Relationship Between Resilience And Coping Behaviors Of Teenage Personality

Abstract

Today digitalization of society, culture and rapid rhythm of life in all spheres call for a person to solve many problems. Whereas, the person himself is forced to become multitasking. In turn, an adolescent being in its formative years, having become multitasking, cannot fully cope with stressful events that stem from the lack of self-regulation mechanisms. This is what had a great influence on the topic of research addressed. Analyzing the relationship between resilience and coping behaviors of teenage personality has practical value for effective organization and psychological and pedagogical support of students of the given age within pedagogical education. The paper studies resilience as a phenomenon understood as a personality resource that is sought after in certain situations, an integral human psychological property, ability to social and psychological adaptation based on meaningful self-regulation, ability to recognize a stressful event and desire to take advantage of it. The paper deals with the interrelation of resilience indices and coping strategies of a person experiencing stressful life events, and highlights human psychological characteristics in adolescence. Based on empirical research, the paper follows the development of resilience, its components of commitment, control and challenge as well as the frequency of various coping strategies (task-, emotion- and avoidance-oriented), their adaptability. It delineates the relationship between the resilience and coping behavior of a person at a given age. It presents some positive trends in psychological and pedagogical support for students in the educational process at a pedagogical university.

Keywords: Resilience, coping behavior, personality, adolescence

Introduction

Modern socio-cultural living environment increases not only informational but also emotional overloads, which entails growing negative destructive mental states of a person. As a consequence, it becomes vital to shape and develop human abilities to manage, control and accept one’s own behavior and state, to acquire experience to cope with troubling life events and apply it in conditions of new challenges, which can contribute to the improvement of the quality of mental and psychological health.

A young teacher entering a career is faced with a large number of modern challenges. They need to solve a wide variety of professional tasks, adequately interact with all educational agents, have self-regulation and self-control mechanisms, keep a stiff upper lip, show sensitivity, broadcast pedagogical optimism and culture, which is extremely difficult at times and requires a lot of patience and cohesion to achieve high results in pedagogical activity. Hence, there is a need to pay more attention to this issue during the professional training of future teachers at a pedagogical university.

In this regard, a teenager who is studying at a pedagogical university in Pedagogical Education is relevant and interesting. It is in adolescence that it can be traced how, with accumulation of social experience, a person is able to withstand a stressful or psychologically challenging situation, controlling their behavior and state. What is more, by this point in life, weakly expressed self-control experiences in similar situations or knowledge about its development is ascertained.

Problem Statement

Hence, there is a need for conditions enabling to organize purposeful psychological and pedagogical activity towards resilience shaped and constructive behaviors developed to cope with difficult psychological events. Resilience is an important indicator of personal maturity, which largely determines whether a person is efficacious in life. Psychological and pedagogical literature suggests that today there is no holistic study into the relationship between human resilience and different levels of coping behavior when an individual is experiencing a life crisis. Some certain aspects of the indicated phenomenon are being studied: theoretical and methodological provisions of resilience, development of coping behavior, life crisis, psychological characteristics of personality in adolescence.

Research Questions

The phenomenon of resilience has become a subject of research in the scientific psychological field relatively recently. Until now, psychology has not provided a unified representation of this concept as such, since its meaning is similar to various terms introduced into the conceptual body of psychological science and philosophy at different times: “vitality”, “courage to create”, “rootedness in being”, “transcendence”, “maturity” (Kalashnikova & Nikitina, 2017; Odintsova, 2015).

Thus, S. Muddi and S. Kobasa introduce the concept of “hardiness” into terminology. Moreover, S. Maddi presented a model of resilience, by which this phenomenon is viewed as a set of human beliefs that allow a person to remain active and prevent the negative implications of stress (as cited in Kalashnikova & Nikitina, 2017; Leontyev & Rasskazova, 2006, 2011). S. Maddi included in the model of resilience proposed not only the construct of components, but also five basic mechanisms that allow resilience to have a kind of buffer effect on the development of diseases and changes in overall performance (as cited in Nikitina, 2017). According to S. Muddi, resilience is based on your ability to recognize stressful events and courage as a desire to turn them to your advantage (as cited in Oshchepkov, 2019). All in all, foreign scientists, studying resilience, designated action mechanisms and psychological essence of the phenomenon under study.

Leontyev and Rasskazova, (2011) proposes to interpret this term in Russian as resilience. The researcher defines resilience as personal potential, as an integrative characteristic of a person that succeeds in handling various life crises.

