which can reduce the likelihood of aggression (Dmitrieva T., 2002).

For most people, the transition from adolescence to adolescence is accompanied by an improvement in communication and overall mental well-being. Emotionally unbalanced, with signs of possible psychopathology, adolescents and young men constitute a statistical minority in their age group, not exceeding 10-20 percent of the total, i.e. almost the same as in adults (Rumyantseva T.G., 1992).

Discussion and analysis of the data made it possible to determine differences in the psychological characteristics of the personality of children with different levels of aggressiveness. Based on the correlation analysis, a typology of aggressive children was compiled and significant independent variables were identified that determine the occurrence of aggressive behavior.

The type of aggressive teenager (boy) is distinguished by the relative uniformity of the motivational sphere, in which two tendencies can be traced: towards maintaining mental balance and social well-being (the dominance of motives of comfort and achieving social status). This indicates a desire for favorable conditions of life, study and recreation, gaining influence on others, but at the same time, the absence of motivational tendencies associated with self-actualization and the desire for personal development. Within the framework of the general typology of an aggressive teenager, three groups of children can be distinguished (Semenyuk L.M., 2008, p. 74).

1. Boys with neurotic tendencies. A common characteristic of such children is high anxiety, excitability combined with rapid exhaustion, increased sensitivity to stimuli, which causes inadequate affective outbursts, manifested in reactions of excitement, irritation and anger directed against someone from the immediate environment.

2. Boys with psychotic tendencies. A distinctive feature of these children is the mental inadequacy of the individual. They are characterized by autism, isolation, and separation from the events of the surrounding world. All their actions, feelings, experiences are to a greater extent subject to internal, endogenous laws than to influences from others. As a result, their thoughts, feelings and actions often arise unmotivated and therefore seem strange and paradoxical.

3. Boys with depressive tendencies. A distinctive feature of such adolescents is a melancholy mood, a depressed state, depression, reduced mental and motor activity, and a tendency to somatic disorders. They are characterized by weaker adaptation to situational events and all kinds of traumatic experiences. Any intense activity for them is difficult, unpleasant, proceeds with a feeling of excessive mental discomfort, quickly tires, and causes a feeling of complete powerlessness and exhaustion. According to V. Desyatnikov (2004), adolescents with depressive disorders are distinguished by disobedience, laziness, poor academic performance, pugnacity, and often run away from home.

In communication, aggressive boys prefer a straightforward-aggressive style of interpersonal relationships, characterized by straightforwardness, persistence, lack of restraint, hot temper, and unfriendliness towards others. The type of style of interpersonal relationships depends on the direction and predominant type of aggressive reactions of children.

The type of aggressive teenager (girl) is distinguished by the presence of motivational tendencies towards maintaining life support, comfort, and communication. This indicates the predominance of maintenance motives over developmental motives in their motivational sphere. Such a motivational structure can be defined as a consumer (regressive profile), which primarily performs a function that provides rather than develops personality. Aggression is mainly characteristic of two categories of children.

1. Girls with psychotic tendencies. What they have in common is increased tension and excitability, excessive concern for their own prestige, a painful reaction to criticism and remark, selfishness, complacency and excessive conceit.

2. Girls of the extroverted type. The peculiarity of these girls is activity, ambition, desire for public recognition and leadership. They are distinguished by the need to communicate with people, the desire for idleness and entertainment, and the craving for sharp, exciting impressions. They often take risks, act impulsively and thoughtlessly, frivolously and carelessly due to low self-control of drives. Since control over desires and actions is weakened, they are often aggressive and hot-tempered. At the same time, these girls have a good ability to volitionally regulate emotions: even when faced with significant difficulties, they can show restraint and self-control, they know how to “tune in and get ready” when necessary (Semenyuk L.M., 2008).

Accentuations of the character of teenagers

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Interaction of mental states and cognitive processes during the educational activities of students

From a philosophical position, the question of the relationship between the concepts process and state was analyzed by A. L. Simanov. Ontologically, any state is subject to processes of change, in turn...

