AGE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF STUDENTS’ FAMILY SELF-DETERMINATION

Growing-up is characterized by active self-determination in the sphere of marriage and family relations. From the standpoint of the age-psychological approach in the logic of psychological age structure - the social situation of development, new formations and leading activity - the dynamics of the cognitive, valuable-and-emotional, regulative-and-behavioral, motivational and reflective components of family self-determination was revealed for the first time in senior teens (from 15 to 16 years old), adolescence (from 17 to 19 years old) and youth (from 20 to 22 years old). In 2012-2019 the study was attended by 1.281 students of Astrakhan State University, the Astrakhan branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, a branch of Russian State University for the Humanities in Astrakhan, Astrakhan State Polytechnic College, Astrakhan College of Computer Technology. In senior teens the valuable-and-emotional component prevails. Adolescence is a determining factor in demonstrating cognitive and valuable-and-emotional components. In youth, the cognitive, valuable-and-emotional, regulative-and-behavioral, motivational and reflective components are distributed more evenly than in other age-related periods. The age-psychological approach to the analysis of mental development in the ontogenesis makes it possible to consider readiness for family self-determination as a private new formation of adolescence (from 17 to 19 years old), and family self-determination as an important age-related new formation of youth (from 20 to 22 years old).


Introduction
As a result of radical social and economic transformations taking place in the modern world, the institution of family and marriage is being transformed. The age and psychological approach allows to reveal optimal conditions necessary for formation of a family-oriented person, according to a modern sociocultural situation in Russia. In the works of Russian psychologists, mental functional development at the age aspect and the social situation of development are put into a deep analysis. The central importance of teenage and adolescence is generally accepted in forming a worldview, a system of value orientations and personal self-determination (Bozhovich, 2001;Brugman et al., 2003;Dubrovina, 2003;Feldstein, 2004). In Russian psychology, the categories of a social situation of development, new formations and leading activity are used to describe the age and psychological development of a child (L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, L.I. Bozhovich, O.A. Karabanova, E.I. Zakharova, G.V. Burmenskaya, etc.).
In the structural analysis of a social situation of development, it is appropriate to refer to the concept of «a social context». The social context is understood as "communication and cooperation of a child with a significant social environment within a certain institution of socialization -family, educational establishment, peer group. The child's social environment is a complex, hierarchically organized structure that includes a number of social contexts" (Karabanova, 2012, p. 77). The model of a dynamic structure of a child's social situation of development includes the following elements (Karabanova, 2010(Karabanova, , 2012:  The child's objective position in the system of social and interpersonal relations; On the basis of the guiding image, the child's active and effective position with the regard to social reality is implemented. "Guiding image in the unity of its cognitive and affective components performs the function of planning and regulating of implemented forms of joint activity and cooperation, acts as a link, mediating the possibility of developing potential realization of a child's activity" (Karabanova, 2012, p. 78).
The social situation of development in youth is becoming more complex. Children-parents relationships are being transformed and as a result a parent and a child communicate and interact «on equal terms» (Kon, 1989;Feldstein, 2011). The requirements for young people that should be prepared for work, for family life and civic responsibilities, are changing. Kon (1989) notes that "a 18-23-year old person is an adult both biologically and socially. The society sees not so much the object of socialization in him, as the responsible subject of a social and industrial activity, evaluating the results according to "adult" standards" (p. 60). Dubrovina (2015) fairly notes that «the school «lets» young people, who have received general secondary education, into independent life. By the time of graduation, each graduate has his or her own internal (psychological) readiness for life outside the school, as well as self-determination in personal, social, professional and, let us add, «family» areas. Young men and girls, with a worldview formed during their school years, value orientations, idea of the meaning of life and the level of general and psychological culture established, come not only to higher schools, army, work and various institutions. But they also https://doi.org/10.15405/epiceepsy.20111.1 Corresponding Author: Svetlana Vasil'evna Merzlyakova Selection and peer-review under  3 come to the Civil Registry Office -to marriage, to create their own family, and to the Maternity Hospitals -to give birth to a new person (Dubrovina, 2015, p. 20).
