Some mechanisms of formation of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts related to the personality characteristics of the Dominant and Subordinate person in the parental family

Sennitskaya Elena Vladimirovna Mater's Degree student of the Department of General Psychology and History of Psychology at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University 630090, Russia, Nso oblast', g. Novosibirsk, ul. Tereshkovoi, 33, kv. 58 activist07@mail.ru Other publications by this author

This article is a continuation of the work ^[1]. The first part contains statistics of positive answers to questions, the purpose of which was to check how often a particular phenomenon associated with the personality characteristics of a Dominant and Subordinate person from the parent family of the subjects occurs in their lives.

This part of the study examines the comments that the subjects gave on their own initiative, wanting to explain exactly how the phenomenon they confirmed manifests itself in their lives. These comments provide information about internal and interpersonal conflicts that arise in the lives of subjects as a result of the phenomena that were studied in the work ^[1], and reveal the mechanisms of formation of personality orientation and life scenarios.

A review of the literature on the formation of a life scenario

Since a detailed analysis of the literature devoted to the study of the life scenario was given in ^[1], here we will focus only on the ideas closest to the conclusions of our study.

The first direction is the teaching of Z. Freud (1856-1939). First of all, we are talking about the Oedipus complex, which explains the origins of falling in love. Freud first mentions this phenomenon in an 1897 letter to Wilhelm Flis ^[2]: "I ... discovered by my own example the infatuation with my mother and jealousy of my father ... and now I consider this as a universal phenomenon of early childhood" (Jill Scott. Electra after Freud, p. 7). In 1899, Freud wrote about this in more detail in his work "Interpretation of Dreams" ^[3].

According to Freud, the girl is initially attracted to her mother, but at 2-3 years old she switches her attention to her father and begins to compete with her mother (the term "Electra complex" was introduced in 1913 by C.G. Jung in the book "Theory of Psychoanalysis").

Subsequently, in the work "I and it" ^[4], Freud recognized that there is an Oedipal complex on the contrary – love for a parent of the same sex and hostility to a parent of the opposite sex. However, neither a clear explanation of what sexual orientation depends on, nor what the mechanism of choosing a spouse in adulthood is, was offered.

According to Freud, sublimation occurs over time – the process of converting libido into any kind of activity approved by society. However, even here Freud did not give an explanation of what determines what kind of activity a child will engage in in the future, why one, for example, becomes a scientist, another a composer, a third will engage in criminal activity, and the fourth will try one thing or another all his life. In addition, in life we see a lot of "sexually anxious" people, in whom this aspiration, even clearly hidden and suppressed, is not "melted down" into any socially approved type of activity, and such a person spends his life lying on the couch with games and videos on his smartphone. 

The second important theory explaining the causes and direction of personality development is the teaching of Alfred Adler (1870-1937). If Freud believed that the development of personality is driven by the sexual aspirations of the individual, then Adler argued that, on the contrary, the nature of sexual aspirations is determined by the lifestyle of the individual. In turn, this "lifestyle" is formed as a result of the inferiority complex of the child. Let us quote here the fragment that most fully reflects Adler's position (our italics):

"The development of the soul is similar to the development of organic life. Each person has a concept of a goal or an ideal necessary in order to achieve more than what is possible for him in an actual life situation, to overcome the shortcomings and difficulties of the present by postulating a specific goal of the future… It is quite obvious that the fixation of this goal – giving it a specific form – should take place at an early stage of life, during the formative period of childhood… One can imagine how this process proceeds. Being weak, the child feels his inferiority and is in a situation that he can hardly bear. However, he has a desire to develop in the direction determined by the goal that he chooses for himself… It is difficult to say how this goal is fixed, but it is clear that it exists and affects every mental movement of the child…

He [the child, – E.S.] ... is looking for the strongest personality in his environment and makes her his model, and imitation of her is the goal.It could be a father or a mother, as we have found that even a boy can be influenced by his mother if she seems to be the strongest person. In the future, the child may want to be a coachman, because for some reason he believes that it is the coachman who is the strongest person. When a child imagines this goal, he begins to behave, feel and dress like a coachman, he acquires qualities related to his goal. But if the policeman moves his finger, the coachman becomes nothing. Later, the ideal may be a doctor or a teacher, because the teacher punishes children, and therefore he is treated as the strongest person…

One boy, who was asked who he would like to be in the future, replied: "I want to be an executioner." His answer indicates a lack of social interest, because the boy wants to be the master of life and death, a role that belongs to God. He wants to be more powerful than society, and he is driven by the idea of the futility of life. Being a doctor is also a goal built around the idea of godlike in the desire to be the master of life and death, but in this case the goal is realized through service to society.

When a prototype is formed – an early version of a personality embodying a goal – the direction and orientation of an individual's life is established. All this gives us the opportunity to predict what will happen in his life in the future."^[5]

Adler does not explain the following things:

1. By what criteria does a child identify the strongest figure in his environment?

2. What exactly determines how he will dominate others?

3. Who exactly does he need to dominate? If we proceed from the above example, where the boy was going to become an executioner, it turns out that Adler believed that he was above the whole society at once, but is this really the case?

4. Is the same method used to dominate, or are these methods different for influencing different people from the environment? 

As a third theory explaining the orientation of personality, the transactional analysis of Eric Bern (1910-1970) should be considered, which introduces the concept of "scripts", meaning subconscious life plans. These scenarios are generated by several factors: genetics, the order of birth, the position of parents, their life scenarios, external factors (accident, war, diseases) and the like, but E. Bern attaches special importance to "parental prescriptions" ^[6]. However, Byrne does not explain why in some cases the "parental prescriptions" and the life scenarios of the parents are perceived by the child as their own, while in others they are ignored.

According to E. Bern, scenarios push a person to a certain interaction with other people ("transactions"), and the most important "transactions" are "stroking" – actions that imply recognition of our presence, for example, greeting, touching or even quarreling. However, Bern does not offer any generalizing "laws of people's attraction to each other", based on their scenarios and the semantic content of their "transactions".

The fourth direction, which claims to explain the human life model, is based on the works of Bert Hellinger (1925-2019) ^[7] and his followers, primarily Gunthard Weber ^[8].

To explain how a person's fate is shaped, B. Hellinger introduces the concepts of "family system", "intertwining", "loyalty to the family system", "unconscious group conscience" and "incomplete processes in the system". (It should be noted that the doctrine of loyalty to the family system was already present in the works of I. Buzormenin.)

According to Hellinger, the child is influenced by his family system – a set of relatives, as well as outsiders who played a big role in the fate of the family (both benefactors and villains, for example, criminals who took the life of someone from the family). The family system promotes the child's self-identification with someone who has died or been excluded from the family system (those about whom, for some reason, it is not customary to talk). In other words, relatives see the child as one of the members of the family system, or he himself begins to imitate someone whom others would like to forget. Such self-identification with some person from the family system is called "intertwining".

