Ideas about difficult situations and other people among students with social frustrations

¹ Academy of Psychology and of Pedagogics, Southern Federal University, 116, Dneprovskiy lane, Rostov-on-Don, 344065, Russia
² Don State Technical University, 1, Gagarin sq., Rostov-on-Don, 344003, Russia

^* Corresponding author: anna-kor@bk.ru

Abstract

The article describes the problem of psychosocial personal characteristics as predictors of the coping behavior. Over the past few decades, the world has changed beyond recognition, the current generation of students has changed, and therefore the strategies that they use to cope with the difficulties that have appeared in their lives have also changed. The ways of their adaptation to modern reality have changed in comparison with the older generation. In this regard, the study of various predictors of coping behavior, which today prevail in the modern student environment, becomes relevant. The authors used content-analysis of metaphors, tests and methods of mathematical statistics (quartiles, regression analysis, Kruskal-Wallis H-test) and discovered the dependence between social frustration, metaphors of difficult life situations and coping-strategies. So, a high level of social frustration is connected with low rational and adaptive coping strategies in difficult life situations. Various coping strategies are associated with different metaphors of difficult life situations and of their participants: “friends” and “aliens”. The metaphors reflect personal perception of these situations based on scales “short distance-long distance”, “rational value-emotional value” and on parameters “undertaking the responsibility – placing the responsibility with others”, “stereotypical or differentiated image of the situation”.