At each age stage, the social situation of development assigns the main task of development to a child, the solution of which determines the dynamics of mental development at a given age (Karabanova, 2012, p. 76). The concept of developmental task was introduced by Havighurst (1972) and later developed by foreign and native psychologists in detail (Heimans et al., 1995;Khukhlayeva, 2002;Remschmidt, 1994). According to Heimans et al. (1995), developmental task is "a period or a direction of development during which an individual is able to prove or justify to a special jury or audience that he/she is capable of performing certain actions" (p. 8). Developmental tasks should be addressed by young men and girls using the potential they have accumulated in somatic, cognitive and emotional spheres (Remschmidt, 1994).
Thus, the social situation of development provides resources for solving developmental tasks that lead to the appearing of new age-related psychological formations. According to Vygotsky (2003), new age-related formations should be understood as that new type of personality structure and its activity, those mental and social changes, which appear at a given age level for the first time and which determine the child's consciousness in the most important and basic way, his attitude to the environment, his internal and external life, the whole course of his development at this period. (p. 11) Vygotsky (2003) supposes that at each age stage there is a central new formation, which leads to the whole process of personal development, and private new formations, which are grouped around the main one, belong to separate sides of a child's personality and are associated with new formations of previous years. "Those developmental processes, which are more or less directly related to the major new formations, will be called central developmental lines at a given age, and all the other partial processes, changes occurring at a given age will be called side developmental lines" (Vygotsky, 2003, p. 23).
According to Spranger, the main new formations of adolescence are: the discovery of Ego, the development of reflection, the awareness of one's own individuality and its properties; the emergence of a life plan, an attitude to the conscious building of one's own life; and the gradual increase in various spheres of life (as cited in Kon, 1989, p. 31).
Describing the youthful age, Bozhovich (2001) is focused on a motivational sphere development of a personality. The whole structure of the personality is determined by its orientation, "which is based on a steadily dominant system of motifs ... The emergence of a hierarchical system of motifs ensures the highest stability of the personality" (p. 237). There is a special personal new formation -self-determination in a second phase of teens (16-17 years old). Bozhovich believes that from the teenager's dreams connected with the future, self-determination differs in that it is based on the already established interests and aspirations of the subject; in that it assumes taking into consideration his or her possibilities and external circumstances; it is based on the emerging worldview of the teenager and is connected with the career choice... Genuine self-determination, i.e. self-determination as a systemic new formation connected with the formation of an adult's inner position, appears much later and is the final last phase of ontogenetic development of a child's personality. Based on the results of studies conducted by Dubrovina (2003), the 4 main new psychological formation in early adolescence should be considered not as self-determination by itself, but psychological readiness for self-determination.
From Khukhlayeva's (2002) point of view, one of the important new formations of youth is the achievement of social maturity. It should be understand as "on the one hand, the possibility of fulfilling social duties and, on the other hand, taking responsibility, decisions and actions of one's own life" (p. 23).
Thus, this is a possession of a full "complex of social functions of an adult" (Khukhlayeva, 2002, p. 23).
Formation of the basic psychological age-related new formations is provided as a result of leading activity acceptance (D.B. Elkonin, A.N. Leontiev, V.V. Davydov). Nowadays there is no any standard opinion concerning allocation of leading activity of youthful age. The leading activity of 15-17-year old people was considered as the educational and professional activity, through which certain cognitive and professional interests, elements of research skills, ability to make life plans and develop moral ideals, selfconsciousness are formed. Kon (1989) considers that the leading field of activity of late adolescence (18 -23-25 years old) is labour, and the education in the university is considered as a type of labour activity.

Problem Statement
In conjunction with the foregoing, we believe that there is private new formation -psychological readiness for family self-determination, in the period of early adolescence from 17 to 19 years old around the central new formation -self-determination of a personality (Bozhovich, 2001). An important new formation of late adolescence or the beginning of youth (from 20 to 22 years old) is family selfdetermination, which is characterized not only by age-normative characteristics, but also by individualpsychological traits.
A comparative analysis of the characteristics of family self-determination at different ages makes it possible to study the dynamics of marriage and family concepts in ontogenesis, develop measures aimed at fostering family values and cultivating a family way of life among young people, to form a psychological culture in family life and to prevent negative developmental trends.

