Психологические особенности жизнестойкости российских и белорусских студентов: ретроспективный анализ

Abstract

The article presents a retrospective analysis of a cross-cultural study on the features of students’ hardiness carried out in the period of 2014–2016. The sample included 179 students of various higher educational institutions of Russia and Belarus. The interest in the results of the study which took place 5 years ago is due to the fact that the students who made up its Belarusian sample currently represent an active part of the Belarusian society which is undergoing radical historical transformations. The article describes theoretical approaches to the concept of hardiness in psychology, analyzes the special conditions for the development of the Belarusian national character and the ethnic features in the development of hardiness strategies in Belarusian students. The study used a number of methods: the vitality test (an adaptation of S. Maddy’s viability test by D. A. Leontyev and E. I. Rasskazova), the test of life-meaning orientations by D. A. Leontyev, and the morphological test of life values by V. F. Sopov and L. V. Karpushina. A comparative analysis of the psychological elements of hardiness in Russian and Belarusian respondents, carried out within the framework of the study, determined a high degree of risk tolerance in Belarusian students. The authors note the key role of this attitude in the structure of hardiness and define it as an ethnopsychological resource. The authors also analyzed the age-related characteristics of the students’ hardiness regardless of their ethnicity. A further analysis of the psychological characteristics of the respondents from both countries who exhibited high levels of hardiness allowed the authors to single out pronounced attitudes, orientations, and values that make up the foundations of an individual’s worldview which provides for hardiness, acceptance of change, objective evaluation and adequate reaction to life events.