Notably, some scientists interpret resilience as human ability to transform unfavorable circumstances going on around through coping behavior in life stressful events, while other researchers (Knizhnikova, 2010) consider resilience through the prevention of suicidal behavior and define it as an integral personal characteristic based on optimal meaningful regulation, adequate self-esteem, mature volitional qualities, a high level of social competence, communication abilities and skills (Efimova et al., 2011; Kalashnikova, 2011; Kalashnikova & Nikitina, 2017; Knizhnikova, 2010; Nikitina, 2017).

Other scientists investigated resilience as a core mental resource of human motivational orientation (Leontyev & Rasskazova, 2006, 2011).

In addition, Leontyev and Rasskazova, (2006) based on academic findings, argue that the structural components of resilience help an individual constructively reassess negative events and choose a resilient coping behavior.

Thus, analyzing research in Russian psychology, we note that the psychological essence of resilience is revealed as the ability for socio-psychological adaptation based on semantic self-regulation, as an integral psychological property of a person, which develops triggered by active interaction with life events, as a personal resource that may be called for in certain situations.

Purpose of the Study

The relationship between resilience and coping behaviors when a person is experiencing a life crisis was studied as exemplified by adolescence stage, once at university, since this age represents a special period of life and personality development, in which the patterns of social roles shape and change, autonomy and personal requirements to self-organization, self-governance and self-regulation of behavior in different life events increase. Guided by the above considerations, the paper turned in empirical research directly to this age group. It aims to identify the relationship between resilience and coping behaviors of a teenage personality.

The study was conducted at Omsk State Pedagogical University, and involved thirty five 4- and 5-year graduate students of the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Law.

Research Methods

The following methods were used to study the relationship between resilience and coping behaviors of a teenager, including testing and mathematical-statistical and qualitative data analysis.

The empirical study consisted of three stages. At the preparatory stage, the problem was theoretically developed, the topic, object and subject, goals, objectives, hypothesis, methods were clarified, the concept was figured out and the techniques were selected. At the main stage, in order to obtain objective and complete information the indicators of resilience and coping behaviors were diagnosed. At the final stage, empirical data were processed, indicators were determined for each of the constituent components of resilience, as well as indicators of coping behaviors. The relationships between resilience and coping behaviors were evaluated, arranged, interpreted in the context of experiencing a life crisis, the main conclusions were drawn. To diagnose the relationship between resilience and coping behaviors of a teenager, the methods were used described in the works (Kryukova, 2005; Leontyev & Rasskazova, 2006; Nabiullina, & Tukhtarova, 2003; Nartova-Bochaver, 1997; Ostanina, 2009; Sirota, 1994).

Findings

The findings presented in the paper depict teenage resilience as a system of beliefs about oneself, the world around, relations with the environment, as a disposition made up of such components as commitment, control, and challenge. The intensity of these indicators and those of overall resilience prevents internal stresses to appear in difficult life situations due to persistent coping behavior. The indicators were studied using the adapted resilience methods stated above, the results of which are presented in Figure 1.

As can be seen, the “challenge” indicator (60%) is most pronounced in percentage terms as compared to other phenomena. Thus, the indicator suggests that teenagers view their lives from the perspective of gaining experience, they can already make risk-geared decisions and act, despite the lack of reliable guarantees. It is also this indicator that dominates in the group of high-level scales. This is conditioned by the fact that 4- and 5-year students generally have gained a certain social experience. They have already taken a number of academic and industrial practices, rather tough situations that are a permanent feature of student activities (taking and retaking exams, etc.), which made it possible to develop the ability to treat failures as experience allowing them to approach the goal set. They have no feeling of irreversibility, since even a negative experience is more likely to correct further behavior and decisions, rather than deprive them of the opportunity to move towards the goal set.

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Another component of resilience, in terms of intensity among students, is “commitment” (57%). It is also the highest indicator at the medium level, which signifies that students begin to feel more confident in performing their own activities. However, there are some students who still do not have this quality, which resides in a feeling of being “outside” life or a feeling of rejection. This may be due to the fact that by the fourth and fifth years of study some of the students begin to doubt or even become disappointed in the life guidelines set, while being dissatisfied with the way their ambitions are being achieved. This is likely to happen if, having tried their hand, they realize that the kind of activity, possibly chosen while at school, does not suit them, and this thought coincides with the time when “value-semantic” identity has been finalized and a way of life has been identified. The third indicator of resilience, “control”, is least developed in students, however, in the majority, the indicator is of medium level (55%). The intensity of this indicator characterizes the students as sufficiently aware of their capabilities and strengths. In other words, the students understand that they are able to influence events in their lives, even if success is not guaranteed, and the influence is not absolute, they choose their own path. However, 34% of adolescent students are still convinced of their own helplessness in the face of circumstances. This may be due to the challenges encountered in this period of study, such as preparing and defending a graduation thesis, which is essentially the outcome of a long period of study and professional development. Some students worry about a career-defining procedure, and, in a sense, underestimate their capabilities, and therefore do not feel in control of their lives, fearing that a failure may change their plans. In addition, the general indicator “resilience” (57%) characterizes the students as quite capable of handling the given circumstances, improving themselves and coping with the circumstances in their lives.

