Implicit notions of a happy person in elementary school students

Aleksandra Vladimirovna Komarova,Valery L Sitnikov,Elena Fedorovna Yashchenko,Konstantin Pavlovich Zakharov,Tatyana Viktorovna Slotina,G Sorokoumova,T Grob

doi:10.1051/shsconf/202112204005

Abstract

The article is devoted to the substantiation and results of a study of implicit notions of a happy person in elementary school students. The methodological foundation is constructed by D.A. Leontiev’s two-level model of happiness, K. Riff’s concept of happiness as the basis of psychological well-being, and V.L. Sitnikov’s concept of the image of a person. The deployed research method is “SPI(H) — the Structure of a Person’s Image (Hierarchical)” (V.Sitnikov) including the verbal and non-verbal associative experiment with the subsequent content analysis. The novelty of the study lies in the comparison of the image of a happy person and self-image through the psychosemantic method including a comparative analysis of the notions of a happy person in children from complete and incomplete families. A happy person is associated by elementary school children with an emotionally positive attitude towards life, a responsible and caring attitude towards people, the presence of a family and active interaction with it, less often with success in educational and intellectual activity and material well-being, as well as the presence of friends. A happy person is idealized by younger students, however, their image is more abstract compared to children’s self-images. Elementary school students from complete families are characterized by greater conformity of the self-image with the image of a happy person whereas only half of the children from incomplete families show such correspondence. The predominant modality of both images is positive in all children. Social, bodily, and metaphorical characteristics are more common in the image of a happy person among children from incomplete families while the conventional social role characteristics dominate among children from complete families. The prospects for further study of the image of a happy person in elementary school children within the framework of family psychology are outlined.

Highlights

Under the conditions of the economic crisis and the pandemic, there emerges particular interest in the understanding of existential categories such as “happiness”
The first place in elementary school students’ notions of a happy person is occupied by optimistically colored characteristics, the second place is occupied by relations with family, the main factor in children’s socialization and the third and subsequent places are occupied by relations with other significant subjects of socialization
The image of a happy person in the mind of children comprises optimistically colored characteristics associated with relationships with family and other significant socialization subjects

Summary

Introduction

Under the conditions of the economic crisis and the pandemic, there emerges particular interest in the understanding of existential categories such as “happiness”. The ambiguity of this concept in the scientific field has led to the difficulty of studying it in specific scientific studies. The categories of subjective and psychological well-being including a set of personality characteristics predicting happiness Ryff’s ion, happiness is a complex of affective experiences associated with the emotional component of psychological well-being [1, 2]. M. Joshanloo found a connection between perceptions of happiness and subjective well-being [3]

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Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion