Scientists give different age limits for this period. D.B. Elkonin defines this age as early youth (from 14-15 to 17-18 years old), D.I. Feldstein defines it as younger adolescence (15-18 years old); I.Yu. Kulagina singles out the elder school age- early youth (16-17 years), youth - from 17 to 20-23 years. B.C. Mukhina defines youth as the period after adolescence to adulthood (age limits from 15-16 to 21-25 years old)

Youth is the time of choosing a life path, work in the chosen specialty (search for it), studying at a university, creating a family, for young men - serving in the army.

The social situation of development is characterized First of all, the fact that the senior student is on the verge of entering an independent life. He will have to enter the path of labor activity and determine his place in life (it should be noted that these processes are very variable). In this regard, the requirements for the senior student and the conditions in which his formation as a person takes place are changing: he must be prepared for work, for family life, for the performance of civic duties (Ya.S. Cohn).

Youth, according to V.I. Slobodchikov, is the final stage of the personalization stage. “The main neoplasms of adolescence are self-reflection, awareness of one’s own individuality, the emergence of life plans, readiness for self-determination, an attitude towards conscious construction of one’s own life, gradual growing into various spheres of life”

Self-determination, both personal and professional, is a characteristic feature of youth. The choice of a profession streamlines and brings into a system of subordination all his various motivational tendencies, coming both from his immediate interests and from other diverse motives generated by the situation of choice. (L.I. Bozhovich).

Leading activity - educational and professional. Motives related to the future begin to encourage learning activities. There is a great selectivity towards academic subjects. The main motive of cognitive activity is the desire to acquire a profession.

Thinking in youth acquires a personal emotional character. There is a passion for theoretical and philosophical problems. Emotionality is manifested in the peculiarities of experiences about one's own capabilities, abilities and personal qualities. intellectual development expressed in a craving for generalizations, the search for patterns and principles behind particular facts. Increase concentration, memory, logging educational material, abstract-logical thinking is formed. The ability to self-understand difficult questions. There is a significant restructuring of the emotional sphere, independence, decisiveness, criticism and self-criticism, rejection of hypocrisy, hypocrisy, and rudeness are manifested.

Youth is a decisive stage in the formation of a worldview. Worldview, as E.E. Sapogov, this is not only a system of knowledge and experience, but also a system of beliefs, the experience of which is accompanied by a sense of their truth and correctness. Therefore, the worldview is associated with a decision in youth meaningful problems. The phenomena of reality interest the young man not in themselves, but in connection with his own attitude towards them.

Worldview search includes social orientation personality, awareness of oneself as a part of a social community (social group, nation, etc.), choice of one's future social position and ways to achieve it.

The focus of all worldview problems becomes the problem of the meaning of life(“What am I living for?”, “How to live?”). The young man is looking for a global and universal formulation of "serve people", "benefit". He is interested not so much in the question “Who to be?” as “What to be?”, As well as humanistic values ​​​​(he is ready to work in the social protection system), the public orientation of his personal life (the fight against drug addiction, etc.), wide social charity , the ideal of service.

This age is characterized reflection and introspection. Adolescence is characterized by increased emotional excitability (unbalance, sudden mood swings, anxiety, etc.) - At the same time, the older the young man, the more pronounced the improvement in the general emotional state.

The development of emotionality in adolescence is closely related to the individual-personal properties of a person, his self-awareness, self-esteem.

The formation of a stable self-consciousness and a stable image of "I"- the central psychological neoplasm of adolescence.

A system of ideas about oneself is being formed, which, regardless of whether it is true or not, is psychological reality which influences behavior, generates certain experiences. The time factor enters self-consciousness (the young man begins to live in the future).

All this is connected with the strengthening of personal control, self-government, with a new stage in the development of the intellect, with the discovery of one's own inner peace The discovery of one's inner world, its emancipation from adults is the main acquisition of youth. The external world begins to be perceived through itself. There is a tendency to introspection and the need to systematize, generalize one's knowledge about oneself (to understand one's character, one's feelings, actions, deeds). There is a correlation of oneself with the ideal, the possibility of self-education appears. Increased volitional regulation. There is a desire for self-affirmation.

There is a self-assessment of their appearance (especially among girls). Young men are acutely aware of the signs of real or imaginary overweight, too large or too small, as it seems to them, growth, and other elements of appearance that they notice in themselves.

One of the important psychological characteristics of youth is self-respect (acceptance, self-approval or non-acceptance, dissatisfaction with oneself). There is a discrepancy between the ideal and real "I".

The social space in which they live begins to play an important role in the perception of the world of boys and girls. Here, in live communication, the life and activities of adults are known. The family remains the place where they feel most calm and confident. Life prospects, mainly professional ones, are discussed with parents. Children can discuss life plans both with teachers and with their adult acquaintances, whose opinion is important to them.

