Health behavior of young people: formation of typological attributes using the sentence completion method

Abstract

The article actualizes the problems of typological analysis of young people according to character of health behavior, among them the issues of the formation of typological attributes are particularly highlighted. These are the theoretical constructs; characteristics on the basis of which the respondent is assigned to one or another typological group – the carrier of a certain social type. Various indicators of health behavior claim to be typological attributes. Their choice depends on many factors: on the specifics of the population being studied, on the basis of the typology, on the purpose for which the typological analysis is carried out, on the accumulated experience of research practices in using indicators, etc. The article presents the results of an exploratory research devoted to the study of young people’s representations about health behavior. The initial methodological premise was that the heuristic potential of indicators of health behavior as typological attributes in different groups of young people is different. The plausibility of this premise was confirmed in the process of analyzing text data obtained by the sentence completion method. Based on the construction of pyramids of generalizations (according to a survey of three age groups of young people), the structural elements of the image of “health behavior” (elementary justifications, elements, components) were identified, and the dominant elements and components were identified. As a result, assumptions have been made about the adequacy of certain methodical solutions in the formation of typological attributes.