Psychological health: values and self-identification of adolescent schoolchildren

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of “sanitary-genetic identity” of adolescents, which is the value self-determination of a forming personality, coupled with an attitude towards achieving psychological health. In previous works, we presented an integral model of psychological health, which includes emotional, regulatory-volitional, cognitive-creative, reflexive-acmeological and socio-communicative components. Based on the presented model, we have developed and carried out a methodology for studying sanitary-genetic identity, which allows us to study the values of psychological health, the current and prospective sanitary-genetic identity of adolescents. The study involved 119 adolescent schoolchildren of St. Petersburg. It was found that adolescents are aware of the value of psychological health, predominantly identify themselves with a group of peers who exhibit constructive behavioural patterns, and also demonstrate targeted health-forming and health-preserving attitudes. The most problematic for girls are emotional patterns of psychological health, which at the same time have a high value for them. The cognitive-creative component of psychological health (interest in cognition, study, creativity) has a low value for boys in comparison with other components, both in the designation of values and in the structure of sanitary-genetic identification. The conducted factor analysis made it possible to single out the key value-self-identification factors of the psychological health of adolescent schoolchildren.