Developmental psychology

The high level of stress in modern society poses a need to study family factors and resources for the development of children’s defense mechanisms in the current social environment. This study investigates correlations between maternal and child psychological defense mechanisms, using interviews, a structured clinical survey, projective drawing, and a projective game. Analysis of data from 240 people (120 children and 120 mothers) revealed specifics of the formation of psychological defense mechanisms among children aged 4 to 12 years in child-mother relationships. We suggest that maternal and child defense mechanisms have some isomorphic traits, but the level and quality of isomorphism changes with each age period of the child. Certain defensive mechanisms of mother and child appear with the same frequency. The child’s gender influences the correlation between the mother’s and child’s psychological defense mechanisms. Initially, children are more likely to directly copy defense mechanisms observed from the mother’s behavior. As they grow older, they use defenses that they have learned consciously. Based on empirical data, we also found a correlation between the maturity of the maternal psychological defense mechanisms and specifics of child psychological defense mechanisms. We propose that the maturity of maternal psychological defense mechanisms has the greatest meaning for child psychological defense mechanisms at the earliest stages of ontogenesis — it provides consistency between the mother’s own psychological defense mechanisms and the psychological defense mechanisms that she teaches her child.

This article examines psychological predictors of inhibition in educational environments as well as various aspects of pedagogical communication, including facilitation, which is aimed at enhancing educational effectiveness and developing students by means of using a particular communication style and the teacher’s personality. The need to study inhibition (the deterioration of teacher-children interactions; the negation of a student’s individuality; the inability to understand and accept students’ viewpoints; teacher-provoked conflicts; and emotional callousness) is substantiated. The essence of psychological predictors as independent variables, changes in which lead to changes in other dependent variables, allowing the prediction of inhibition development, is explained.

The research objective was to identify psychological predictors of the development of inhibition in pedagogical communication.

An empirical study was conducted using standardized techniques for diagnosing communicative attitudes (V. Boyko), developing general communicative tolerance (V. Boyko), identifying aggressiveness (A. Asinger), identifying the level of empathy (V. Boyko), and identifying the degree of pedagogical inhibition (L. Polosova). The sample contained 375 teachers from Yekaterinburg educational institutions, with participant selection made using stratified sampling.

The teacher’s personality features (a negative communicative attitude, low communicative tolerance and empathy, and higher levels of aggression) were shown to be key predictors of inhibition, which itself was found to depend on the length of teaching experience. At the beginning of one’s professional teaching career, the level of inhibition is minimal. However, the level of inhibition reaches its maximum level after 5-10 years of teaching, and after 20 years, there is a sharp decrease in the level of inhibition.

The conclusion of this study stresses the importance of developing strategies to prevent and correct inhibition, which is especially essential for school teachers with 5-10 years of experience.

Contemporary psychological and pedagogical studies pay special attention to the socialization of physically impaired children, inclusive education and methods of providing such children with a safe environment to assist in their development. However, difficulties in interpersonal communication experienced by children with health impairments have remained beyond the research scope. The authors conducted a comparative analysis of communication difficulties in typically developed teenagers aged 12-13 years (n = 100) and the problems faced by their peers with visual (n = 30), auditory (n = 30), speech (n = 25) and motor (n = 15) impairments. Actual communication difficulties in teenagers were studied in two ways: the subjective component of impaired communication was registered through a content analysis of a sentence completion test and the objective manifestations of impaired communication were identified through expert evaluation of children’s communicative behavior (educators and psychologists who had been in close contact with the teenagers acted as experts).

First, the authors identified typical standard communication problems that were characteristic of teenagers aged 12-13 years, that is, problems with aggression, tolerance, the ability to admit wrongdoing and make concessions, empathy, self-control, self-analysis and self-expression in communication. Second, typical communication difficulties characteristic of physically impaired children were revealed: failure to understand meaning; feelings of awkwardness and shame of oneself; expectations of a negative attitude toward oneself; gelotophobia; and manifestations of despotism, petulance and egotism as defensive reactions in situations of impaired communication. Third, the authors described specific communication difficulties in teenagers with auditory, visual, speech and motor impairments.

The research literature suggests that institutions for children left without parental care do not provide environments that adequately promote children’s development, and that characteristics of orphanages should be considered as an environmental factor influencing developmental difficulties in children living in institutions and later in post-institutional families. This study aimed to analyze the structural characteristics of the caregiving environment in two St. Petersburg (RF) orphanages—baby homes for children from birth to 4–5 years of age (BH A and BH B), and the maintenance of the structural interventions that were implemented in BH A during 2000-05 (The St. Petersburg–USA Orphanage Research Team, 2008). Both institutions belong to the Ministry of Health and are managed under the same medical regulations, providing about the same quality of medical care and nutrition. The results of the study show that the number of children living in each ward (4 to 6 in BH A and 5 to 8 in BH B), and the child–caregiver ratio (2 to 3 for BH A and 2.5 to 4 for BH B) in the two baby homes are about the same, while BH A have fewer staff members who are assigned to the ward (6–8 vs. 9–14 in BH B). The ward assistant teachers in BH A are assigned as the primary caregivers, working 5 days a week (39 hrs) vs. about 25 hrs a week for assistant teachers in BH B. While living in the baby home, children in BH A are integrated by age and disability (vs. segregation by age and partial disability integration in BH B), and are assigned to one ward (meaning the same caregivers, peers, rooms, etc.), while in BH B the children change their ward when they reach a certain age or developmental milestone (number of wards children experienced M(SD) = 1.1 (0.2) in BH A and 2.7 (1.1) in BH B). Our results support the hypothesis that the structural characteristics of institutional environment in the two baby homes are different, and that in comparison with BH B, the structural characteristics of BH A show more caregiving stability and consistency. The results also show that the interventions implemented in BH A within the St. Petersburg–USA Orphanage Research Project were maintained for many years after the project was finished. The specific features of an institutional caregiving environment should be taken into consideration in studies of the mental health and bio-behavioral development of children in institutions and postinstitutional families.

This article analyzes the influence of family structure on the hardiness of adolescents aged 16-18 (average age 17.2). The aim was to investigate hardiness of subjects from full, single-parent, and large families. We used the Test of Hardiness Survey and the Noetic Orientations Test (SZhO). The sample comprised 200 subjects, first year university students from families with different compositions: 75 were brought up in a full family, 75 in a one-parent family, and 50 in a large family. A one-way analysis of variance and repeated measures MANCOVA showed that the subjects differ both in their hardiness and the distinctive features of its development. The authors conclude that subjects from full families are less hardy than those from single-parent families, but more hardy than those from large families. Also the hardiness dynamics of children from full, single-parent, and large families differ. Adolescents from single-parent families increase their hardiness further, whereas in students from full families it decreases. This can be explained by specific ways that the students survive the crisis of adolescence. And finally, students from large families demonstrate a similar level of hardiness in comparison with students from full families. This can also be explained by specific ways that they survive the crisis of adolescence. Later, when this crisis is almost over, their hardiness becomes similar to that of students from full families, which has decreased by that time.