Thus, each resilience indicator is reported to correspond to a medium intensity level. The indicators of a low intensity level are higher than a high one, that is, a part of adolescent students have an immature system of beliefs through which a personal characteristic of resilience is shaped. And, accordingly, a smaller number has a high degree of intensity of the components: “commitment”, “control” and “challenge”, which corresponds to a high level of resilience.

Besides exploring resilience of a teenage personality, the paper studies the strategies of coping behavior of students using the methods of coping behavior in stressful situations, which were adapted by T.A. Kryukova (Fetiskin et al., 2002; Kryukova, 2005; Troitskaya, 2017). The results are shown in Figure 2.

The dominant level of the strategies used among teenagers is medium, while task-oriented coping behavior, like emotion-oriented coping behavior, amounts to 57%, and at other levels they are different. Most of the students try to analyze the difficulties they encounter and solve them with the help of existing personal experience, and in general are focused on the need to solve problems. The students are less likely to spend their efforts on relieving emotional tension; when faced with certain difficulties, they prefer to analyze problems and solve them or avoid them altogether.

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The avoidance-oriented coping strategy has a higher rate of intensity across the subscales: distraction and social distraction. Among the students, distraction is a predominant indicator, as a personal desire to switch from problem solving in favor of entertainment or distance themselves from a difficult situation. Less commonly, the students use social distraction that is characterized by distancing themselves from the problem. This can be explained by the fact that the students are faced with many tasks that require a lot of resources, without having proper social experience.

Thus, the medium level of coping behaviors is most pronounced among adolescents studying at a university, namely, task-oriented coping (57.14%) and emotion-oriented coping (57.14%).

To gain a complete understanding of the coping strategies most used by adolescents, the paper applies diagnostic methods of coping mechanisms by E. Heim (as cited in Nabiullina & Tukhtarova, 2003). These methods reveal adaptability and non-adaptability of coping behavior mechanisms.

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As can be seen from Figure 3, emotional strategies of coping behavior (68.57%) are most pronounced among the adaptive students. This means that the students are convinced that they find a way out of any situation, which causes energetic indignation and protest at various difficulties that have come their way. In addition, behavioral coping strategies (31.43%) reside in adolescent students of an adaptive type. The prevalence of adaptive coping indicates that the students begin to successfully demonstrate the skills of constructive behavior in difficult life situations. Among the cognitive strategies of coping behavior (37.14%), the students choose relatively adaptive coping. This shows that the students are able to evaluate problems in comparison with others, to give emphasis to overcoming in a difficult life situation. Given that the intensity of cognitive coping strategies of a non-adaptive type is 34.29%, adolescents do not have a stable ability to constructively analyze difficult situations, find a way out of a situation and settle it, nor have they faith in their own resources.

Thus, based on empirical data, the paper establishes that among the adolescent students the strategy of emotional coping behavior of an adaptive type prevails. Having received social experience and having gone through many difficulties, they understand that difficult life situations can be solved, and prefer to respond positively and show their worth. It is worth noting that none of the indicators is most pronounced in the scales of non-adaptive coping, which indicates the desire to make efforts to successfully get out of a difficult situation.

In order to identify the relationship between the indicators of resilience and the indicators of coping behavior strategies of a teenager, the authors used the Pearson correlation coefficient, also known as Pearson’s.