Why does the child begin to imitate? B. Hellinger gives three reasons for this. The first is "loyalty to the family system" (the child imitates to please relatives so that the family system does not reject him). The second is due to some archaic "unconscious group conscience", which seeks to restore those members of the family who died or were intentionally forgotten. In other words, if one of the ancestors committed a crime and they try not to talk about this person, one of the children will certainly behave in a similar way.

"Unconscious group conscience," according to Hellinger, can lead to the fact that if someone has seriously harmed someone from the family, the child will repeat the fate of the villain (because this criminal is excluded from the family system), or repeat the fate of the victim (because they also try to forget about her). Let's explain that, according to Hellinger, criminals belong to the family systems of their victims, and victims belong to the family systems of criminals.

The third reason for the repetition of someone's fate, according to Hellinger, is the child's desire to complete certain processes that are not completed in the family system, that is, the descendant is called upon to finish what a representative of the older generation did not finish (for example, to give birth to children who could not have a childless relative).

The work of the founder of psychogenealogy A. Anselin-Schutzenberger "Ancestral syndrome" is close to B. Hellinger's approach ^[9]. The researcher demonstrated that such a phenomenon as imitation of the fate of an ancestor, about which they try to talk as little as possible, really takes place. However, neither Hellinger nor Schutzenberger provide answers to the following questions:

1. In the child's family system, there may be an ancestor whose features relatives want to see in him (i.e., the mechanism of "loyalty to the family system" should work), an ancestor (or even several such) who was excluded from the family system (for example, due to the fact that he committed a crime), there may be a victim (or several victims) of this ancestor, and there may be an ancestor (or several ancestors) who have unfinished business. Which of them will the child imitate?

2. According to Hellinger, a child can identify with both at the same time out of love for two members of the family system (for example, begins to behave like a criminal and a victim at the same time), which leads to psychosis or schizophrenia. But what is the objective prerequisite for such love? Why does this happen in some people and not in others?

3. Some representatives of the older generation are imitated by several children at once. Why does this happen if only one child is enough to calm the "group conscience"?

4. In what way exactly is a descendant doomed to imitate his ancestor, because it is obvious that each person contains a very wide range of qualities?

5. Why do children often imitate not only those who are excluded from the family system by silence, but also those about whom, on the contrary, they talk a lot and willingly, and also imitate living relatives?

6. A. Anselin-Schutzenberger admits: it is completely unclear why the "anniversary syndrome" proved by Josephine R. Hilgard, which is a special case of a repetition of the fate of an ancestor, may manifest itself in one of the brothers or sisters, but not in others.

As the fifth direction related to the theme of the life scenario, let's name the theory of Harvill Hendrix, explaining the marriage choice ^[10].  Here are its main provisions:

1. In the process of socialization, children, satisfying the expectations of their parents, lose part of their "I". At the request of adults, they get rid of certain emotions, needs and behaviors. For this reason, we subsequently choose a spouse who possesses those qualities that we lost under the pressure of our parents, and at the expense of him, as it were, we return them, we complete our personality to the whole.

2. The spouse is an improved version of our parents. He should remind us of our parents, but communicate with us in a different way, much better, and thus heal the "wounds of childhood". According to Hendrix, people who are not like our parents are less attractive to us: when communicating with them, there is no attraction, these relationships "lack energy."

3. H. Hendricks believes that the prototype of the future spouse is the parent with whom there was a more complicated relationship. According to the author, we even deliberately provoke our spouse to show the negative qualities of our parent in order to feel the state we need.

The author believes that it is necessary to assess the strength of passion in relation to the intended chosen one on a ten-point scale, and if it turns out that a potential spouse causes a desire for ten points, it is not necessary to marry him, because along with the qualities attractive to us (which are present in him with a strength of 10 points), in the same He will also have those negative qualities of our parent, which, on the one hand, attract our attention, on the other hand, irritate. A score of five points or less means that there will not be enough fire in the relationship. If we estimate the attractiveness of a person by 7-8 points, marriage can be concluded. 

4. One of the main causes of conflicts between spouses is that the behavior of our spouses worries us, as it activates those parts of our personality that were banned by our parents. For example, the wife is emotional, but the husband has buried this quality in himself to please his relatives, and he does not want to violate the ban on emotionality.

Also, the reason for conflicts is that spouses cannot heal our childhood traumas, because husbands and wives, according to X. To Hendrix, they look like our parents and behave in a similar way. These provisions contain the following ambiguities:

1. The first provision means that the child has already been born a "ready-made person" with all the needs of a mature personality, and has not formed these needs in the process of socialization. It turns out that a person is already born with a desire for knowledge, creativity, good deeds and at the same time with the ability to rigidly defend his boundaries, and the intervention of adults takes away from him these properties that were originally inherent in him. Nevertheless, the position of innate perfection and wealth of personality contradicts the basic principle of psychology and pedagogy about the development of personality from simple to complex.

2. The second provision contains as many as two uncertainties. It is unclear what kind of relative a spouse should look like and what exactly he should look like. H. Hendricks suggests considering all the qualities of all persons involved in the upbringing of a child, which makes the mechanism of choosing a spouse extremely uncertain, because it remains unclear why exactly one and not another parent and those and not others his qualities influence the idea of an ideal life partner.

3. The third provision also needs to be specified. What exactly should be the "complexity of the relationship" with a parent in order for this particular parent to become the prototype of our future spouse? What exactly are the negative qualities from the huge, perhaps, list of such that we provoke?

From the statement of X. According to Hendrix, we are attracted to people who have negative qualities of our relatives, it follows that all children who grew up in families of mentally ill people, alcoholics or criminals tend to marry the same problematic characters. How then to explain the numerous cases when this does not happen?

4. H. Hendricks believes that the qualities of a spouse that attracted us at first, compensating for our lack of these qualities, begin to annoy us, since "appropriation" of these properties by us will mean a violation of parental prohibitions. Nevertheless, in real life we observe many cases when children violate the attitudes of their parents, including marrying people whose behavior annoys our parents. What is the reason for whether the prescription will be violated or, on the contrary, sacredly observed?

The sixth direction, devoted to the study of the life scenario, which I would like to note, is presented by a group of authors led by V.K. Shabelnikov, who put forward the idea that the development of a child's personality is influenced by a "stress system" ("misalignment") between the generic structures of the mother and father ^{[11],[12],[13],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19],[20],[21]}. The authors demonstrate that the more different kinds of differences between parents, the more favorable it is for the development of the child. A.V. Litvinova explains this by the fact that the higher the "degree of mismatch" between the images of parents, the less the child identifies with the family and the more independent he is in setting life goals ^[14],[15].

