Young People' Coping Behavior in Situation of a Personal Crisis

Cheremiskina Irina Igorevna PhD in Psychology Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Legal Psychology, Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service" 690014, Russia, Primorskii krai, g. Vladivostok, ul. Gogolya, 41 irina-cheremiski@mail.ru

Kapustina Tatiana Viktorovna ORCID: 0000-0001-9833-8963 PhD in Psychology Associate Professor, Department of General Psychological Disciplines, Pacific State Medical University under the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation 690002, Russia, Primorsky Krai, Vladivostok, Ostryakova Ave., 2 12_archetypesplus@mail.ru Other publications by this author

IntroductionRapidly changing socio-economic conditions, the rapid pace of life are the realities of today, in such conditions of life, a person experiences serious informational and emotional stress, which causes a stress reaction of the body.

Chronic stress leads to the depletion of human adaptive resources and contributes to the disruption of mental adaptation, up to the breakdown of functional life systems, the development of disorders and diseases in the mental and somatic spheres of personality. A chronic state of stress poses a threat to the satisfaction of fundamental human needs, which leads to the emergence of a personal crisis, the use of adaptive coping strategies can be considered a way to prevent the occurrence of a personal crisis, they allow a person to maintain the stability of his mental state, protecting him from mental maladaptation.

The problem of understanding the personal crisis in Russian psychology developed within the framework of L.S. Vygotsky's cultural and historical concept ^[1] and A.N. Leontiev's theory of activity ^[2]. Thus, L.S. Vygotsky, concretizing the concept of age crisis, notes its specificity in each age period and speaks of its normativity, that is, the crisis is a kind of turning point in the normal course of mental development of the individual when a person moves from one stage of life to another. The scientist explains that every age crisis is a personal crisis and to a greater or lesser extent leads to changes, for example, changes in the basic experiences of the individual. There are also non-normative crises, but they do not occur in every person, because they arise spontaneously and unexpectedly ^[1] and are associated with externally conditioned difficult life situations that may not occur or will not lead a person to a crisis. For example, parents' divorce (parents may not divorce, but, on the contrary, be an example of good family relations), violence (there may not be violence, neither physical nor sexual, etc.), migration (a person may not only not move to another country, but also to another federal subject or even a city in within one subject), chronic unemployment (a person may live in a relatively quiet political time or in a country with a stable economic situation, or have a profession in high demand), severe somatic illness, imprisonment or a court ban on professional activity, which may never happen in the life of a person, etc.

In Russian psychology among contemporaries, L.G. Zhedunova gives the most complete picture of the study of the personal crisis ^[3-5]. The author considers a personal crisis as "a state of subjective impossibility of 'realizing the inner necessities of life', arising as a result of the subject's awareness of the mismatch of real life relationships and deep semantic structures of personality ^{[3, p. 15]}". Thus, the author equalizes the two concepts of "personal crisis" and "crisis state". L.G. Zhedunova believes that when the term "crisis" is used in psychology in any of its variations, it is a personal crisis that is meant, hence the terminological confusion, and the use of synonymous concepts ("life crisis", "meaning of life crisis", "spiritual crisis", "existential crisis", "identity crisis", etc.). In her opinion, a personal crisis requires a person to solve tasks that are extraordinary for him, interrupting the normal course of life, changing the image of the world. The cause of the personal crisis, according to L.G. Zhedunova, are external or internal circumstances of life. External causes include any adverse environmental changes or life external events. It should be noted that the reason may not always be negative. Positive events can also lead to a situation of personal crisis (for example, the birth of a child or first love). The main essence of the reason is not in its positive or negative pole, but in the fact that it is able to change the usual standard of living of an individual. The internal causes are the internal contents of the personality, which are the trigger mechanism for the emergence of a personal crisis, since each person can react differently to the same external cause, due to his life experience and development ^{[5, 6]}.V.V. Kuzmenko and S.V. Manakhov also note that sometimes there is a confusion of this concept with related ones – "crisis state", "crisis of personality development", "critical (crisis) situation" or "psychological crisis" ^[7].

