Indefiniteness Effect on Meaning Regulation in the Young Female Students Trained in Psychology

Abstract

Life-purpose orientations and self-reflection are important factors in person-al meaning regulation. Anyone living in the transitive society of today does not exercise full control over his or her life activity due to various factors of indefiniteness. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, starting at the beginning of 2020, swept the world and is now considered to be a global indefiniteness factor. Life indefiniteness that grew with the pandemic is a supplementary stress factor, the one that can be treated as either distress or eustress. This article is aimed at showing the results of an empirical study of differences in the life-purpose orientations and self-reflection in young unmarried females being trained in psychology in the city of Rostov-on-Don in March 2017 (n=53) and in October 2020 (n=43), that is prior to and during the pan-demic, which may be considered as different indefiniteness effects in life. D.A. Leontyev’s “life-purpose orientations” test and I.A. Stetsenko’s self-reflection questionnaire were implied in the study. Growth of all mean indicators in both tests during the pandemic against the same indicators prior to the pandemic, was revealed. Differences in all parameters are statistically veratious, which was stated by the Mann-Whitney test. The empirical study established that the pandemic may be viewed in respect of the examined acmeologically homogenous category as eustress, i.e. an overcomable indefiniteness factor. The above eustress resulted in a positive reconstruction of meaning regulation processes and in psychological adaptation, which lead to the growth of the level of life orientation meaningfulness and self-reflection among the respondents.