In our opinion, the ideas belonging to the above-mentioned directions are related to the following manifestations of the pattern described in more detail in ^[1]:

The child distinguishes between a Dominant and a Subordinate in his family (the one who obeys the Dominant most willingly). The child has a desire to live his life in such a way as to rise above the Dominant and receive approval from the Subordinate. The child adopts those features of the Dominant, which, in the opinion of the child, provide the Dominant with the worship of the Subordinate. As a result, according to the system of movements and manners, the child usually looks like the Dominant One. This provision, in contrast to the teachings of Z. Freud's oedipal complex (the rivalry of a boy with his father for the attention of his mother) implies that the gender of the Dominant, Subordinate and the child himself does not matter, that is, rivalry with the Dominant, the measure of success of which is the approval of the Subordinate, seems to be a universal phenomenon, independent of the gender of the participants.

Along with the above, the child does not want to live his life like a Subordinate relative (in particular, his profession, as a rule, is unattractive for the child). Our conclusions regarding the role of the dominant person are quite consistent with the teachings of A. Adler, but, firstly, Adler did not deduce specific signs by which a child distinguishes a Dominant person in his environment (these signs are given in detail in ^[1]), secondly, he did not notice such an important figure for the formation of a child's personality as A subordinate (meanwhile, as they say, "the king is played by the retinue").

If there was a clearly defined Dominant–Subordinate pair in the family, especially if the Subordinate's position in the family was significantly lower than that of the Dominant One, the child has a clear idea of what are the signs of "strong" and "weak" behavior. Accordingly, even in childhood, he has a strong desire to rise above the "strongest" and avoid a repeat of the fate of the "weakest". The goal-setting of such a person is markedly different from the goal-setting of a person in whose family there was no obvious leader and one who enthusiastically obeyed this leader. But the significant difference in the position of the Dominant and Subordinate in the family can be interpreted as a "stress system" ("mismatch"). between the generic structures of the mother and father, which V.K. Shabelnikov writes about.

We emphasize that the authors of the V.K. Shabelnikov school write about "misalignment" as a positive phenomenon. In particular, M.V. Semenikhina in her dissertation proves the relationship between the "mismatch" of images of parents in the representation of children and the degree of reflexivity of the latter ^[12]. Despite the fact that the concept of "misalignment" in this direction does not mean a noticeable difference in family status, but simply a significant difference of any kind, one can agree with M.V. Semenikhina's conclusions. According to our observation, the strongest factor contributing to reflexivity is the situation when a Subordinate person in the family has socially approved qualities (kindness, hard work, modesty, love for children) and/or significant achievements in front of society, and the Dominant one – on the contrary. In this case, the child from an early age thinks about what laws the world around him lives by. The circumstance stimulating such reflections is also the situation when the sex of the child coincides with the sex of the Subordinate.

The child pays attention to information that opens the veil of mystery over how to rise above the Dominant One. In this regard, if a child knows which type of people the Dominant One despised, considering them weak and pathetic, he tends not to fall into this category in any case. If the child knows what skills and qualities the Dominant One was sincerely proud of, he often strives to have such skills and qualities himself.  

The child also notices what dreams and plans the Dominant One could not fulfill, whom he respected, admired, revered, envied, who (or what) he was afraid of, from whom (or from what) he fell into impotent rage, was there a person who somehow rose above the Dominant One or crossed over Make way for him. All this information tells the child what he needs to be in order to acquire "strong" qualities that will allow him to surpass the Dominant One, and in which areas this can be done. A child can assert himself by fulfilling a dream that has not been realized by the Dominant One, or develop skills and qualities peculiar to persons for whom the Dominant One felt respect, admiration, envy, fear or impotent rage.

In this part, our conclusions concretize E. Bern's teaching on parental prescriptions, and also overlap with the observation of B. Hellinger and A. Schutzenberger that children often imitate the fate of a relative or other person, which is not customary to talk about in the family. It can be assumed that most often they try to avoid talking about people who cause negative emotions in the Dominant: about those who once crossed his path, forced him to experience fear, impotent rage or envy. Also, a person who is silent about may be a benefactor, whose role in his fate the Dominant would like to forget, or a person who had significant achievements, comparison with whom does not flatter the Dominant's self-esteem. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, information about people who cause an emotional reaction from the Dominant is what attracts the child's attention in the first place.

A person is inclined to choose a profession that gives the feeling that with its help he will rise above his Dominant One. The marriage choice follows the same logic: we fall in love with a person who, it seems to us, will help us rise above the Dominant one, that is, to live a better life than him, and if people who unpleasantly resemble the Dominant one appear on our way, our chosen one or chosen one should help us overcome them. Thus, with the idea of X. According to Hendrix, that the prototype of the future spouse is the parent with whom there was a more complicated relationship, our conclusions are also consistent. Of course, the concept of "more complex relationships" needs to be specified, but, as the statistically significant results of the study convincingly show ^[1], the feeling of anger in a child is most often associated with the Dominant One, while the Subordinate often causes a feeling of resentment, because it seems to the child that the Subordinate loved the Dominant One more than him. Also, a subordinate often causes a child to feel pity and (or) guilt.

A more detailed comparison of our results with the points of view presented in the literature review is given in the section "conclusions" of the work ^[1].

Symbols

The number in parentheses after the name of the response category indicates the total number of responses of this type, while the contents of only some of them are given. If no number is indicated in parentheses after the name of the response category, it means that this kind of response was in a single copy. Examples:

- the fear of falling into the role of a "weakling" hinders creative self-realization (2); for example, the mother despised those who earn little, and the son cannot do what he likes, because they pay little for it;

- it is not the subject himself who falls into the category of "weaklings", but his life partner.

Definitions

The dominant person is the family member who most closely matches the following characteristics:

- he had the last word;

- everyone was pleasing him, serving him, and he himself did only what he wanted;

- he was less emotionally dependent on others (and those, in turn, depended on him), in particular, committing infidelity and initiative in divorce can be a sign of dominance;

- he raised his voice more often and used force;

- it was scarier to annoy him than other relatives;

- his favor was considered a special honor (he was more stingy with praise).

The dominant one is not always the one who earns more, the one who is older, smarter, or who has a higher social position. An alcoholic, a drug addict, a pathological loafer, a mentally ill person or pretending to be one can be dominant, as long as in fact everyone does what is beneficial to him.

A subordinate is the family member who most willingly submits to the Dominant, loves and respects him the most, forgives him all insults and encourages everyone else to obey the Dominant.

Research methods and organization

In 2019-2022, a study was conducted to test the hypothesis of the relationship between the personality characteristics of the Dominant and Subordinate person in the parental family and the personality characteristics of the child (published in ^[1]). The main method was a structured conversation, during which a survey was conducted with closed and open type answers. The combination of closed and open type answers was necessary in connection with the intention to obtain information not only about the very presence of a particular phenomenon in the life of the subject, but also about what exactly it is. Thus, the degree of reliability and validity of the answer increases.

The empirical base of the study was made up of 555 men and women aged 15 to 55 years who contacted a psychologist for career guidance and (or) relationships with a legitimate or common-law spouse through an aggregator website. The participation of people of different age categories was conditioned by the desire to demonstrate the universality of the assumed patterns. For the same purpose, the sample included people of different genders, levels and types of education who played the role of control groups.

Stages of the study:

1. The subjects underwent a two-hour interview (the wording of the questions is given in ^[1]). The motive for completing the survey was to receive conclusions and recommendations on the subject of the client's request immediately after the end of data collection.

2. Oral answers (both of the "yes/no" type and detailed explanations) were recorded. Clarifying questions were resolved.

3. The results were discussed, during which the participants had to agree or disagree with the conclusions and provide additional explanations.

Processing the results. The answers of all the subjects were summarized in a common table. Data processing was performed using the MS Excel package for Windows XP and the SPSS Statistics software package version 23.0. For some questions, the data consisted of "yes" and "no" answers encoded with zeros and ones, for others – detailed answers.

Methods of statistical data processing. The ?2 (chi-squared) criterion and conjugacy tables were used to compare the nominal features. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare quantitative features. Descriptive statistics in percentages were also used for the purpose of clarity. The methodological guidance in the selection and use of methods was provided by the works of O.Y. Ermolaev, D.Ya. Raigorodsky and A.D. Inheritance.

Next, we will repeat the statistically significant conclusions outlined in ^[1] and add to them information that was not the subject of quantitative research. We are talking about detailed comments that some of the subjects gave, wanting to tell in more detail about how this or that phenomenon manifests itself in their lives, the presence of which they confirmed. These answers were divided into semantic groups, and among them were those that demonstrate the mechanisms of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts in connection with the personality characteristics of the Dominant and Subordinate person in the parental family of the subjects. Our goal is not to assess how common certain types of conflicts are, but to demonstrate that such mechanisms of occurrence of psychological problems exist and knowledge about them can be useful in the practice of psychological counseling.

First, the identified trend from the work ^[1] is indicated, followed by a review of those comments from participants that show the problems associated with it.

A person is inclined to pity and justify people of the same sex as the Subordinate (questions No. 24-25, 31-32, 38)

Let's recall the wording of these questions and the statistics of the answers to them. No. 31. "I feel pity and desire to help a man more often than a woman." No. 32. "I feel pity and a desire to help a woman more often than a man." On questions 31-22, the hypothesis received statistically significant confirmation: 95.4% of those with a male Subordinate tend to help men, and 92.2% of those with a female Subordinate prefer to help women more. Statistical significance: ?2=234.677; p?0.001.

No. 38. "I am more lenient towards people of the same sex as the Subordinate, they seem to me weaker and more harmless." 100% in this case is 507 people, since 48 people did not have a Subordinate. 54.8% gave positive answers, and 45.2% did not respond. The result is statistically significant: ?2=4,736; p=0.030.

Thus, we can talk about a cognitive distortion regarding the "helplessness" and "inoffensiveness" of people of the same sex as the Subordinate. This phenomenon occurs for the reasons identified by questions No. 24 and 25:

No. 24. "Name the adult family member whom you felt sorry for at the age of 14 (you wanted to make his life easier, help him)." 275 people gave answers. Next, it was calculated how many subjects had the person they most often felt sorry for, a Subordinate. It turned out that the pity of 264 subjects (96%!) was caused by a Subordinate. The result is statistically significant: ?2=232.760; p?0.001.

№ 25. "This man was pitied because he suffered because of the actions of the Dominant One." 144 people (52%) out of 275 answered in the affirmative (because only 275 subjects out of 555 felt sorry for someone from their relatives, see question No. 24). Thus, 52% of the respondents have a certain conflict with the Dominant One due to the fact that the Dominant One somehow upset the one they feel sorry for. In turn, the one who was pitied was a Subordinate in 96% of cases.

The subordinate is more often perceived by the child as emotionally close, accessible, since the child often feels pity for the Subordinate in connection with his "weakness" and "helplessness" in front of the Dominant One. The idea of the imaginary omnipotence of persons of the Dominant sex and the belief in the helplessness of persons of the Subordinate sex entails the inability to make adequate demands to persons of the Subordinate sex and have confidence that they are fully capable of meeting them. For example, a woman whose Subordinate father was an alcoholic cannot believe that her husband is quite able to abstain from alcohol.

The other side of this cognitive distortion is the underestimation of the danger that can come from people of the same sex as the Subordinate, which can lead to mental trauma associated with deceived trust.

That's what the subjects of both sexes, whose subordinate was a woman, told about their willingness to help women and about greater trust in them:

- 10 people shared stories about how they play the role of rescuers in relation to persons of the same sex as the Subordinate, and in 6 cases this was accompanied by falling in love with the rescued;

- 6 subjects told stories confirming that with people of the same sex as a Subordinate, they behave more trustfully, carelessly, as a result of which they suffer from deceived trust;

- 6 people told stories confirming that they have no aggression towards people of the same sex as the Subordinate, and they cannot put them in their place;

- 3 people shared that they take rejection from people of the same sex as the Subordinate much closer to their hearts;

- 2 people told cases confirming that for the sake of persons of the same sex as a Subordinate, they are ready to act to their own detriment;

- 1 person reported that he pays more attention to the problems of persons of the same sex to which the Subordinate belonged than to his spouse;

- 1 person told a story about how he repeatedly forgave the selfish, cruel behavior of a Subordinate and some other persons of the same sex as the Subordinate, because it seemed to him that they were completely helpless and "could not do anything."

Subjects of different genders, whose subordinates were men, also tend to help and trust men more:

- 12 people told stories confirming that they have more confidence in people of the same sex as a Subordinate, and the potential danger from them is underestimated, which sometimes leads to sad results;

- 4 people shared stories confirming that it is easier for people of the same sex as a Subordinate to push them to an act that they may regret; for example, to persuade them to have an abortion, go to war, use drugs, give up creative self-realization;

- 4 people presented cases confirming that they have no aggression towards people of the same sex as the Subordinate, and they cannot "put them in their place";

- 2 people said that in relation to people of the same sex as the Subordinate, they have excessive altruism, guilt and inability to demand anything from them;

- 1 person gave an example of how he repeatedly forgave the selfish, cruel behavior of a person of the same sex that a subordinate;

- 1 person gave an example of how he wants to get approval from people of the same sex as the Subordinate.

Imitation of the Dominant in order to gain the approval of others (questions No.71-73)

Recall that the following hypotheses were tested using questions No. 71-73 in ^[1]:

- observing the relationship between the Dominant and the Subordinate (especially if they are spouses), the child concludes for what qualities the Subordinate loves the Dominant or, at least, because of what qualities the Dominant agrees to obey him;

- the child copies these qualities because he believes that by possessing them, he will achieve the love and subordination of other people, first of all, the one whom he has designated as a spouse; in other words, in front of his intended chosen one, he demonstrates first of all those qualities for which the Subordinate loved the Dominant One, and counts on praise.

