Adolescents’ Attitude Towards Health In Regions With Different Environmental Conditions

Abstract

Ecopsychological approaches to the psychological aspects of the interaction between the individual and the environment have been developing in modern science for more than 25 years. The social situation of development is considered an integral characteristic of the environment in which the modern adolescent grows up. The study of changes in the personality traits of adolescents in the conditions of postindustrial society appears to be an important tool for solving relevant problems of sustainable human development. Even though the phenomenon of attitude towards health and ways of its development has been actively researched in recent years, the study of socio-cultural factors and factors of self-preservation behavior of modern adolescents is relevant and understudied. The article presents the results of the study of the variable of locus of control on the scale of internal attitude towards health and motivational preferences on a sample of school and university students from Moscow, Moscow Region, Orsk, Chelyabinsk, and Voronezh. The results of the study revealed that adolescents who live in poorer socio-environmental regions have a more responsible attitude towards health issues. Comparison of 2019-2020 studies of adolescents demonstrated the impact of the external information environment related to the pandemic on the growth of the index of internal locus of control. We also obtained differences between genders showing that exposure to the information environment has a stronger effect on changes in the type of locus of control of young men than of young women.