Many authors consider the concept of personal crisis quite broadly, presenting it as a general concept having different types (for example, age crisis, professional crisis, existential crisis, etc.) that reflect personality problems. V.V. Kuzmenko and S.V. Manakhov conduct a detailed theoretical analysis of the study of the concept of "personal crisis" and come to the conclusion that it can be considered both in a broad sense and in a narrow one. But the authors are more inclined to the first option, arguing that whatever the reasons for its occurrence (internal or external, professional or family, etc.), the crisis remains an "event of the inner world", and absolutely any difficult life situation is experienced by a person subjectively, which is a "personal" or "individual crisis". And in this case, the crisis state can also act as a similar concept ^[7].

Thus, there are various confusions of concepts related to the definition of the crisis. In this study, we will consider the personal crisis based on the definition of L.G. Zhedunova, which combines all the above concepts into one ^[3-5]. That is, people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis should include those who are experiencing both normative and non-normative crises, since they in any case lead to a personal imbalance, which is key in this work.Since the sample of our study was made up of young people, it can be noted that they have a high probability of experiencing a personal crisis related to age characteristics.

The period of early adulthood is characterized by the restructuring of the inner world of the individual, young people meet with adulthood, the search and finding of the meaning of life begins, which is often accompanied by the experience of a personal (existential) crisis ^[8-10]. About 33-35% of young people experience a state of personal crisis ^[11], which, when ignoring their own resources and lack of help from others, can lead to maladaptive social behavior, criminalization, alcoholization, drug addiction and suicide ^[12]. According to I.V. Mishcherina, professional formation also occurs at a young age, which may be the cause of a professional crisis ^[8]. In addition to regulatory crises, they can also face non-normative ones, especially in a changing world ^[13].

The study of personal crisis is possible by analyzing each of the components of a three–component model - cognitive ("I think"), emotional ("I feel"), behavioral ("I do") ^[5]. Such a division is rather conditional, since all these components are mutually conditioned and very accurately determine the features of experiencing a personal crisis and the current crisis situation.

1) The emotional component should be considered the most vivid, since it is emotions that determine the mental state of a person, which is a crisis state. At the level of this component, a person experiences emotions of a predominantly negative nature, these emotions in strength and level of experience exceed the intensity of ordinary feelings and emotions experienced by a person in everyday life. Most often these are emotions such as fear, resentment, anger, irritation, guilt, hopelessness, helplessness and loneliness. These experiences can be contradictory. For example, what is often incompatible in normal life can be experienced simultaneously in a crisis state (joy and fear, anger and love). Negative experiences are something new for a person, therefore they can be characterized as unusual and unusual, which additionally leads a person to stressful manifestations, and he begins to consider himself abnormal more. Often this leads to the fact that the person is worried not only about the current crisis situation, but also about the negative feelings that he is experiencing, due to which emotional tension is growing.

2) The cognitive component is characterized by a slowdown in analytical activity or its unproductive acceleration. A person may not see a way out of the current situation or see it only from one side. He constantly replays this situation in his head, fixating on it, not finding any solution, and the negative emotions experienced at this moment enhance this effect.

3) The behavioral component should be considered more broadly, including the motivational component of the personality. The personality loses its life-meaning guidelines up to complete apathy. You can hear such phrases: "I don't have the strength", "I don't want anything." A person renounces his desires, his actions, feels fragmented, because what happens to him does not fit into his life, goes beyond his Self-concept, ideas about his normal behavior and condition.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to describe the features of coping behavior in young people in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis. The subject of the study was coping behavior. By coping behavior, we, following E.R. Isaeva, will understand the activity of the individual to maintain a balance between the requirements of the environment and resources that meet these requirements. We share the opinion of the majority of researchers that coping behavior of a person includes behavioral responses that affect the situation; cognitive strategies that allow to overestimate the situation and efforts aimed at relieving emotional stress ^{[14, 15]}.Organization and methods of research

The overall sample of the study was presented by 78 respondents: 46 female and 32 male.

The age of the subjects is 21-23 years, the average age is 21.4. All the subjects are senior students (4-6 years) of Vladivostok universities (Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service, Far Eastern Federal University, Pacific State Medical University). The subjects were born and live in the city (Vladivostok, Ussuriysk, Arsenyev), at the time of the study are not married, have no children, have approximately the same level of financial status. The study was conducted full-time in free time from the educational process (more often in the evening). Conventionally, the study consisted of two stages. At the first stage, with the help of psychodiagnostic techniques (taking into account the three-component model of L.G. Zhedunova), the presence of experiencing a personal crisis was diagnosed. The first stage allowed us to divide the subjects into two groups – the main group (persons in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis, 42 people) and the comparison group (respondents who are not experiencing a personal crisis at a given time, 36 subjects). At the second stage of the study, a comparative analysis of the characteristics of coping behavior in young people in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis and without it was carried out.