Communication with peers is important for the development of personality in adolescence. Communication with peers is a specific channel of information, a specific type of interpersonal relationships, as well as one of the types of emotional contact.

The search for a life partner and like-minded people becomes relevant, the need for cooperation with people increases, ties with one's social group are strengthened, a feeling of intimacy with certain people appears.

Youthful friendship is unique, it occupies an exclusive place among other attachments. However, the need for intimacy at this time is practically insatiable, it is extremely difficult to satisfy it. The requirement for friendship is increasing, its criteria are becoming more complicated. Youth is considered a privileged age of friendship, but high school students themselves consider true friendship rare (I.Yu. Kulagina).

The emotional tension of friendship is reduced when love appears. Youthful love involves a greater degree of intimacy than friendship, and it kind of includes friendship.

In adolescence, hormonal changes occur that accompany puberty, which leads to an increase in sexual experiences., but not as rapidly as in the younger adolescence. For most young men, a sharp increase in sexual arousal is characteristic. There is a significant increase in sexual behavior and interest in sexual issues. Great importance is attached to the expressiveness of belonging to a particular gender. The development of gender identity is a psychosocial process of assimilation by an individual of a gender role and its recognition by society.

The period of youth is characterized by the presence of a crisis, the essence of which is a break, a divergence educational system and growing systems. The crisis occurs at the turn of the school. IN AND. Slobodchikov and E.I. Isaev's youth crisis is associated with the formation of authorship in his own life (17-21 years), with the entry into an independent life.

The socio-psychological properties of this age group depend on the socio-professional position.

The crisis manifests itself in the collapse of life plans (did not enter a university), in disappointment with the correct choice of specialty, in a divergence of ideas about the conditions and content of activity and its actual course. In the crisis of adolescence, young people are faced with a crisis of the meaning of life.

The lack of internal means of resolving the crisis leads to the development of negative phenomena, for example, drug addiction, alcoholism.

The central problem is becoming a young person's finding individual (relationship to their culture, to social reality, to their time), authorship in the development of their abilities, in determining their own outlook on life. “Separating himself from the image of himself in the eyes of his immediate environment, overcoming the professional-positional and political determinations of the generation, objectifying many of his qualities as “I”, a person becomes responsible for his own subjectivity, which often developed not by the will and without the knowledge of its bearer. This motive of biased and tireless declassification of one's own self, the experience of feelings of loss of former values, ideas, interests, and the disappointment associated with this, allows us to qualify this period as critical - the crisis of youth. Most authors view this crisis as identity crisis.

The authors see negative and positive aspects in the crisis of youth. Negative aspects are associated with the loss of well-established forms of life - relationships with others, methods and forms of educational activities, familiar living conditions, etc. and entry into a new period of life; positive - with new opportunities for the formation of a person's individuality, the formation of civic responsibility, conscious and purposeful self-education.

In youth, one masters a profession, creates one's own family, chooses one's own style and one's place in life and new adult life.

Theme structure:

Separation of early and late youth. The influence of historical and socio-cultural factors on the solution of development problems in adolescence.

2. The social situation of the development of early adolescence. The existence of dependence on parents and the actualization of the tasks of professional and personal determination as the basis of the social situation of development in early adolescence.

The leading activity in early youth is educational and professional activity. Conditionality of educational professional activity 2 groups of motives: educational and professional. The choice of a profession as the most important task of early adolescence. Conditions right choice professions. Mistakes in career choice. Professional orientation. Professional advice.

The main neoplasms of the personality in early adolescence (professional and personal self-determination, worldview, system of value orientations and social attitudes).

5 . Personality and cognitive development in early adolescence. The development of self-awareness as a basis for building a person's life plans and self-education programs. The influence of building models, plans for the future on the subsequent achievements of the individual. Features of communication and emotional life in adolescence. Striving for autonomy and relationships with parents. Peculiarities in relationships with peers. Friendship and love in early adolescence.

Brief description of the topic.

1. Age limits and general characteristics youth. Youth is a certain stage of maturation and development of a person lying between childhood and adulthood. The transition from childhood to adulthood is usually divided into two stages: adolescence (adolescence) and adolescence (early and late). However, the chronological boundaries of these ages are often defined in completely different ways. For example, in domestic psychiatry, the age from 14 to 18 is called adolescence, while in psychology, 16-18-year-olds are considered young men. The word "youth" denotes the phase of transition from dependent childhood to independent and responsible adulthood, which implies, on the one hand, the completion of physical, in particular puberty, and, on the other hand, the achievement of social maturity.