Human conflict behavior

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Correction of depression in adolescents

Adolescence is a period in a person’s life during which the transformation of a child into an adult occurs. Over a relatively short period of time, radical physical and mental changes occur...

Peculiarities of mental states of students in the process of studying at a university

An experimental study of the characteristics of the mental state of students during the session was carried out using 3 methods: Self-assessment of mental states according to Eysenck; Spielberger-Khanin questionnaire (studying self-esteem of personal...

Human life is a continuous series of various mental states. Mental states reveal the degree of balance between the individual’s psyche and the demands of the environment. States of joy and sadness, admiration and disappointment...

Peculiarities of psychological states of preschool children living in single-parent families

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Mental conditions

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Mental states of the individual

As we saw in the first chapter of this work, cognitive processes are closely related to emotional and volitional processes and states. The cognitive process is the mental process through which a person understands the world...

Mental states of a person

Mental states represent holistic characteristics of mental activity over a certain period of time. Taking turns, they accompany a person’s life in his relationships with people, society, etc...

Psychological states and their types

Human mental states can be classified on the following basis: 1) depending on the role of the individual and the situation in the occurrence of mental states - personal and situational; 2) depending on the degree of depth - state (more...

Introduction

Currently, the influence of the media on personality has increased significantly. Television currently occupies a dominant position among the media. If in the late 70s and early 80s a television was considered a luxury, today television has become firmly established in the everyday life of almost every family. Gradually, television is replacing newspapers and magazines and seriously competing with radio. Competition with the press is explained by the emergence of new technologies on television:

a) Digital television

b) Teletext

c) Computer technology

d) Satellite television

In this regard, the efficiency of information transfer has noticeably increased and, as a result, the ability to control the purity of the airwaves has become difficult. It turned out to be much easier to obtain information through television than in any other way. For example, in order to read a newspaper, you need to go and buy it; watching a film in a cinema turned out to be much more difficult than choosing it to watch from 5-12 television programs, and in many European regions the number of programs already exceeds 20.

The above proves that television has become the most accessible and easiest way to obtain information.

Let's consider the influence of television on the mental state of adolescents. To do this, let’s first understand the psychological state of a teenager and clarify which category of people we will consider teenagers.

1. Theoretical aspects of the influence of television programs on the mental state of adolescents

1.1. Psychological state of a teenager’s personality

The main characteristics of the branches of developmental psychology are: child psychology, psychology of a primary school student, psychology of a teenager, psychology of adolescence, psychology of an adult.

Let's consider the psychology of a teenager and determine how strongly a person is influenced at this age. This period completes the preparation for an independent life of a person, the formation of values, worldview, the choice of professional activity and the affirmation of the civic significance of the individual. As a result and under the influence of these social and personal factors, the entire system of relationships between the young man and the people around him is restructured and his attitude towards himself changes. Because of this social position, his attitude to school, to socially useful activities and studies changes, and a certain relationship is established between the interests of the future profession, educational interests and motives of behavior.

As a result of psychological research, it has been established that the individual development of a person and the formation of his personality occurs primarily as a result of active interaction with the environment. At different periods of a person’s life, the relationship between the social and the biological is ambiguous. With age, the influence of the social factor on a person’s psychological development increases.

The different-time sequence of biological and social maturation is expressed in contradictions that are more often observed in adolescence.

Here is what N.F. Dobrynin writes: “We can assume that age-related characteristics are expressed, first of all, in the anatomical and physiological features characteristic of a given period of growth and development. At the same time, with age, the growing individual’s attitude to learning, to himself, to the surrounding reality changes, and the significance of all this for a given individual changes. Significance changes because a person’s needs, interests, beliefs change, his views and attitudes towards everything around him and towards himself change. This change in significance is determined by a person's interaction with the surrounding social environment in which he lives, learns and acts. A person not only enters into these social relations, but also forms part of these relations.

