Aleksandra V. Fedotova

Background. The aggressiveness of social networking is a significant component of the risk modern teenagers face during socialization, and cyberbullying is one of the most controversial forms of aggressive behavior on social media.

Objective. This paper deals with the study of secondary school students’ behavior on social media. The parameters characterizing teenagers’ usage of social media – their activity, intensity, motives, and self-presentation – are analyzed with respect to gender, age, and social psychological factors. The main focus is teenagers’ personal experience dealing with aggressive situations on social media: their role in aggressive situations (as aggressor, victim, or witness); the form of aggression (public or private); the aggressor’s characteristics (acquaintances or strangers, persons, or groups); and their views on what action victims should take (ignoring it, confronting it, or asking for help).

Design. This article is based on data obtained by researchers at the Center for Sociology of Education of the Institute of Education Management of the Russian Academy of Education in 2020-2021. Using a specially developed questionnaire, we collected responses from 40,575 students from grades 7-11 in 17 regions of Russian Federation through an anonymous online survey. Mathematical statistical methods were used for data processing, specifically, the chi-square test in the “Basic statistics-Difference tests” module of the “StatSoft Statistica 7.0” package.

Results. The data showed that the adolescents with high status among their classmates (“leaders”) used social media as an important educational resource, while those with low status (“loners”) used it to compensate for their poor real-life experience. Aggression on social media appears to be quite common among adolescents. The traditional differences between male and female subcultures appeared in the choice between private or public forms of aggression. The increase in aggressive interactions with strangers as the youth aged indicated that the realization of the teenage distinctive basic need for "expanding one’s social environment" in online interaction comes with the risks of encountering unfriendly, aggressive reactions.

Conclusion. Communication on social media reflects an adolescent’s real-life interaction in school: those who have experienced psychological or physical bullying are more likely to become both victims and offenders in aggressive situations on social media. This transfer of group bullying from real life to the virtual can be seen as the main feature of adolescent cyberbullying.

Preschool childhood is a time of rapid development. During this period a child`s interaction with significant adults plays a very important role. The parent, as a mediator, defines the “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1984). The common assumption is that to determine a parent’s position, it is important to acknowledge both socio-demographic factors and the parameters which define the socio-psychological aspects of parent-child relationship. Hence, the type of research where a child’s psychological development is studied in the context of the socio-demographic and socio-psychological factors which determine the social situation of development, is very promising.

Based on our previous research (Sobkin, Marich, 2002; Cheie, Veraksa, 2015), a program of experimental research intended to determine the interconnections between the socio-demographic and socio-psychological parameters of parent-child relationships, and the level of a child’s psychic development, was designed. The research was based upon the material obtained through testing 59 children between 5 and 7 years old with specially collected psychological testing methods (Veraksa A.N. etc), as well as from the results of a special sociological questionnaire presented to their mothers (Sobkin V.S. etc). The research was carried out in 2014-2015 in municipal kindergartens of Moscow.

Among the socio-demographic factors analyzed, the most significant results were related to the child’s gender, the family structure, and the mother’s education. Thus, boys showed higher results on visual memory tests, and girls scored better on tests for self-control and social intelligence (higher ability to detect the reason for someone else’s negative emotions). Children from single-parent families had better results on verbal memory tests, but scored lower on those for self-control. Also they had less ability for decentration. The differences in mothers’ educational levels influenced the number and intensity of children’s fears, as well as their inclinations to avoid fearsome situations.

The analysis of features of the parenting position (such as attitude toward one’s future, positive/negative emotional state during the interaction with the child, authoritative/ democratic approach to upbringing) revealed two different strategies which children used to perform executive tasks.

Thus, the present research showed a significant degree of essential connections between socio-demographic factors and parent-child relationships to the specifics of a child’s mental development.