Research Questions
Through previous studies components of the structure, content characteristics and types of family self-determination of modern boys and girls have been identified (Merzlyakova, 2018(Merzlyakova, , 2019. It has been established that the indicators of boys' and girls' family self-determination are prescribed by a system of different social-cultural conditions (residence, religion, ethnocultural background, type of a parental family structure, level of a family cohesion, children-parents relationships) and individual-psychological factors (cognitive abilities, typological characteristics of temperament, emotional and volitional properties of a personality, communication abilities and peculiarities of interpersonal interaction).
The following question remains unresolved today: are there any reliable differences in the content and structure characteristics of family self-determination depending on the age of respondents?

Purpose of the Study
The aim of the study is to identify the features of family self-determination of student youth at different stages of age development: senior teens (from 15 to 16 years old), adolescence (from 17 to 19 years old) and youth (from 20 to 22 years old). The hypothesis of the research was the assumption that the content and structure characteristics of family self-determination are appointed by the age of the respondents.
The research was conducted on the basis of Astrakhan State University, the Astrakhan branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, a branch of Russian State University for the Humanities in Astrakhan, Astrakhan State Polytechnic College, Astrakhan College of Computer Technology. The study was attended by 1.281 students. The age of respondents ranged from 15 to 35 years old. We divided the entire sample into three age groups. The first group was made up of students

Findings
Using one-way ANOVA for independent samples (F) and Kruskal-Wallis's non-parametric criterion (H), we evaluated reliability of differences in the content and structure characteristics of family selfdetermination of student youth. In the cognitive component of family self-determination between age groups, differences in statistical significance levels were identified for the variables I-am-a-futurehusband/wife and I-am-a-future-father/mother. From the Table 1 we can see that the value of a functional role of the future spouse increases by 17-19 years old, but decreases by 20-22 years old. Similarly, the role of a future parent has the greatest value at the age of 17 to 19 years old.    The differences at the level of statistical significance in the motivational component of family selfdetermination were established for the following motives: security, success, personal independence, love, material well-being, revenge, recognition by others, self-actualization, happiness (Table 4). By the age of 17-19 the importance of such marital motives as safety, success, love, recognition by others increases and remains unchanged at the age of 20-22. Positive dynamics is noticed for self-actualization. Negative dynamics is typical for such a marriage motive as revenge. Probability of wedding out of a sense of revenge on a former lover or parents decreases with age. Marital motives of personal independence, material wellbeing, happiness reach their maximum at the age of 17-19 years old. It can be seen from Table 5

Conclusion
The objective aspect of the social situation of development in adolescence is characterized by the fact that society no longer sees him or her as a child but as an adult, both biologically and socially. The system of sociocultural expectations, norms and requirements in youthful age includes completion of education, acquisition of a profession, starting work, financial independence from parents, marriage.
Students retain their dependent social status longer than working youth. The subjective aspect of a social situation of development consists of the guiding images system in such aspects as inner position (selfdetermination), self-image, image of a partner and image of interpersonal relations with him (Karabanova, 2012  10 determining factor in the manifestation of cognitive and valuable-and-emotional components; in youth, there is more even distribution of cognitive, valuable-and-emotional, regulative-and-behavioral, motivational and reflective indicators than in other age-related periods. The age-psychological approach allows to proceed from the strategy of stating the course of mental development to the strategy of purposeful social construction (Karabanova, 2018). The revealed negative tendencies of development (at the age of 20-22 there is a decrease in importance of family roles I-am-a-future-husband/wife, I-am-a-futurefather/mother, values «my future family», positive attitude to the position of a personality in a family structure, to himself/herself, future children, romantic love, family entertainment and leisure) require creating conditions for family self-determination formation of modern youth. Such conditions are the way of creating an optimal social situation of development, taking into consideration the role of each of the social contexts (family, educational institutions, peer groups) and age-related stage. In the educational environment of the university, the psychological and pedagogical model of a family self-determination of students (Merzlyakova & Golubeva, 2018) allows to proceed from the spontaneous, «trial and error» method to the focused formation of self-determination in the marriage and family sphere and compensation of risk factors.