A significant characteristic, especially for a teenager, at this age is a change in attitude towards oneself, coloring all his actions and therefore expressed quite noticeably in most cases, although sometimes disguised, which, however, does not destroy his effective role.

The growth of self-awareness is a characteristic feature of the personality of a senior school student. The level of self-awareness also determines the level of demands that older schoolchildren place on the people around them and on themselves. They become more critical and place high demands on the moral character of adults and peers.

I. S. Kon noted: “The growth of self-awareness and interest in one’s own “I” in young men is associated not only with puberty, as the biogenetic school in psychology believed. The child grew, changed, gained strength until adolescence, and yet this did not cause him to crave introspection. If this happens now, it is primarily because physical maturation is at the same time a social symptom, a sign of maturation, maturation, which is noticed and closely watched by others, adults and peers. The contradictory situation of a teenager, the change in his social roles and level of aspirations - this is what first of all actualizes the question: “Who am I?”

During this period there is a transition from external control to self-government. But any control presupposes the presence of information about the object. Hence, during self-government, the subject’s information about himself must be present, that is, self-awareness.

The most valuable acquisition of early youth is the discovery of your inner world. 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, uniqueness, and difference from others comes a feeling of loneliness. The youthful “I” is still vague, 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 grows and at the same time selectivity of communication and the need for privacy appear.

To understand the mechanisms of development of mental properties of middle school students, it is necessary to have two main sources in view: natural data (innate biological, including genetic) and social factors (family characteristics, upbringing, training and other forms of social relations that shape personality).

The most interesting in the study of age in general and adolescence in particular are still the classics of Russian psychology: L. S. Vygotsky, D. B. Elkonin, L. I. Bozhovich. The works of such famous scientists as A. P. Krakovsky, V. A. Krutetsky, A. I. Kochetov, D. I. Feldshtein, T. V. Dragunova, L. F. Obukhova, G. A. Tsukerman, S. A. Belicheva and many others. In foreign psychology, various authors turned to the study of adolescence: S. Freud, J. Piaget, E. Erikson, A. Freud, H. Remschmidt, K. Levin, E. Spranger, St. Hall et al.

Domestic research on teenagers that appeared after the 60s of the twentieth century can be divided into pre- and post-perestroika works. The difference between them is that in the latter the two trends discussed above are clearly visible, namely: a certain influence of Western theories, on the one hand, and a focus on modern changes in society, on the other. This can be seen quite noticeably in a number of recent publications covering, among other things, adolescence (works by D.I. Feldshtein, L.F. Obukhova, T.V. Dragunova, G.A. Tsukerman and many others).

There are many studies, hypotheses and theories of adolescence. Most authors define this stage of child development as the transition from childhood to adulthood. According to V. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, the word “teenager” means “a child in his teens.” “In general, this is the period of the end of childhood and the beginning of “growing out” of it” (V. Dahl, 1989).

Psychologists are of the opinion that any age, including adolescence, does not have clear boundaries, and if they exist, they are very conditional. This opinion is dictated by the research of anthropologists (M. Mead, R. Benedict and others), who, while studying a number of tribes, drew attention to the short duration and invisibility of the teenage period there. It was convincingly demonstrated that adolescence is nothing more than a fact of our civilization, that the nature of adolescence depends on the complexity of society, on the distance that it establishes between age groups, on the method of transition from one group to another. After the works of M. Mead and a number of other studies, adolescence begins to be viewed not as a psychological transformation caused by puberty, but as a cultural process of a child’s entry into the social life of an adult.

T.V. Dragunova, analyzing the views on adolescence not only of anthropologists, but also of psychologists and biologists, argues that this period of development in different peoples and cultures proceeds differently and has different age boundaries. She believes that age boundaries can both converge and expand, increasing the transition period. According to the author, the number of years required for the transition from childhood to adulthood has increased significantly in modern society (T.V. Dragunova, 1972).