The main method of research was the testing method, which was presented by a number of techniques. Based on the three-component model of L.G. Zhedunova's personal crisis, the selection of psychodiagnostic techniques was carried out. The emotional component of a personal crisis reflects the mental (emotional) state of people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis. To determine it, the method "Well-being. Activity. Mood" (SAN), developed by V.A. Doskin, N.A. Lavrentieva, V.B. Sharai and M.P. Miroshnikov. Also, an important role in the diagnosis of the emotional component is played by the level of situational anxiety of the individual. For this purpose, the paper uses the "Integrative Anxiety Test" (ITT) by the authors A.P. Bizyuk, L.I. Wasserman, B.V. Iovlev, with the help of which it is possible to determine not only the level of situational anxiety, but also to examine its structure in more detail. The cognitive and behavioral components of the personal crisis were determined using K.V. Karpinsky's "Life Meaning Crisis Questionnaire", which is designed to study the negative aspects of subjective experiences and behavior of a person who has problems with the definition and practical implementation of the meaning of life. According to L.G. Zhedunova, from the side of the cognitive and behavioral component in a situation of personal crisis, a person loses his life-meaning guidelines and constantly thinks about what happened to them, fixating on it. To diagnose coping behavior in the work, the test of L.I. Wasserman et al. was used. "Coping behavior strategies". This technique allows you to determine possible conscious reactions to a stressful situation. Also, the "Individual Typological Questionnaire" (ITO) by L.N. Sobchik is used in the work. This technique is used to identify maladaptive personality traits that characterize all three components of a personal crisis. In addition to the above, the scale of lies and aggression will show the reliability of the data obtained. To identify differences in coping behavior in two groups of subjects (the main group and the comparison group), the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test, median test, and frequency analysis were used. To establish the relationship of individual indicators in the main group of subjects, presented in the form of ordinal data (nonparametric), the work used the coefficient of rank correlation H. Spearman. In this study, a p-level significance level of no more than 0.05 was selected. All calculations were performed in the computer program Statistica 10.0.

Results and their discussionAccording to the study plan, at the first stage, the total sample was divided into two groups.

Based on the component model of L.G. Zhedunova's personal crisis, according to the results of three methods "Well-being. Activity. Mood" (SAN), "Integrative Anxiety Test" (ITT) and "Questionnaire of life meaning crises" determined the presence of experiencing a personal crisis. In this work, the diagnostic criteria for identifying the experience of a personal crisis were – low values on two or three scales of the SAN questionnaire (4 points and below), a high level on two or more scales of situational anxiety of the ITT methodology (7-9 stanines), high scores on the Questionnaire of life-meaning crises (7-10 walls), reflecting a low level of meaningfulness and the presence of specific difficulties in semantic regulation and meaning formation of the life path. Thus, the total sample was divided into the main group – 42 people in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis, and the comparison group – 36 respondents who did not have difficulties associated with the presence of a personal crisis at the time of the study.

The results obtained indicate that a person who is in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis more often has a reduced emotional background, a reduced mood, is not satisfied with the current life situation, is characterized by a state of emotional tension. It may be characterized by disorders of the autonomic nervous system, accompanied by a decrease in activity and the predominance of lethargy and passivity, the rapid onset of fatigue and fatigue, sleep disorders may occur. A person perceives his life path as boring, uninteresting, unproductive, purposeless, often inconsistent and insufficiently organized. One can observe a low level of motivation, a person becomes apathetic and indifferent to what is happening in his life, is guided rather by simple needs, there is no desire to achieve anything in life, he shuns any cases that require long and hard work. There may be a feeling of increased anxiety and fear in the personality structure, associated not only specifically with the situation of experiencing a personal crisis, but also with the expected future, and the level of claims is also reduced. The personality is pessimistic about life prospects against the background of increased emotional sensitivity. Many everyday tasks and responsibilities are perceived by her as completely meaningless. In general, a person experiences emptiness and life unrealization, but at the same time does not seek to correct the current situation, due to the lack of vital energy, subjective dissatisfaction with life prevails. Interaction with other people can also cause anxiety, increase fatigue, fatigue and reduce overall well-being.