- if we are praised precisely for those qualities that made the Subordinate love the Dominant One, and not for any others, this causes special delight, because it means that we have reached the level of our Dominant One (accordingly, the person who expressed such praise becomes especially valuable to us).

No. 71. "Why did the Subordinate love the Dominant One?" 57 people (11% of the 507 subjects whose family had a Subordinate) managed to answer this question, and this is 100% for the following questions (No. 72-73).

No. 72. "I would like my chosen one to love me for those qualities for which the Subordinate loved the Dominant One." This position was confirmed by all those who gave a text answer to question 71 (i.e. 100%), and four more people who could not answer question 71, but it "intuitively seems" to them that statement No. 72 is correct (a total of 61 respondents).

No. 73. "When I communicate with a person with whom I want to connect my life, I imitate some of the features of my Dominant One and expect that a loved one will recognize and approve of me in this capacity." 57 subjects answered positively, i.e. all those who answered question No. 71, plus 10 more people who failed to answer question No. 71, but who think that when communicating with a potential chosen one or chosen one, they imitate the behavior of their Dominant and expect to be liked in this capacity.

These results allow us to state that such a motive as imitation of the Dominant one in order to get the approval of the person you like is not uncommon. In addition, there is convincing confirmation of the hypothesis that the child imitates the system of movements and manners of the Dominant, and not someone else.:

No. 26. "Who in the family did you look like in terms of movement system (facial expressions, gestures, gait), diction, manner of behavior (perhaps others told you about it)?" 322 people (58%) answered. The remaining 233 (42%) do not know who they look like. It was further noted if the adult family member whom the subject resembled in the system of movements was the Dominant One. It turned out that out of 322 people who answered this question, 288 people (89%) copied the Dominant movement system! The result is statistically significant: ?2=200.360; p?0.001.

Now let's turn to the answers of the subjects, in which they listed the types of behavior that they demonstrated in the hope of being liked, and highlight from them those cases where the reaction to these actions was exactly the one they expected (the number of responses in each category is indicated in parentheses):

- violence, rudeness (4); instructions, warnings (5); excessive concentration on business (3); avoidance of discussing problems, ignoring (2); demonstration of intelligence (2). One-time answers: moralizing; annoying desire to "keep company"; petty economy; taciturnity; desire to work with large masses of people; inventing what did not happen; "arguments in public" at a party; exposure, criticism; speech defects ("babble"); masculine behavior in a woman; lack of emotions; altruism towards "strangers"; cluttering of an apartment.

Separately, we will highlight a case where the subject did his best to imitate the quality of his Dominant, which the Subordinate admired, but the spouse believed that this quality was not in him, and this led to sad consequences. The subordinate mother praised the Dominant father for his intelligence. The son of these people got married and expected his wife to praise his intellectual abilities in the same way as his mother praised them from his father, but she, on the contrary, considered her husband to be narrow-minded. The case ended with the fact that the man went to his mistress, who singled him out from the crowd of her subscribers for his wit and recognized him as an intellectual. This example suggests that one of the reasons for falling in love with a particular person is that he recognized us when we performed in front of him the role for which our Subordinate loved the Dominant One. In turn, if you enter into the role of your Dominant, and your chosen one does not admire you, this leads to disappointment in him.

Some answers demonstrate not only interpersonal, but also intrapersonal conflicts of the following types:

1) a person tries to do what he thinks should bring him the love of others (after all, the Subordinate loved the Dominant One for this!), but at the same time realizes that this behavior model prevents the realization of other needs or pushes him to risky behavior; for example, a mother praised her father when he was kind. The son, in this regard, tries to be kind, but sometimes he needs to protect someone or something, and it is difficult for him, because then he will look unworthy, like a father when his mother did not like him. Another example: a mother loved her father for his intelligence, and intelligence for her is the ability to understand finances, so her daughter ended up in a "financial pyramid";

2) it is not possible to copy the behavior of the Dominant One (the girl tried to present herself to her potential chosen ones as a "superman athlete", like her father before her mother, and was very worried that her health problems prevented this);

3) following a Dominant behavior model approved by a Subordinate narrows the scope of a person's self-realization (the Subordinate father praised the housewife mother for fully devoting herself to managing the house, and their daughter did not work);

Separately, we will highlight a situation where imitation of the Dominant's behavior pushed to commit immoral acts (committing adultery in order to arouse jealousy and maintain interest in oneself, as the father did), although there was no internal conflict: the desire to imitate the Dominant outweighed moral discomfort.

The desire to rise above the Dominant (questions 55-70, 75-80)

Questions No. 55-70 were aimed at testing hypotheses (first put forward by the author in ^[22]) related to the logic of not only professional, but also marital choice. The assumption was tested that the child is extremely attentive to information that can give him a clue how he can rise above his Dominant One. The generalizing hypothesis is that the key task of a person's life is the desire to rise above his Dominant One, and he chooses a spouse who will contribute to this elevation. This generalizing hypothesis was divided into the following particular hypotheses:

1) if a child knows what an unfulfilled dream his Dominant had (question No. 55), he will try to realize it (question No. 56), and will also seek rapprochement with a person who managed to realize what the Dominant failed (question No. 75);

2) if it is known who the Dominant respected, admired, and perhaps revered (question No. 57), the child will strive to become like the one the Dominant admired (question No. 58), and will also want to marry a person who possesses the qualities that the Dominant admired (question No. 76);

3) if it is known who was envied by the Dominant (question No. 59), then the child is very likely to want to achieve the same success as the one who was envied by the Dominant (question No. 60), and will also strive to marry a person who has the skills and qualities that the Dominant envied (question No. 77);

4) if it is known which type of people the Dominant despised, considered weak and pathetic, the child will not want to fall into this category and will not want to marry a person of this type (questions No. 61, 62, 78);

5) if the Dominant was afraid of someone or something (question No. 63), then the child will try not to be afraid of this or will do things that could scare the Dominant (question No. 64); he will also strive to get closer to a person who is not afraid of what the Dominant was afraid of or is engaged in things that could scare the Dominant (question No. 79);

6) if it is known from what the Dominant became enraged, panicked (question No. 65), the child will strive to do things that could cause panic of the Dominant (question No. 66), and will also gravitate towards marriage with a person behaving in such a way that it could cause rage of the Dominant (question No. 80);

7) if the Dominant Person was proud of something, took credit for something (question No. 67), then it is likely that the child will want to develop these qualities in himself (question No. 68), and will also appreciate those in his spouse (question No. 81);

8) if the child knows about a person who has somehow managed to rise above the Dominant One, then it is likely that the child will take an example from this person (question No. 69), and will also look for a similar person to marry him (question No. 82), since it is with such a person that he will be able to rise above your Dominant self.

The results of the answers to questions No. 55-70 concerning the desire to develop skills and qualities in oneself that will allow one to rise above the Dominant One are presented in table 5 of the work ^[1].