This idea coincides with the point of view of L.S. Vygotsky, who notes that the three phases of maturation in adolescents in a civilized society often do not coincide: “Puberty begins and ends before the teenager reaches the final stage of his socio-cultural formation” (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984). This mismatch of maturation phases gives rise to considerable difficulties. The fact is that puberty is ahead of organic, and then, in turn, social, which leads to some imbalances in the development of a teenager. The thought of L.S. seems interesting and productive. Vygotsky on the importance of historical time for the development of a teenager. In his opinion, the cultural and historical environment and immediate surroundings most influence this particular age. At the same time, the influence of the environment can both narrow and significantly expand the boundaries of adolescence. The more sexual, organic and social maturation coincide, the shorter the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, and the more they diverge in time, the longer this period becomes, the longer the transition.

According to the German philosopher and psychologist E. Spranger, adolescence is the age of growing into culture. He wrote that mental development is the ingrowth of the individual psyche into the objective and normative spirit of a given era. But examining adolescence requires a clear vision of its boundaries. There are several definitions of the boundaries of this life span. For example, G. Grim limits adolescence to the age of 12-15 years for girls and 13-16 years for boys. According to A. Gezzel, the transition from childhood to adulthood lasts from 11 to 21 years. And J. Birren believes that this period covers 12-17 years. In the classification of D.B. Bramley this age is defined as 11-15 years. The same duration is indicated by the authors of a longitudinal study from the Institute of Human Development at the University of California. J. Piaget refers to adolescence as 12-15 years old (I.V. Dubrovina, 1987).

It seems that the boundaries of adolescence are most adequately delineated in the periodization of ontogenesis proposed by D.B. Elkonin, in which the emphasis is on the emergence of new mental formations caused by the change and development of leading types of activity. The boundaries of adolescence in this periodization are set between 11-15 years (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

Let's consider the main neoplasms in adolescence. The unevenness, inconsistency, and complexity of mental development in adolescence are not accidental. Development is characterized by those more or less stable mental characteristics that have developed, as well as new qualities of personality and activity that first appear at a given age with the existing education of a given child. These new qualitative changes in the personality structure, behavior, and activities of the child L.S. Vygotsky called mental new formations of age (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984). And in adolescence, there are psychological characteristics that are inherent in primary school age, and new psychological formations characteristic of this age stage of development.

The main neoplasm of adolescence, according to L.S. Vygotsky, is that now “a new character enters the drama of development, a new qualitatively unique factor - the personality of the teenager himself... In connection with the emergence of self-awareness, an immeasurably deeper and broader understanding of other people becomes possible for the teenager. Social development, which leads to the formation of personality, acquires in self-awareness a support for its further development” (L.S. Vygotsky, 1984).

As many authors note, the central point in the sphere of a teenager’s feelings is the “sense of adulthood.” The teenager begins to feel like an adult, strives to be and be considered one. He rejects his belonging to children, but he does not yet have a feeling of true full-fledged adulthood, but he has a great need for recognition of his adulthood by others.

D.B. Elkonin considers the most important new developments of adolescence to be the formation of self-esteem, a critical attitude towards other people, the desire for “adulthood” and independence, and the ability to obey the norms of collective life (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

The main new development of this age, according to Sprangler, is the discovery of the “I”, the development of reflection, awareness of one’s own individuality and its properties; the emergence of a life plan, an attitude toward consciously building one’s own life; gradual integration into various spheres of life. This process goes from the inside to the outside: from the discovery of the “I” to practical inclusion in various types of life activities (I.S. Kon, 1989).

Many psychologists (Gezzel, Levin, Erikson, Blos) used the concept of “developmental task.” Thus, E. Erikson writes that adolescence is built around an identity crisis, consisting of a series of social and individual choices, identifications and self-determinations. Feelings of one’s uniqueness, individuality, and dissimilarity from others appear; in the negative version, a diffuse, vague “I” (E. Erikson, 1996).