According to the statistical processing of the "Individual-typological questionnaire" methodology, values on the scales "Aggravity", "Sensitivity" prevail in the main group of subjects, and "Leadership" prevails in the comparison group (Table 1).

Table 1 – Results of statistical processing of the expression of individual typological personality traits according to the ITO L.N. Sobchik method in the main group and the comparison group using the Mann-Whitney U-test

Median values on the scale of "Aggravation" in two groups indicate a tendency in the main group (median=3) in comparison with the comparison group (median=1) to exaggerate existing problems, increase existing ill health, low mood, level of emotional tension. The increased sensitivity index indicates that in a group of people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis, the subjects are more vulnerable, sensitive, and more difficult to experience failures, including the crisis situation itself. They probably accept criticism more acutely, tend to blame themselves for mistakes, may seek support from others, but not always find it. They are not inclined to take a leading position in a team, lead other people, actively make decisions for themselves and for others, be enterprising, they are more comfortable being led than leading.

Also, according to the results of the frequency analysis of the results of the "Individual-typological questionnaire" methodology, for young people from the main group, the predominant feature of interpersonal interaction is a combination of conformity and nonconformity (in 25 out of 42 cases) and conflict (in 19 out of 42 cases), which indicates the presence of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts. This may be directly related to the situation of experiencing a personal crisis when a person does not understand how to behave with other people. Probably, he may have internal inconsistency, the subject can quickly change his point of view, the strategy of interaction with others, look for conflicts, provoking other people, even where the situation can be easily resolved. It should be noted that 37 out of 42 respondents of the main study group have maladaptive personality traits (when scores on the main scales or one of the basic scales of the methodology reach values 8-9) – anxiety (in 18 out of 37 cases), sensitivity (in 15 out of 37 cases), rigidity (in 5 out of 37 cases), aggressiveness (in 5 out of 37 cases), introversion (in 4 out of 37 cases), extraversion (in 2 out of 37 cases), emotivity/lability (in 2 out of 37 cases). The results obtained characterize a person who is in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis as sensitive to assessments and pressure from others, anxious, fearful, fixated on a problematic situation. There is also a predominance of motivation to avoid failures over motivation to achieve success, which additionally indicates increased anxiety, self-doubt, constant doubts, they often concentrate on possible difficulties and losses (if there is any strength and vital energy to do something). The predominant personality traits described above in the main group indicate the likelihood of the predominance of maladaptive coping strategies. However, let's consider the data according to the methodology of L.I. Wasserman and co-authors.

To process the results of an empirical study for two groups, the method of frequency analysis was also used, which allowed to identify the prevailing behavioral strategies. In this paper, the predominant coping behavior strategies are those whose indicators in standard estimates are more than 60 T-points (as a pronounced preference for the appropriate strategy). If none of the respondent's strategies scored 60 T-points, then the highest value falling within the range of 40-60 standard ratings was taken into account (as a moderate use of the corresponding strategy). The results obtained are presented in detail in Table 2.

Table 2 – Frequency of occurrence of prevailing coping strategies in the main group and the comparison group

*Note: The standard estimate was determined based on rounding the median valuesAnd thus, according to the results of an empirical study, two strategies of coping behavior "Distancing" prevail among the main group of the study (in 33 out of 42 cases, the median value =

67) and "Escape-Avoidance" (in 32 out of 42 cases, median value =67), their joint predominance is also observed (in 26 out of 42 cases). For the comparison group, it is impossible to identify the leading type of coping behavior, since there is a large spread in the prevalence of coping strategies and none of the median values of each strategy reaches the value of standard estimates equal to 60 or more.

For a more detailed analysis, statistical processing was carried out using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U-test, which showed significant differences in the severity of the use of coping behavior strategies for the two groups of subjects (Table 3).