Historical and sociocultural factors influence the solution of developmental problems in adolescence. The higher the pace historical development The more socially significant changes are carried out in a unit of time, the more noticeable are the differences between generations, the more complex are the mechanisms for the transfer of culture from older to younger, and the selective attitude of the younger to their social and cultural heritage.

Although the psychology of adolescence is one of the oldest sections of developmental psychology, L.S. Vygotsky rightly noted in the late 1920s that there are much more general approaches and theories in it than firmly established facts.

This idea of ​​L.S. Vygotsky is relevant to this day, which is indicated by the existing various approaches to the problem of personality formation in early adolescence.

Three main approaches to youth can be distinguished, each of which has many variations.

The biogenetic theory of development focuses on the biological determinants of development, with which socio-psychological properties are correlated. The process of development itself is interpreted mainly as maturation, the stages of which are universal. Types of development and variations of age-related processes are derived from genetically determined constitutional types.

The representative of this trend, Stanley Hall, believed that the main law of developmental psychology is the biogenetic "law of recapitulation", according to which individual development - ontogenesis - repeats the main stages of phylogenesis. If adolescence corresponds to savagery and the beginning of civilization, then adolescence covers the period from the onset of puberty (12-13) to adulthood (22-25), the equivalent of the era of romanticism. This is a period of “storm and stress”, internal conflicts, during which a person has a “sense of individuality”. Although Hall brought together a lot of factual material, his theory was immediately criticized by psychologists, who pointed out that the external similarity does not mean the psychological identity of their behavior. Superficial analogies on which the “law of recapitulation” is based make it difficult to understand specific patterns mental development and underestimate the role of social factors.

Sociogenetic theories try to explain the properties of youth, based on the structure of society, methods of socialization. Sociogenetic orientation in the study of youth is associated with the influence social psychology. The representative of this direction is German psychologist Levin Kurt with his "field theory".

He proceeds from the fact that human behavior is a function, on the one hand, of the individual, on the other hand, of the environment around him. However, the properties of the individual and the properties of the environment are interrelated. Just as a child does not exist outside the family, school, etc., so social institutions do not have an existence separate from the individuals interacting with them and thanks to them. The unity and interaction of all personal and environmental components Levin calls life or psychological space.

For example, he considers the expansion of the life world of the individual, the circle of his communication, etc., to be the most important processes of youth. The behavior of a young man is determined, first of all, by the marginality (intermediateness) of his behavior. Passing from children's world into an adult, the young man does not fully belong to either one or the other. This feature of his social situation and the life world is manifested in his psyche, which is characterized by internal contradictions, the uncertainty of the level of claims, and so on. This tension is the greater, the sharper the differences between the world of childhood and the world of adulthood, and the more important the boundaries separating them.

The advantage of Levin's concept is that he considers youth as a socio-psychological phenomenon, linking the mental development of the personality with changes in its social behavior. However, this concept is too abstract. Putting the child's life world in dependence on his immediate environment, Lewin's microenvironment leaves in the shade its general social determinants, such as social origin, occupation, general conditions of development. In addition, he does not specify the age limits of the period of marginality, in particular, the differences between a teenager and a young man, its individual typological variations.

A common feature of the bio- and sociogenetic approach to youth is that they see the sources and driving forces of development mainly in extra-psychic factors. Those. if in the first case the emphasis is on the biological processes occurring in the body, in the second - on the social processes in which the person participates or is exposed to.

Psychogenetic theories bring to the fore the development of mental processes proper.

The psychodynamic direction explains behavior mainly in emotions, drives. The representative of this trend, E. Erickson, believes that human development consists of three interrelated, albeit autonomous, processes: somatic development, studied by biology; the development of the conscious self studied by psychology and social development studied by the social sciences. The basic law of development lies in the "epigenetic principle", according to which at each new stage of development, new phenomena and properties arise that were not at the previous stages of the process. Erickson divides the life cycle into phases, each of which has its own specific tasks. Youth is given the fifth phase in the life cycle. It is characterized by the appearance of a sense of its uniqueness, individuality. And a typical feature of this phase is the range of roles performed, it expands, but the young man does not assimilate these roles seriously and completely, but, as it were, tries, tries them on for himself. Erickson analyzes in detail the mechanisms of the formation of self-consciousness, psychosexual interests. Although Erickson pays much attention to the socio-historical aspects of personality formation, this is not done specifically enough. In particular, developmental crises appear to be the result of contradictions between the internal properties maturing in the child and environment, and he formulates the age-related neoplasms themselves unnecessarily rigidly and normatively.