The main idea of ​​J. Piaget about the characteristics of adolescents is that they develop a new age-related ability - hypothetico-deductive thinking. According to the scientist, the main intellectual new formation of this period is the ability to reason with the help of verbally formulated hypotheses, rather than manipulations with specific objects; thinking develops to the stage of formal operations.

Michel Clé notes that the development of the intellectual sphere of a teenager is characterized by qualitative and quantitative changes that distinguish it from a child’s way of understanding the world. The formation of cognitive abilities is marked by two main achievements: “the development of the ability for abstract thinking and the expansion of time perspective” (M. Kle, 1991). According to M. Klee, adolescence is also characterized by important changes in social connections and socialization, as the predominant influence of the family is gradually replaced by the influence of the peer group. These changes occur in two directions, in accordance with two development tasks:

1) release from parental care;

2) gradual integration into a peer group.

Many psychologists note that in adolescence, all cognitive processes without exception reach a very high level of development. The main new feature that appears in the psychology of a teenager compared to a child of primary school age is a higher level of self-awareness. Adolescence is the time of formation of true individuality, independence in learning and work.

Adolescence is a period of increased emotionality, which manifests itself in mild excitability, passion, and frequent mood swings in adolescents (I.V. Zapesotskaya, 2006).

Emotions arise only about such events or results of activity that are associated with motives. In activity theory, emotions are defined as a reflection of the relationship between the result of an activity and its motive. If, from the point of view of motive, the activity is successful, positive emotions arise; if negative, vice versa.

Based on materials obtained in the research of I.S. Kon and other psychologists, it can be argued that during adolescence a certain, relatively stable orientation of the personality already takes shape (I.S. Kon, 1989). It determines the moral side of his personality, as well as many features of his behavior in activity.

So, needs underlie all other drivers of human behavior, including the highest ones. Motives are a special series of incentives for behavior.

Among the specific human drivers of behavior, self-esteem occupies a special place. Its formation is closely related to the process of self-awareness, which develops especially intensively in adolescence. It is at this age that children often focus on the assessment of others, and self-esteem and self-respect are especially intensively formed.

The process of formation of self-awareness and, above all, such an important component of it as self-esteem, closely correlates with various psychological states of a teenager, in particular, such as anxiety, fears, self-doubt, etc. These are unique emotional indicators of the development of both self-esteem and self-awareness.

As noted by A.I. Zakharov, the fears experienced by teenagers are largely due to one of the main contradictions of this age: the contradiction between the teenager’s desire to be himself, to preserve his individuality and at the same time to be together with everyone, i.e. belong to the group, correspond to its values ​​and norms (A.I. Zakharov, 2000). To resolve it, a teenager has two ways: either withdraw into himself at the cost of losing connections with peers, or give up excellent freedom, independence in judgments and assessments and completely submit to the group. In other words, the teenager faces the choice of either egocentrism or conformism. This contradictory situation in which a teenager finds himself is one of the main sources of his fears, which have obvious social conditioning.

One of the first places in this series is the fear of not being oneself, which essentially means the fear of change. Its “provocateur” is the teenager’s experiences caused by changes in his body image. Therefore, adolescents are so afraid of their own physical and mental deformity, which paradoxically is expressed in their intolerance of such shortcomings of other people or in obsessive thoughts about the deformity of their figure.

Adolescents are also characterized by fears of attack, fire, and getting sick, which is especially typical for boys, as well as the elements and confined spaces, which are more typical for girls. All of them are in the nature of fears and are in one way or another connected with the fear of death.

The number of fears in the area of ​​interpersonal relationships, noted at previous ages, also increases at this age. One of the stimulants of such fears is the lack of emotionally warm relationships with parents, as well as conflictual relationships with them. This narrows the teenager’s social circle and leaves him alone with his peers. Since the value of communication at this age is extremely high, the teenager is afraid of losing this only channel of communication.

