COPING STRATEGIES AS DETERMINANTS OF READINESS FOR AGE-RELATED CHANGES

Abstract

he article analyzes the topical matter of psychological mechanisms of awareness by person of own age. The problem is considered through study of relationship between the coping and subjective willingness to adopt age-related changes throughout the life. The aim of the article was to study features of the coping strategies as determinants of psychological readiness for age-related changes adoption in people of various ages (19-85 years old). Four hundred three inhabitants of four regions of Ukraine were surveyed, involving: 95 persons ‒ inhabitants of the Southern Ukraine (23.6%), 100 persons ‒ residents of the Eastern Ukraine (24.8%), 108 persons – residents of the Central Ukraine (26.8%), 100 persons – residents of the Western Ukraine (24.8%). The method of readiness for age-related changes (N.S. Gluhanyuk, T.B. Gershkovich) and the SACS coping questionnaire (S. Hobfoll with co-authors) were used. It was found that components and levels of readiness for age-related changes adoption are determined by a number of coping strategies that are characterized by the prosocial coping vector, which is guided by future-oriented processes. It was shown that the coping has the most important value in formation of readiness for age-related changes adoption at the age under 35 years old. During this age period, the strategies activation of making social contact, search for social support, as well as the avoidance strategies suppression, play the most important role in integral readiness provision. The basic assumption of the research was confirmed related to the coping strategies as determinants of psychological readiness for age-related changes adoption. The fact determined in our research related to the avoidance coping strategies, as negative predictor of readiness for age-related changes adoption, corresponds to the data that acceptance of thoughts of aging intensifies and stabilizes the experience of transformational aging. The idea, debated in literature, of proactive and anticipatory-preventive attitude towards age-related changes adoption, which enables the efficient coping of age-related changes, was also confirmed in the research performed.