Table 5

Table 5 shows that people do not always have the information that allows them to answer the above questions (the arithmetic mean of the number of people who know the answers to the questions №55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69 it is equal to 22.87%), but if such information can be obtained, then the vast majority seek it take advantage of it.

Table 6 from ^[1] demonstrates the number of simultaneously indicated reasons related to the personality of the Dominant, for which the subject develops any qualities in himself or does something (questions №56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70). These data show that if the child has the information given in the questions №55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 79, then he tends to rise above the Dominant One in several ways. The table below covers the responses of 555 subjects (100%). 

Table 6

The results of the answers to questions No. 75-82 concerning the desire to get closer (marry) with a person who has the skills and qualities that will allow him to rise above the Dominant One are presented in table 7 of the work ^[1]. Here it is demonstrated that 100 percent for questions 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 the number of people who answered the questions is taken 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69 accordingly.

Table 7

Questions No. 75–82 were presented as a single question with sub-items and it was checked how many people selected several sub-items (questions №75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82) simultaneously.

Table 8

Now let's turn to the detailed answers of the subjects, in which they explain exactly how they are trying to rise above the Dominant in the ways listed in the questions 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 60, 75-82 and let's choose from those that contain information about an internal or interpersonal conflict, the basis of which is the desire to rise above the Dominant.

1) answers demonstrating patterns of problems, the basis of which is the inability to realize the dream of the Dominant, which was "weak" to realize, or to get closer to the person who realized it (questions No. 56 and 75):

- the inability to implement what turned out to be "weak" to the Dominant (the parent did not enter the medical school, and the child failed);

- the realization of the unfulfilled dream of the Dominant implies the commission of immoral actions (the mother was the mistress of a married man, but failed to divorce him from his wife, and the daughter is always trying to take married men away from the family; the mother dreamed of divorce, but did not dare, and the son constantly tries to divorce, although there is no serious reason for this);

- the implementation of the Dominant plan requires the participation of a life partner who turned out to be unsuitable to rise above the Dominant one with his help (the mother dreamed of finding a strong man, and the daughter's husband turned out to be weak, conformal; The Dominant one - the grandmother wanted, but could not give birth to a third child, and the granddaughter's husband pushed his wife to have an abortion).

- there is not enough information about the unfulfilled plan of the Dominant, in addition, the sphere that attracted the Dominant has already been occupied by another relative, and a Subordinate. An observation should be shared here: if the Dominant and Subordinate work in the same field, it becomes less attractive to the child.

- there is a clash of two desires. On the one hand, the dominant mother was a very ambitious person and dreamed of career achievements (and, accordingly, the daughter tried to rise above her in this area). On the other hand, the mother had a dream to have a man next to her who would be a brighter personality than herself. Thus, the daughter had to somehow become more successful than the mother and at the same time find a man who would be more successful than the subject herself, and in practice these aspirations created an intractable conflict.

2) answers demonstrating problems arising from the desire to imitate people who were admired or respected by the Dominant, or the desire to marry a person with qualities that the Dominant admired (questions No. 58 and 76):

- awareness of the impossibility of doing those things that were available to the object of worship of the Dominant (10);

- the activity that the Dominant One admired is too tedious (2);

- this niche is already occupied by one of the relatives (the mother admired the singers, and the son would like to go to a music school, but was worried that his older sister had already "captured" this profession);

- the subject realizes that imitation of people who were respected by the Dominant one prevents self-realization in the areas of interest to him, but at the same time he is unable to abandon such imitation due to the conviction that such is a sign of "strong behavior". (Grandma admired people who hide any information and don't ask anyone for anything. The granddaughter wants to work with people, but understands that then she will have to give out some information about herself and ask for something, as a result of which she will not enter the category of people that her Dominant admired. As a result, she works alone as an accountant and suffers).

3) answers describing problems arising from the desire to imitate people who were envied by the Dominant One, or the desire to marry a person who has the skills and qualities that the Dominant One envied (questions No. 60 and 77):

- awareness of the impossibility of being like the one who was envied by the Dominant (4);

- such imitation requires the participation of a life partner who turned out to be unsuitable to rise above the Dominant One with his help (2); for example, the mother was jealous of the rich, and the daughter's husband earns poorly;

- to become like a person who was envied by the Dominant, was not allowed by the Dominant himself (did not allow him to enter the appropriate specialty).

4) answers describing the problems that arise due to the subject (or his chosen one) falling into the category of "weaklings" from the point of view of his Dominant (questions 62 and 78):

- the interviewee is tormented by the realization that he has already found himself in the category of "weaklings" (7);

- to avoid falling into the category of "weaklings", one has to make superhuman efforts (4). For example, there was a complete refusal to rest or, in order to force oneself not to be a "weakling", a person causes self-harm;

- the desire to avoid the fate of a "weakling" leads to a mental disorder or hypertrophied fear (3); for example, the mother despised the fat, and the daughter has anorexia;

- a person is faced with a dilemma either to fall into the category of "weaklings", or to enter into conflict with other significant people (2); for example, the mother despised the emotional ones, and the daughter showed coldness, which caused indignation from her husband;

- the fear of falling into the "weaklings" imposes a ban on personal life and entails the risk of not getting married at all (2); for example, the Dominant despised those who marry early, as a result, the daughter is already over 30, but she has not yet started her personal life;

- the fear of falling into the role of a "weakling" hinders creative self-realization (2); for example, a mother despised those who earn little, and her child cannot do what he likes, because they pay little for it.

This is followed by single responses:

- it is not the subject himself who falls into the category of "weaklings", but his life partner, which is also perceived as humiliation; for example, the stepfather despised the naive and gullible, and the spouse is just like that;

- a person is ashamed to do something that the Dominant treats with contempt, but understands that if he does not do this, it will be extremely difficult for him to realize what the Dominant envied, that is, there is a clash of attitudes. (My father despised those who do spam, but at the same time envied the rich. His daughter was faced with a dilemma: to continue to engage in spam and get a lot of money from it, or to give up this activity and lose belonging to the category of people her father envies);

- the desire not to get into the "weaklings" provokes risky behavior (a man leaves his wife alone for the sake of earning money abroad).

Let's also highlight situations where, in order to avoid falling into the category of "weaklings", a person had to commit an immoral act, although the subjects did not report the presence of an internal conflict (3). For example, a mother despised those who gave birth to children, and considered her own daughter a mistake that tied her hands. As a result, her daughter had an abortion.

It is also possible to identify situations where the desire not to get into the "weaklings" pushes to narrow the circle of interests or limit the sphere of self-realization (5); for example, the Dominant despised employees, and the child can only be an entrepreneur.

It should be mentioned that the contemptuous attitude of the Dominant spouse towards certain professions, or to work for hire, or to work for which they do not pay too much, is a popular cause of conflicts between spouses. For example, a wife begs her husband to finally get a job, and he avoids it with all his might, just not to go to a job that would cause his Dominant to make a contemptuous grimace.