The consequences of fears are manifold, but the main one is increasing uncertainty, both in oneself and in other people. The first becomes a solid basis for wariness, and the second for suspicion. As a result, this results in a biased attitude towards people, conflict and isolation of the “I”. All this A.I. Zakharov also qualifies it as a manifestation of obsessive fears or anxiety. Obsessive fear (anxiety) is perceived by a teenager as something alien, occurring involuntarily, like some kind of obsession. Attempts to cope with it on your own only contribute to its strengthening and the growth of anxiety.

It has been established that at 13-14 years of age the feeling of anxiety is significantly higher than at 15-16 years of age. Moreover, if for the former it practically remains unchanged, then for the latter at 15 years of age it significantly decreases in comparison with the previous period, and at 16 years of age it rises sharply again.

And one more interesting fact. If at 13-14 years old (grades 7-8) there are no differences in the level of anxiety between boys and girls, then at 16 years old (grade 10) this level is higher for girls than for boys. Thus, anxiety at the age of 13-14 is an age characteristic that overlaps individual developmental characteristics, which is desirable to take into account in terms of preventing the mental development of a teenager.

Comparing the dynamics of anxiety with the dynamics of self-esteem, it is easy to detect their close interdependence, especially in high school. The higher and more adequate the self-esteem, the less anxiety and the more confidence in oneself and one’s capabilities (A.M. Prikhozhan, 2000).

Another feature in the development of a teenager’s self-awareness is a heightened sense of self-esteem. Often a teenager feels like they want to humiliate him. He, as noted above, is generally characterized by an increased need for human kindness. He reacts painfully to falsehood and pretense, although he often behaves in a similar way (T.V. Molodtsova, 1997).

So, although 15-16-year-old teenagers have all aspects of a person’s self-awareness, there is no need to talk about its completeness and formation. This conclusion is also true for the period of early adolescence (16-17 years old).

As for early adolescence, it is difficult to talk about the structural readiness of self-awareness. Some of its components are just being formed.

The emotional distress of adolescents is not directly related to the material well-being of the family and is not always related to those parameters that are considered important at this age: studies, communication with peers. It turns out that teenagers suffer most from the loss or significant deterioration of emotional contacts with their parents (no matter how “adult” and independent of their parents they try to appear to themselves and others).

Unfortunately, parents for the most part, busy with their own problems, do not very often think about what price their growing children can and do pay for their employment. But the emotional depression of modern teenagers leads to delayed social development, character conflicts and, ultimately, maladjustment in society.

Thus, the boundaries of adolescence (between 11-15 years) are most adequately delineated in the periodization of ontogenesis proposed by D.B. Elkonin, in which the emphasis is on the emergence of new mental formations caused by the change and development of leading types of activity. Most researchers define middle school age as the transition from childhood to adulthood (D.B. Elkonin, 1989).

New developments of adolescence include: the formation of self-esteem, a critical attitude towards other people, the desire for “adulthood” and independence, the ability to obey the norms of collective life, and the development of the intellectual sphere. Adolescence is a period of increased emotionality, which manifests itself in slight excitability, passion, anxiety, and frequent mood swings in adolescents.

There are some mental states that are especially relevant in adolescence: anxiety; aggressiveness; frustration; loneliness; rigidity; emotional sensations: stress, affect, depression; alienation.

Anxiety plays an important role in understanding how a person will perform a particular activity, especially when someone else is doing the same thing next to him.

Anxiety – the ability of a person to enter a state of increased anxiety, to experience fear and anxiety in specific social situations.

The manifestations of anxiety in different situations are not the same. In some cases, people tend to behave anxiously always and everywhere, in others they reveal their anxiety only from time to time, depending on the circumstances. Situationally stable manifestations of anxiety are usually called personal and associated with the presence of a corresponding personality trait in a person (the so-called “personal anxiety”). Situationally variable manifestations of anxiety are called situational, and the personality trait that exhibits this kind of anxiety is called “situational anxiety.”

