Severity Of The Components Of Hardiness In Victimized Adolescent Migrants

Abstract

Due to chronic stress associated with changes in living conditions and new socio-cultural context, adolescent migrants are at high risk of experiencing bullying, violence, and aggression. Hence, the question arises as to what personality traits should be formed as a basis for adolescent migrants to maintain a productive level of efficiency, functionality, and establish normal relationships with peers. The author claims that this trait is hardiness. The paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the problem of hardiness of victimized adolescents from migrant families and a number of excerpts from the works of various authors on the victimhood of adolescents and adolescent migrants. A total of 72 teenage migrants were involved in the experimental study. At the first stage of the study, the features of victim behavior in adolescent migrants were determined. At the second stage, the level of hardiness and its components in adolescent migrants was identified. The correlation analysis of hardiness indicators and victim behavior characteristics revealed reliable relationships between the components of hardiness and the indicators of victimhood. The results of the study yielded the conclusion that hardiness is a resource for overcoming the victimhood in adolescent migrants.

Keywords: Migrant, hardiness, victimhood, commitment, control, challenge

Introduction

A large number of people from different regions and countries with different cultures live in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, and this creates a multicultural educational environment. The carriers of different cultures, values, norms of behavior and communication forms the basis for the emergence of various contradictions. The socio-cultural status of adolescent migrants provokes attacks and indirect aggression against migrants. It is adolescent migrants who often become victims of aggression and violence from their peers. Thus, adolescent migrants experience double pressure: on the one hand, the forced change of place of residence, and on the other hand, negative attitudes of local children.

The ability to overcome difficulties is especially relevant in the context of the contradiction between the inner aspirations, values and needs of a person and the difficulty or impossibility of their satisfaction. This is the situation in which adolescent migrants have to exist: the desire to fulfill their needs, values and aspirations is faced with a changed social and cultural environment.

Problem Statement

In unfavorable conditions and difficulties in adaptation, migrant children may experience various forms of victim behavior (aggressive, passive, proactive, etc.). Thus, the system of psychological and pedagogical support is facing an acute problem of preventing the victimhood of younger adolescents from migrant families. Analysis of the literature sources indicates the contradiction between the need to prevent and overcome victimhood among migrants and insufficient knowledge of their personal resources for coping with difficult situations, in particular, the hardiness that arises during interaction with other people. This raises the problem of finding the resources for preventing the victim behavior of adolescent migrants.

Research Questions

For the first time, the term 'victimhood' was used in our country by L.V. Frank. He distinguished the basic concepts of victimology. The phenomenon of victimhood is defined as a person's predisposition to perceive himself as a victim as a result of successive actions, and social and demographic characteristics (Frank, 1972; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Andronnikova (2015) considers victimhood as a victim potential, or a set of personality traits formed under the impact of social and personal conditions, which leads to a maladaptive response that harms physical or emotional and mental health. Victimization is defined as a dynamic value, the realization of victimhood by a person; victim behavior is considered as a departure from normal behavior, which is realized in conjunction with social, mental and moral manifestations of a person.

Golub (2009) refers personal experience and the experience of violence, individual psychological characteristics (emotional instability, anxiety, aggressiveness, impaired social adaptation, inadequately high or low self-esteem, the specifics of intra-family relations, etc.) to nonspecific factors of development of victim behavior that can enhance the victimhood of adolescents (Golub, 2009; Loginova, 2009). In addition, adolescence is considered as a factor that provokes and enhances victim behavior, but it should be noted that the type of victim behavior depends, to a greater extent, on individual psychological and psychophysiological characteristics, and can have cultural and historical roots (Andronnikova, 2015).

Andronnikova (2015) identified several types of victim behavior, which include maladaptive coping strategies: aggressive behavior; self-destructive and self-damaging behavior; hypersocial behavior; addictive and helpless behavior; uncritical behavior; realized victimhood. Thus, a teenage migrant feels the need to resist the negative factors of the world, while adjusting to the changed cultural environment, adapting, and becoming its part. In this situation, the characteristics that act as links between resistance and self-realization of the adolescent's personality come to the fore.

Kaiipbekova and Gagai (2021) argue that the features of hardiness affect the formation of a viable style of overcoming difficult situations in adolescent migrants. A high level of hardiness, which determines vital attitudes regarding various situations and oneself in the context of these situations, determines the use of active coping strategies in difficult situations, ways of transforming difficult situations into points of personal growth (Antsyferova, 1994; Osukhova, 2006).

The main provisions of the theory proposed by S. Maddi reveal a personal trait, which he called 'hardiness'. In his opinion, an increase in the level of hardiness indicators, namely, commitment, control and risk acceptance, a person simultaneously develops, enriches his personal potential, and has strategies for overcoming difficulties. In Russian literature, 'hardiness' is usually translated as 'stability' or 'hardiness' (Leontiev, 2006).

With reduced hardiness, a person cannot overcome difficulties, tends to focus on possible negative consequences, which, subsequently, negatively affect physiological and mental health (Alexandrova, 2005; Tyshkova, 1987).

Hardiness is a personality trait that includes three relatively autonomous components: commitment, control, and challenge. It is the features of the severity of all three components of hardiness that prevent intrapersonal stress in difficult situations due to the ability to adaptively manage these situations (Alexandrova, 2004, 2005).

The first component is commitment, which is defined by Maddi (2005) as 'the conviction that being committed in what is happening gives the maximum chance to find something worthwhile and interesting for a person'. The development of this component allows a person to receive joy and pleasure from what is happening and from his own activities (p. 65).

The second component is control, which indicates the conviction of a person that purposeful activity affects the results despite the absence of the total effect and vague results (Maddi, 2005).