5) answers that reveal problems that arise due to the desire not to be afraid of what the Dominant was afraid of or to do things that could scare the Dominant (question No. 64) or the desire to get closer to a person who is not afraid of what the Dominant was afraid of or does things that could scare the Dominant (question No. 79):

There were 2 answers that demonstrated that due to the desire not to be afraid of what the Dominant One was afraid of, there may be a tendency to excessive risk, for example, the desire to fly a hang glider in the mountains and engage in opposition political activities.

There were also answers where the subject expressed dissatisfaction with his chosen one because he was weaker than the Dominant One, because he was afraid of the same thing that the Dominant One was afraid of, and (or) was not able to make the Dominant One afraid of him (4).

6) answers containing information about problems arising from the desire to do things that could cause impotent rage, panic of the Dominant (question No. 66), as well as the desire to get closer to a person behaving in such a way that it could cause rage of the Dominant (question No. 80):

- the desire to do what the Dominant One was enraged by is immoral, although the subjects do not report an internal conflict in this regard (7); for example, the mother was enraged when she was deceived, and the son feels pleasure from deception, in particular, takes loans in secret;

- this tendency leads to conflicts with others (5); for example, a mother was enraged by arrogance, and her son cultivated this quality in himself, which, in turn, disgusts his wife;

- the desire to do what annoyed the Dominant Person is a destructive style of communication with others (5): sabotage, the desire to speak deliberately at length and incomprehensibly, ignoring and manipulating feelings of guilt, deliberately illogical speech;

- the respondent expresses dissatisfaction with his chosen one due to the fact that he is unable to resist the Dominant One and cause him at least a slight feeling of panic (5); for example, the father was furious because of the liberals, and the husband is a conservative;

- the chosen one, on the one hand, is attractive because he can cause rage and panic in the Dominant, but, on the other hand, these qualities turn against the person responsible (2). Example: "The mother was annoyed when something was not said. Not telling the truth is, on the one hand, an attractive quality of my wife, and on the other hand, it annoys me.";

- the desire to do something that provoked the rage of the Dominant One is a public danger (2), although no psychological conflict is reported because of this (the mother was furious because of drivers who "cut off" on the road, and her son loves to "cut off"; the father flew into a rage when he found out that who- I didn't get the money as a result of hard work, and my daughter is striving for "crazy money");

- the desire to do what annoyed the Dominant One takes exaggerated forms and creates a risk of conflict with others (a person keeps an excessive number of animals at home);

- the subject gets upset because he cannot engage in the activity that caused rage in the Dominant One (he became enraged when he saw artists and singers, and his child would very much like to engage in such activities, but there is no data).

Some of the answers explain why sometimes men and women are attracted to people with such traits that are considered negative in society (5): it was about immodesty, demagoguery, unwillingness to work anywhere, the desire to conduct empty conversations, a tendency to theft, drug use, criminal record. Note that the subjects do not report any internal conflict here and, on the contrary, express complete satisfaction with their choice due to the fact that it fully corresponds to the desire to rise above the Dominant One.

We also recall that if the Dominant One panicked at the sight of smoking, drunkenness or drug use by any of the relatives, this is a factor contributing to the emergence of dependence in the child who observed such a reaction. This circumstance was revealed in the answers to the similar question No. 46 "My Dominant unsuccessfully struggled with the drunkenness of some other family member and was furious that nothing was working out of it." It was positively answered by 27% of those subjects who, on their own initiative, reported having alcohol dependence ^[1].

7) answers demonstrating the emergence of problems due to the desire to have such qualities that the Dominant One was proud of (question No. 68), or the desire to get closer to a person who possesses such qualities (question No. 81):

- what the Dominant was proud of is irrational and interferes with work (13), almost all cases relate to the pride of the Dominant for the fact that, according to him, he achieved everything himself, never asked for anything, always worked alone, hid everything and lived quietly and unnoticed, like a spy;

- imitation of what the Dominant one was proud of entails conflicts with others (9); for example, the mother was proud that she did not throw away any things (suddenly a war would start and they would come in handy), and the daughter imitating her quarrels with the household because of the trash in the apartment;

- the interviewee cannot achieve what the Dominant one was proud of (8); for example, the mother was proud that she bought an apartment, and the daughter is worried about having to rent a house;

- cultivating a quality that the Dominant One was proud of is a destructive way of interacting with others (4); it is about deliberately ignoring and fundamentally rejecting friendship with someone;

- what the Dominant One was proud of was immoral (6), although the child imitating him did not have any internal conflict because of this; for example, the mother was proud that she could drink a lot and control herself at the same time, and the daughter is glad that she broke her record;

- it is possible to achieve what the Dominant was proud of only by exerting super-efforts, balancing on the verge of a mental disorder (2); for example, the Dominant was proud, allegedly never taught anything, but at the same time received only A's, his son tries to imitate this, but this turns into nervous breakdowns and, of course, expenses for tutors.

One-time responses:

- what the Dominant One was proud of is dangerous for mental health (the mother took credit for the fact that she never asked anyone for support);

- the spouse of the interviewee cannot achieve what the Dominant one of the latter was proud of, and this is perceived, firstly, as a personal fiasco, and secondly, as a trait that makes the spouse unattractive;

- the interviewee wants to possess a quality that the Dominant was proud of, because he understands that from the point of view of the Dominant, this quality is "strong", but at the same time he realizes that what the Dominant was proud of, in fact, he did not have, and imitation will not allow him to possess this quality. "My father was proud of the fact that he supposedly ... had the ability to establish connections and solve other people's problems (in fact, he only attributed this to himself). But, unfortunately, I can't do this, because in fact my father was withdrawn, we never had guests, and it seems to me that closeness is a stronger behavior.";

- the desire to have a quality that the Dominant was proud of is in conflict with another strong desire, also stemming from the theory of dominance. For example, a girl wants to lead a free lifestyle, like her father, who was proud of it, but at the same time, for her, which is typical for daughters of dominant fathers, there is an unwillingness to depend on a man, which implies the need to earn;

- what the Dominant was proud of does not correspond to the age stage at which the child is located, and following such an example is fraught with negative consequences (The Dominant was proud that he began to live separately from his parents early, which provoked his daughter's departure from home).

8) answers that reveal problems due to the desire to have the skills and qualities that a person who somehow managed to rise above the Dominant one had (69), and (or) the desire for such skills and qualities to have a spouse (question No. 82).

As the answers to question No. 20 showed (see work ^[1]), for 11% of the subjects whose family had a Subordinate, he was the person who sometimes managed to get the better of the Dominant One. In turn, the answers to question No. 21, "Why did a subordinate sometimes get the better of a Dominant one?" provide information on how this could happen: alcoholism (11); shouting, rudeness, swearing (6); intellectual superiority, initiative, knowledge (5); leaving the family (4); infidelity (3); sobriety (3); emotional closeness, ignoring (3); physical violence (3); divorce (2); verbal aggression, provocation (2); higher incomes or criticism for not being able to earn (2). The following answers were met once: imposing guilt; beauty attractiveness; assistance to the Dominant, who found himself in a helpless state after an accident; hiding money; criminal connections.