In connection with the spread of not only altruism in the world, but also ignoble human acts: wars, crime, interethnic and interracial clashes, psychologists could not help but pay attention to behavior that is essentially the opposite of altruism (a character trait that encourages a person to unselfishly come to the rescue people and animals) – aggressiveness.

Aggressiveness (hostility) – human behavior towards other people, which is characterized by the desire to cause them trouble, harm: moral, material or physical.

A person has two different motivational tendencies associated with aggressive behavior: a tendency towards aggression and towards its inhibition. The tendency towards aggression is an individual’s tendency to evaluate many situations and people’s actions as threatening to him and the desire to respond to them with his own aggressive actions. The tendency to suppress aggression is defined as an individual predisposition to evaluate one's own aggressive actions as unwanted and unpleasant, causing regret and remorse. This tendency at the behavioral level leads to suppression, avoidance or condemnation of manifestations of aggressive actions.

Aggressive people find many ways to justify their actions, including the following:

Comparing your aggressive actions with the actions of a more serious aggressor and trying to prove that, in comparison with his actions, the actions taken are not terrible;

- “noble goals”;

Lack of personal responsibility;

Impact of other people;

The belief that the victim “deserved” such treatment.

Aggression can cause an accumulation of frustration, which leads to an increase in a person’s inferiority complex and the appearance of aggression.

An abnormal attitude, which, being primarily personal, and which can act in the sphere of interpersonal group relations, is frustration.

Frustration – an emotionally difficult experience by a person of his failure, accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness and frustration in achieving a certain desired goal.

Frustration is accompanied by disappointment, irritation, anxiety, and sometimes despair; it negatively affects relationships between people if at least one of them is in a state of frustration.

Different people's reactions to frustration may vary. This reaction can take the form of apathy, aggressiveness, regression (temporary decrease in the level of rationality and intellectual organization of behavior).

In a state of frustration, a person is almost constantly in a negative emotional state. He has needs and desires, but they cannot be realized; he has set goals for himself, but they are not achievable. The more strongly the needs and desires are expressed, the more significant the goals and the more significant the obstacles to their implementation, the greater the emotional and energetic tension the psyche experiences.

A frustrated person usually reveals himself through harsh expression, a tendency to take it out on partners, rudeness, and unfriendly communication.

One of the most serious problems of humanity is the problem of loneliness, when relationships for some reason do not work out, generating neither friendship, nor love, nor enmity, leaving people indifferent towards each other.

Loneliness - a severe mental condition, usually accompanied by a bad mood and painful emotional experiences.

The concept of loneliness is associated with the experience of situations that are subjectively perceived as an undesirable, personally unacceptable lack of communication and positive intimate relationships with other people. Loneliness is not always accompanied by social isolation of an individual. You can constantly be among people, in contact with them and at the same time feel your psychological isolation from them, i.e. loneliness (if, for example, these are strangers or people alien to the individual).

Genuine subjective states of loneliness are usually accompanied by symptoms of mental disorders, which take the form of affects with a clearly negative emotional connotation, and different people have different affective reactions to loneliness. Some people report feeling sad and depressed, for example, others report feeling fearful and anxious, and still others report feeling bitter and angry.

Lonely people tend to dislike others, especially those who are sociable and happy. This is their defensive reaction, which, in turn, prevents them from establishing good relationships with people. I assume that it is loneliness that forces some people to abuse alcohol and drugs, even if they themselves do not admit that they are lonely.

Rigidity – inhibition of thinking, manifested in the difficulty of a person refusing to once make a decision, way of thinking and acting.

Emotions - a special class of subjective psychological states, reflected in the form of direct experiences and sensations.

Emotional sensations in the biological sense have become established as a way for a living organism to maintain an optimal state of life.

The norm for a person is a positive emotional attitude, which also plays a kind of protective (protective) function. As soon as the optimal state of life deteriorates (well-being, health, appearance of external stimuli), emotions also change (positive to negative). This is called lowering the emotional tone.