As can be seen from Table 1, the closest correlation was found to be present between the indicators of control and emotion-oriented coping behavior (r=-0.670, p <0.01). It is important to note that this relationship is inverse, i.e. the more pronounced one of the indicators, the less intensive the second. The students immerse themselves in their experiences, prefer to blame themselves, experience negative emotions or even blame others for the current situation, and control, as an indicator of resilience, acts as self-confidence while influencing the situation as such. This inverse relationship shows that the higher the control indicator in students, the lower the frequency of emotion-oriented coping. The next strongest relationship was established between the indicators of total resilience and the strategy of emotion-oriented coping behavior (r=-0.578, p <0.01). The intensity of students’ resilience characterizes them as being able to cope with stress and control internal tensions to occur due to the perception of these situations. There is also a fairly close inverse relationship between the challenge indicator and emotion-oriented coping (r=-0.484, p <0.01), which enables to state the ability of students to experience negative situations as a useful social experience, and the willingness to act without having reliable guarantees for success. A close correlation was found between the indicators of resilience as such and task-oriented coping behavior (r=0.439, p <0.01). This explains a tendency by which a high rate of intensity of resilience determines the use of a task-oriented coping strategy by teenagers.

Thus, there is a direct relationship between resilience indicators, its components and the task-oriented coping strategy. Moreover, based on the above, there are close feedbacks established between the indicators of resilience, its all components and the of emotion-oriented coping strategy, where in three out of four positions there is a close relationship at p <0.01. This tendency can be attributed to the fact that non-adaptive strategies of emotion-oriented coping behavior correspond to an oppositely expressed display of resilience, the ability to adaptively experience stressful and troubling situations. What is more, the task-oriented coping strategy is presented as an adaptive type of behavior. In turn, the avoidance-oriented coping did not show relationships with any of the resilience indicators.

Conclusion

Based on the conducted empirical study to establish the relationship between resilience and coping strategies of a teenager experiencing difficult life situations, the authors draw a number of conclusions.

Thus, according to the findings, the adolescence students in general have a medium level of resilience indicators. Thanks to a well-tailored and meaningful educational program implemented by the teaching staff of the pedagogical university aimed at the preparation of future teachers, most of the students have a medium level of the components of resilience, namely “commitment”, “control” and “challenge”. However, not all students have mastered the ability to withstand difficult stressful situations, while maintaining cool-headedness and mental stability, which requires additional training of the psychological and pedagogical support of students.

When faced with difficult or stressful situations, avoidance-oriented coping behavior dominates among future teachers, but other strategies are expressed at a medium level in terms of frequency of use. The constructive coping strategies at the medium level are quite acceptable, which once again confirms the high-quality training provided to the students. Despite these qualitative data in the training of future teachers, it is necessary to create conditions for achieving better results in mastering coping behavior strategies by students. Thus, it was found that the forms of coping behavior (task-oriented and emotion-oriented) in terms of frequency of use at the medium level of intensity, exhibit avoidance-oriented coping behavior to a greater extent, which shows a still unstable ability to adaptively cope with sophisticated situations.

In addition, based on the adaptability and non-adaptability of coping mechanisms, adaptive emotion-oriented strategies are to a greater extent chosen by the students. Besides, the students more often choose adaptive emotion-oriented coping behavior than cognitive one. In turn, the strategy of behavioral coping is more often used in adaptive adolescence, the constructiveness of which depends on the significance and intensity of a situation being coped with. In general, all strategies of coping behavior, except for emotional coping, have a fairly average level of intensity, and the difference between adaptive and non-adaptive types is insignificant. This shows that adolescent students choose more constructive solutions for getting out of difficult life situations, having mastered adaptive and constructive coping strategies in emotional terms, but they are not yet sustainable.

Based on the data obtained on the Pearson correlation coefficient, there were statistically significant strong links between the indicators of resilience and coping behavior strategies. The inverse relationship between all resilience components and task-oriented coping, reliable links of task-oriented coping and resilience as such, the connection between task-oriented coping and components of resilience is less strong. Thus, characterizing resilience as the ability to adaptively withstand and experience difficult situations, a close inverse relationship (p <0.05) was identified with the opposite, non-adaptive, emotion-oriented coping. There is also a direct relationship (p <0.01) between the adaptive type of task-oriented coping and the components of resilience “control”, “commitment” and “challenge”. Accordingly, a close direct relationship (p <0.05) was established between task-oriented coping and resilience itself, as well as very weak correlations between indicators of resilience and avoidance-oriented coping, which indicates their relative independence.

Thus, based on the empirical results, on the one hand, it is necessary to identify, develop, and further apply innovative resources that will contribute to the resilience shaped in future teachers of adolescence, on the other hand, it is necessary to continue to apply effective long-term experience of the teaching staff in creating appropriate conditions within the educational process at the university, implementing the requirements of FSES3 ++ and helping Pedagogical Education students (with two training profiles) to construct the value-semantic content of their personality, positively affecting personal results in the mental development of students.

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