The Motivation of Prosocial Behavior of Adolescents

Abstract

In this article the neuropsychological approach of theoretical and experimental analysis of the study of motivation of prosocial behavior of adolescents is presented. Attention is paid to the theoretical study of prosocialization of personality and the possibility of positive motivation at different age stages, according to the neuropsychological characteristics of adolescents. The role of structural characteristics of the cognitive-motivational sphere is presented, which became actively developed in neuropsychological and cognitively oriented theoretical directions: a cognitive direction of neo-Freudianism (the Meninger school), the motivational-cognitive theories of personality, the directions of cognitive psychology. The analysis of theoretical concepts, directions of the problem motivation of prosocial behavior decision of adolescents from the viewpoint of the neuropsychological approach is carried out. In order to achieve this goal, it has been used a number of methods in this study: general scientific – a theoretical analysis of psychological and pedagogical scientific literature and generalization of data, specific scientific – ranking of experimental data. To determine the main components of the educational motivation of adolescents the method of diagnosing the structure of educational motivation is used, which allowed to investigate the most significant motives of educational activities and their qualitative analysis among pupils of different forms and discipline areas (Fetiskin, 2002). So as to substantiate the connection between the prosocial behavior of an adolescent and the principal components of educational motivation, pairwise comparisons of the indicators of pupils-adolescents studying in different discipline areas were conducted. It is concluded the cognitive-motivational styles, which shape the prosocial behavior of the individual, also provide the preference of certain ways of intellectual behavior that best eligible to the cognitive inclinations and abilities of a person. A concept the "cognitive styles" characterizes the individual difference in the cause, need, aspiration and way of obtaining, processing and using information. Cognitive style describes a way to motivate of an adolscent.