Thus, the above-mentioned child's ideas about the ways in which a Subordinate prevails over a Dominant One (especially in cases where the Subordinate's gender coincides with the child's gender) can most likely serve as a guide to action for him.

In this list, attention is drawn to the abundance of openly destructive "methods of struggle", especially the fact that the most common way to "win" over the Dominant One is alcohol abuse. In turn, the powerlessness of one of the relatives dominating in relation to drunkenness is one of the factors contributing to the occurrence of alcoholism in a child (see question No. 46 in ^[1]).

A job that does not allow you to rise above the Dominant

Recall the results of questions No. 51-54 ^[1], which were asked in order to test the following hypotheses:

- people tend to choose such a profession so that it gives them the opportunity to rise above the Dominant One (see questions No. 51-52);

- the profession must simultaneously meet two requirements: to make it possible to successfully compete with people of the Dominant sex, and to receive approval and delight from people of the Subordinate's gender (see question No. 53);

- the child is not inclined to listen to the advice of a subordinate regarding the profession he should choose (see question No. 54).

No.51. "I don't like my profession because it doesn't allow me to rise above the Dominant One." There are 85 such people (15.31%) out of 555.

No. 52. "I like my profession because it allows me to rise above the Dominant One." There were 80 such people (14.41%) out of 555.

Questions No. 51-52 were considered jointly, since both show the relationship between love or dislike for a profession and whether this profession helps to surpass the Dominant One. Since a total of 165 (29.72%) participants answered these questions positively, it can be stated that almost 30% of the subjects quite consciously compete with the Dominant One, comparing their occupation with his work!

No. 53. "I would like such a profession so that with its help I could successfully fight, compete with people of the Dominant sex, and at the same time receive the approval of people of the Subordinate sex." This question was asked only to 170 subjects who applied specifically for career guidance. 126 (74.11%) people gave positive answers! This result is statistically significant: ?2=39.553; p?0.001.

No. 54. "I do not want to follow the instructions (about profession, lifestyle, choice of spouse, etc.) that my Subordinate gave me." This question was also asked only by 170 subjects who applied specifically for career guidance. 97 people (57%) out of 170 gave a positive answer.

The answers to question No. 54 were compared with positive answers to questions No. 18 ("The subordinate always obeyed the Dominant One") and No. 24a ("The adult family member whom I felt sorry for at the age of 14 (I wanted to make his life easier, help him) is a Subordinate"), which indicate the child's awareness of the Subordinate's lower position in the family hierarchy.

As a result, significant differences were revealed both in question No. 18 (?2=5.657; p=0.017) and in question 24a (?2=6.737; p=0.009). Those who answered positively to questions No. 18 and No. 24a more often answered positively to question No. 54, i.e. confirmed that their Subordinate always obeyed the Dominant One, and indicated that at the age of 14 they felt pity for the Subordinate, more often avoid following the advice of a Subordinate regarding profession, lifestyle, choice of spouse and others things.

Now let's turn to the answers of the participants, which contain a description of the problems that arose due to the inability to rise above the Dominant through professional activity:

- The dominant one has too significant achievements that are difficult to surpass (12);

- the profession is not interesting, as it is far from the Dominant profession (9);

- the subject's job is the same as that of the Dominant One, and he does not know what special things can be done in it (6);

- an unpleasant person who resembles a Dominant person is in charge at work (5);

- work does not allow you to rise above the Dominant one due to problems with education (3);

- the subject works in another field, and achievements in it are difficult to compare with the achievements of the Dominant One (3);

- the subject decides to abandon a certain activity, since the Dominant One referred to it as unattractive and (or) poorly paid (3);

- the job does not allow you to rise above the Dominant One due to the fact that the Dominant One has a more prestigious position (2);

- the subject's profession is closer to that of a Subordinate, which makes it unattractive (2);

- The dominant one did not allow him to enter the university for his specialty (2).

Answers that occurred only once:

- the subject is ashamed of his profession, since it does not include the knowledge that the Dominant one possessed (the participant is a humanitarian and is ashamed of his profession, since he does not understand anything about technology, and his father is a "technician");

- The dominant devalues the child's professional achievements;

- the available work reproduces the feeling of unfreedom that was in a family led by a Dominant;

- the "messages" of the Dominant One regarding the profession contradict each other ("my mother praised the smart ones, I dreamed of going into science, but my mother despises those who earn little. How to get out of this impasse?");

- in order to achieve more than the Dominant One has achieved, one must be a person of the other sex (a daughter cannot overlap her father's achievements in men's sports);

- The dominant one was a man, and the subject had a woman's job;

- the subject has occupied the niche in which the Dominant One succeeded, but cannot earn money in it;

- there was an end result in the work of the Dominant One, but there is no end result in the work of the subject;

- a job was chosen that the Dominant One would be afraid of, but this specialty does not give him any special advantages over him ("my father is afraid of insects, coronavirus, etc., so I agreed to go to biology, but by and large it is unclear how to rise due to this");

- the profession that allows you to rise above the Dominant one is already occupied by young and promising relatives;

- The Dominant one didn't like his job himself, but it's unclear what he wanted.;

- in order to rise above the Dominant One, it is necessary ... not to work at all, since it was a woman housewife who lived at the expense of a rich husband.

Conclusions

The detailed explanations given by the study participants to the following questions provide information about the mechanisms of formation of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts of the following types:

1) related to the desire to rise above the Dominant person from the parental family (questions No. 55-70, 75-80), in particular, to have a profession that allows you to do this (questions No. 51-54);

2) related to the desire to imitate those qualities of the Dominant, for which, according to the child, he was loved and respected by the Subordinate (questions No. 71-73);

3) related to cognitive distortion regarding the "helplessness" and "inoffensiveness" of people of the same sex as the Subordinate (questions No. 24-25, 31-32, 38).

The data obtained can serve as a basis for the development and testing of a questionnaire that allows you to identify the following personality structure:

1.                  Ideas about what constitutes "strong" behavior (based on the child's observation of the Dominant behavior, which ensures success in the eyes of a Subordinate) and the resulting desire to adopt "strong" elements of behavior.

2.                  The idea of what is "weak" behavior (based on observing the behavior of a Subordinate, which, from the child's point of view, makes him a slave) and, accordingly, the desire to abandon these personality traits. 

3. Ideas about "strong" and "weak", "decent" and "unworthy" behavior that exist in society (from the point of view of the subject).

As a perspective of this research, we can test the hypothesis that the driving force of personality development is the resolution of contradictions found by a person between these three elements, and the study of how the scale of these contradictions affects his development.

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