Table 3 – Results of statistical processing of the severity of coping behavior types in the main group and the comparison group using the Mann-Whitney U-test

The results of the statistical analysis showed that the coping strategies "Distancing" and "Escape-avoidance" are predominant in the main group of the study. At the same time, for people who are not in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis, in comparison with the main group, the following coping behavior strategies prevail – "Self-control", "Taking responsibility" and "Problem solving planning". If we consider the indicators of median values (Table 2), it can be noted that at the level of the methodology there is no strong difference in the choice of the "Self-control" strategy, values 43 and 49 fall into the category of moderate predominance, so we should not say that people in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis are not able to use this strategy. The remaining behavioral strategies have significant differences both at the level of statistics and at the level of methodology. Thus, the coping strategy of "Taking responsibility", although not pronounced in the two groups of subjects, however, in the main group, the median value of standard scores does not reach 40 points, which indicates the rare use of this strategy. And in the comparison group, its use is moderate. The "Problem Solving Planning" strategy is also less pronounced in the main group, despite the fact that the median values in the two groups correspond to moderate use of them. In the main group, it is moderate use with a tendency to sparse use (median=46), in the comparison group – moderate use with a tendency to pronounced use (median=55).

According to the results of statistical processing using the rank correlation coefficient , Ch . According to Spearman's methods of "Coping behavior strategies" and "Individual-typological questionnaire" in the main group, the following results were obtained (Table 4).

Table 4 – Results of statistical processing using the rank correlation coefficient H. Spearman 's methods of SSP and ITO in the main group of the studied

In young people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis, the strategy of "Distancing" is associated with the level of severity of anxiety. This suggests that the more they move away from solving the problem, reducing emotional involvement, the higher their worries about their well-being and future life. That is, despite the fact that they are trying to get away from the problem, their well-being does not allow them to do it, or another option is possible. Being fixated on their well-being and mental state, they are not able to solve the difficulties that have arisen.

In turn, the "Lability" scale is in direct correlation with the strategies "Search for social support" and "Escape-avoidance". It can be noted here that increased lability increases emotional involvement not only in positive aspects of life, but also negative ones (as a personal crisis), therefore, the subjects may seek informative, emotional support from other people, or, conversely, there will be a motivational instability inherent in increasing lability, which will contribute to avoiding problems and inability to solve the current difficult life situation.

The "Rigidity" and "Introversion" scales have a negative correlation with the "Problem Solving Planning" strategy. By itself, this strategy is one of the most adaptive. It is possible to note a contradiction in the resulting statistical results, since an increase on the "Rigidity" scale is characterized by perseverance in achieving goals, an increased desire to defend one's views, which should contribute to the ability to plan when solving problems. However, we see the opposite. Probably, in order for the subjects to use this adaptive strategy more often, it is necessary not to withdraw into themselves when difficulties arise, not to seek conflict with other people, but, on the contrary, to seek help and support from them, one should be more trusting and less suspicious, and this is what the negative correlation on these two basic scales indicates..

ConclusionSo, in the main group, the predominant behavioral strategies are predominantly maladaptive coping behavior - the strategies of "Distancing" and "Escape-avoidance".

The most rarely encountered strategy is one of the most adaptive "Taking responsibility". Also, some individual psychological characteristics of the personality of the representatives of the main group of the study were identified, which can be reference points for the implementation of psychological assistance to persons in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis. These are characteristics such as the desire to exaggerate existing problems, an increased level of anxiety, low mood, passivity, poor health, increased sensitivity, impressionability, vulnerability, lack of leadership qualities, the predominance of vedomosti, intrapersonal conflict consisting in the confrontation of two contradictory traits – conformity and nonconformism, the predominance of motivation to avoid failures, a tendency to conflict behavior.

It can be noted that the coping behavior of young people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis is characterized by the desire to deny existing problems, ignore them, not try to solve them, be passive. Probably, due to the peculiarities of their mental state and well-being, they shy away from responsibility and actions to resolve the problem, do not make attempts to purposefully analyze the current situation, do not consider options for correcting their behavior, their own actions, and, even more so, they do not show a willingness to analyze their behavior, look for the causes of actual difficulties in personal shortcomings and mistakes. When trying to cope with the situation that has arisen, they do not rely on objective conditions, past experience and the resources available to them, they try to subjectively reduce the significance of the problem by switching their attention to another, distancing themselves and devaluing it. All this can lead to the impossibility of solving the problem, will contribute to the accumulation of difficulties, and the actions taken (denial and devaluation of the situation itself) to reduce emotional discomfort are likely to have a short-term effect.

Thus, on the basis of the described components of experiencing a personal crisis, we have selected diagnostic methods and described the criteria for its diagnosis, which determines the author's contribution to the study of this problem. The scientific novelty of the study is due to the identified and described personal characteristics of young people who are in a situation of experiencing a personal crisis.

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