Affect – a short-term, rapidly flowing state of strong emotional arousal, resulting from frustration or some other reason that has a strong effect on the psyche, usually associated with the dissatisfaction of very important needs for a person.

The development of affect is subject to the following law: the stronger the initial motivational stimulus of behavior and the more effort had to be spent on implementing it, the smaller the result obtained as a result of all this, the stronger the resulting affect.

Depression – a state of affect with a negative connotation. Depression is understood as severe melancholy, accompanied by despair and crisis of spirit. In a state of depression, time seems to slow down, fatigue sets in, and performance decreases. Thoughts about one’s own insignificance come, and suicide attempts are possible.

Another kind of affect – stress – is a state of strong and prolonged psychological stress as a result of overload of the human nervous system.

Stress disorganizes a person’s activities and disrupts the normal course of his behavior. Stress, especially if it is frequent and prolonged, has a negative impact not only on a person’s psychological state, but also on a person’s physical health.

Alienation – manifests itself in the fact that a person, once in a conflict situation, cannot get out of it on his own. To escape the conflict, he must break the connection between his “I” and the traumatic environment. This gap creates a distance between the person and the environment, and later it develops into alienation.

So, in this paragraph we examined the main types of mental states that are most characteristic of adolescence.

Psychological diagnostics are carried out with professional psychodiagnostic tools, which are used only by professional psychologists and interpret the results taking into account the entire arsenal of psychological data about a person.

The result is a complete psychological portrait of the individual with a forecast of further behavior and changes in oneself, with the goal of changing the quality of one’s life, choosing and changing one’s life path.

No online tests, which are now widely distributed on the Internet, can replace you with professional psychological diagnostics, individual recommendations taking into account your personality, as well as, if desired, the possibility of professional psychotherapy, psychocorrection and counseling.

Suggested areas of psychodiagnostics:

Early childhood (1-3 years):

• Diagnostics of motor-motor mental acts;
• Diagnostics of neuropsychic development of children;
• Comprehensive examination of the child;

Preschool childhood (3-6 years):

• Determination of the level of maturity of nervous processes;
• Memory research;
• Study of attention; Study of hand-eye coordination;
• Assessment of the level of perception;
• Diagnosis of personality traits and mental states in preschool age;
• Signs of mental stress and neurotic tendencies;
• Diagnosis of social health of a preschooler;
• Psychological diagnostics of readiness for schooling.

Junior school age (7-11 years);

• Assessment of mental processes (memory, attention, thinking, perception);
• Diagnosis of mental states and personality traits in adolescence(self-esteem, level of aspirations, fears, anxiety, aggressiveness, well-being, assessment of neuropsychic stress, depression, diagnosis of suicidal behavior); etc., at the request of parents.
• and other points at the request of parents

Adolescence (12-16 years)

• Diagnostics of the development of mental processes (thinking, attention, memory); Diagnosis of mental states and personality traits in adolescence (self-esteem, level of aspirations, fears, anxiety, aggressiveness, well-being, assessment of neuropsychic stress, depression, diagnosis of suicidal behavior); etc. ., at the request of the parents.
• Diagnosis of a person's professional orientation.

• Psychological diagnostics of the level of development of cognitive processes;
• Comprehensive psychological diagnostics of personality(self-esteem, anxiety, fears, personality type, capabilities, properties of the nervous system, temperamental characteristics, character, etc.).
• Diagnosis of mental states and personality traits;
• Diagnosis of emotional characteristics and disease risk;
• Diagnosis of neuropsychic stress;
• Psychological diagnostics of the level of personality neuroticism;
• and etc.

Profession

• Personality orientation;
• Assessment of professionally important qualities;
• Diagnosis of mental states and personality traits;
• Personal behavior in stressful situations;
• Assessment of professional burnout syndrome.
• Personal motivation;
• Assessment of psychological professional adaptation;
• and etc.