The third component is challenge that makes a person convinced that what happens to him every day contributes to his development through the acquisition of knowledge and experience, both positive and negative. Maddi (2005) emphasizes the importance of the severity of all three components for maintaining the level of mental health, normal capacity for work and optimal level of activity, even in stressful situations. Each of the hardiness indicators and the total value of hardiness are important, since in some cases the lack of one indicator is compensated by the greater severity of the other.

L.I. Wasserman identifies adaptive, non-adaptive, and relatively adaptive ways of managing difficult situations. The use of adaptive strategies is associated with an orientation towards finding a way out of a difficult situation based on the analysis of this situation, awareness of one's position, and high self-control (as cited in Gagai, & Shmatova, 2017). Among the factors that contribute to the implementation of this or that type of victim behavior. Odintsova (2015) attributes a low level of hardiness. The behavior of a person exhibits some activities to manage a difficult situation.

Analysis of the available literature sources shows that the manifestation of victimhood in adolescent migrants is poorly studied. The available studies into victimhood of migrants have a criminological focus and reflect the characteristics of a victim of the committed crime (Frank, 1972; Rivman, 2002, etc.), misdeeds, or consider the socio-economic aspects of migration.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this experimental study is to identify the features of the manifestation of hardiness in victimized adolescent migrants.

Research Methods

To solve the tasks set, the following methods were employed:

• Questionnaire Propensity for victim behavior (Andronnikova, 2015);
• Test of hardiness(methodology of S. Maddi adapted by Leontiev, 2006).
• The study involved 72 adolescent migrants, students of grades 7–9 in the city of Nizhnevartovsk and the city of Langepas.

Findings

The results of the questionnaire proposed by Andronnikova (2015) are presented in Table 1.

Analysis of the data obtained showed that 60% of adolescents from migrant families are prone to the severity of aggressive victim behavior. Aggressive victim behavior is characterized by a tendency to display verbal or physical aggression, which creates a difficult situation.

In addition, a large number of adolescent migrants (54%) exhibited high rates of the realized victimhood. These adolescents are characterized by frequent falling into critical and difficult situations, since they are prone to thoughtless, maladaptive forms of behavior.

The initiative victim behavior (33%) indicates that the behavior of these adolescents is positive, but puts them in the position of a victim. Adolescent migrants with a high level of initiative victim behavior (33%) are characterized by honesty, openness, but excessive demanding and arrogance.

Adolescents with the uncritical victim behavior (46%) are not able to objectively assess difficult situations, do not notice danger, do not have the ability to predict, and, as a result, are not able to assess the risk and choose an adequate model of behavior in a difficult situation.

A high level of propensity for passive victim behavior (43%) indicates that adolescents are not able to manage a difficult situation due to physical weakness, age, cowardice, shame, fear, etc.

A high level of the realized victimhood (54%) indicates that adolescents have an experience of getting into difficult or dangerous situations, but they cannot manage these situations, which increases the risk of a similar situation.

The propensity for self-harm and self-destructive behavior is the least pronounced in adolescent migrants (31%). This type of victim behavior is characterized by sacrifice, which is provoked directly by the personality. These adolescents are poorly aware of their actions and unable to predict the consequences of their words and actions.

Thus, it was determined that the tendency to aggressive and realized victim behavior is most pronounced in adolescent migrants.

To determine the level of hardiness, the questionnaire by S. Maddi was used (adapted by D.A. Leontiev). The results of the questionnaire are presented in Table 2.

As a result of the data analysis, adolescent migrants were divided into three groups according to the severity of their hardiness: high, medium and low levels of hardiness.

A high level of hardiness (8%) indicates that migrants are able to control the level of stress in a stressful situation and perceive it as a stage of development.

The adolescents with an average level of hardiness (28%) are not always capable of a comprehensive analysis of difficult situations and considering of all the circumstances. As a result, they often make the wrong decisions regarding the choice of an adequate coping strategy.

A low level of hardiness (53%) manifests itself in a continuous feeling of helplessness, doom, and defenselessness. Adolescents are confident that they are condemned to failure no matter how hard they try.

Thus, the majority of adolescent migrants have a low level of hardiness, which indicates an insufficient resource for managing difficult situations that arise during interaction with other people.

At the next stage of the study, the dependence of victimhood indicators on the level of hardiness in adolescent migrants was analyzed. The results are presented in Table 3.

The calculated Spearman's rank correlation coefficient revealed a relationship between indicators of propensity for certain types of victim behavior and hardiness. Thus, a reliable inverse correlation was established between hardiness and propensity for aggressive behavior. This indicates that adolescent migrants with a high level of hardiness, to a lesser extent than adolescents with a low level of hardiness, resort to physical, indirect and verbal aggression towards their peers in difficult situations.

An inverse correlation was also found between commitment and propensity for aggressive behavior, between commitment and propensity for uncritical behavior. This indicates that a high level of commitment reduces the risk of aggressive and uncritical behavior of adolescents.

A statistically significant direct correlation was found between control and propensity for hypersocial behavior. This suggests that a high level of hypersocial victim behavior is determined by high indicators of control.

In addition, we found a direct relationship between challenge and propensity for addictive victim behavior, that is, the higher the challenge indicator, the higher the risk of addictive victim behavior.

Conclusion

Thus, the analysis of the relationship between the indicators of hardiness and types of victim behavior, showed a statistically significant correlation between hardiness and its components, as well as the propensity for various types of victim behavior.

A complex relationship between hardiness and its components and the propensity for various types of victim behavior was revealed in adolescents from migrant families.

The revealed relationship indicates that hardiness reduces the risk of developing the propensity for various forms of aggressive behavior.

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