Domestic psychology is based on the principle of a comprehensive study of youth, which were formulated by L.S. Vygotsky. According to his theory of the development of higher mental functions about the social essence of a person, “every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two planes, first social, then psychological, first between people, as an interpsychic category, then inside the child, as an intrapsychic category. ".

The problem of youth must be studied taking into account socio-psychological factors and internal patterns of development, i.e. complex.

Adolescence is a significant period in a person's life. It is at this age that physical development ends. Features of physical development have an impact on the development of certain qualities of young men and determine the possibilities of his further life. The issues of physical development of young men are important for two reasons:

1) it means the choice of a profession, depending on the characteristics of the individual physical organization of boys and girls;

2) there is a mutual attraction of the sexes.

Adolescence is a period of relatively calm physical development. It does not have disproportions of individual parts of the body, as is observed in a teenager. Especially the muscles develop, the volume of the chest grows, the ossification of the skeleton, tubular bones, the formation and functioning of tissues and organs ends, the rhythmic work of the endocrine glands is established. Changes in development are determined nervous system and brain. The ability to abstract and generalize events develops, which is an indicator of the complication of analytical and synthetic mental activity. Physical maturity is the reason for the maturity of children.

2. The social situation of the development of adolescence. The young man occupies an intermediate position between a child and an adult. The social status of youth is heterogeneous. Youth is the final stage of primary socialization. The position of the child is characterized by his dependence on adults, who determine the main content and direction of his life. The roles played by young men are qualitatively different from the roles of adults, and both sides are clearly aware of this. With the complication of life, a young man not only expands quantitatively the range of social roles and interests, but also qualitatively changes them, more and more adult roles appear with the ensuing measure of independence and responsibility. The young man begins to think about the choice future profession. The choice of a profession inevitably differentiates the life paths of young men and women, with all the ensuing socio-psychological consequences. Along with elements of adult status, the young man still retains features of dependence that bring his position closer to that of a child. Financially, he is still dependent on his parents. At school, on the one hand, he is constantly reminded that he is an adult, older, and on the other hand, they constantly demand obedience from him. This also happens outside of school. The uncertainty of the situation and the demands made are refracted in youthful psychology in their own way.

The intermediary social position and status of youth also determines some features of its psyche. Young men are still acutely concerned about the problems inherited from adolescence - their own age specificity, the right to autonomy from elders, etc. Social and personal self-determination presupposes not so much autonomy from adults as a clear orientation and definition of one's place in the adult world.

In early adolescence, the needs associated with what to be and who to be are actualized. These are the most important tasks of professional and personal determination at this age. The young man is on the verge of entering an independent life. L.I. Bozovic emphasizes that a completely new social situation of development is being created.

Professional definition includes the definition of the scope of their professional aspirations and the choice of profession, cognitive interests and the development of general and special abilities.

Personal definition is characterized by the development of self-awareness, the influence of significant adults and the formation of a system of views, beliefs, building a model of one's future. .

3. Leading activity in early youth. The young man is faced with the task of self-determination, choosing his life path as a task of paramount vital importance.

The choice of a profession becomes the psychological center of the young man's developmental situation, creating in him a kind of internal position. This originality lies in the fact that high school students are people who are turned to the future, and everything present appears to them in the light of this main orientation of the personality.

Teaching in early youth is not seen as learning the basics of science, but as an acquaintance with possible areas of professional activity. Accordingly, there is a division of educational interests, a more in-depth study of one subject compared to another. The leading educational and professional activity, which has its own characteristics:

1) wider creation of learning situations with a pronounced focus on the future;

2) purposeful and systematic involvement of students in the independent transformation of educational tasks.

An increase in interest in learning in early adolescence is due to the fact that a new motivational structure of learning is taking shape. High school students themselves, first of all, point to such motives as further continuation of education, conviction in the need for learning for their development, i.e. the leading place is occupied by motives associated with self-determination and preparation for independent living. These motives become personal meaning and become effective.

A high place in the motivational structure is occupied by such broad social motives as the desire to benefit society, the conviction in the practical significance of science for society. They retain their strength and motives that lie in the learning activity itself, interest in the content and process of learning.

The change in leading activity that occurs in early adolescence is radical: communication with peers is replaced by the stage of professional self-determination, which requires such a level of mental, spiritual and civic maturity, without which a person cannot become a full-fledged member of society and its public institutions.

High school students already have a firm set when choosing a profession, although there are also fluctuations. This happens when several professions are liked at the same time, there is a conflict between inclinations and abilities, between the ideal in choosing professions and real prospects. The student wants to enter a university, but the performance is low, or, the student has an interest in one, the parents advise another, comrades - the third.

The process of choosing a profession involves a high activity of the individual. Since the situation of choosing a profession is characterized by multidimensionality, for the correct (adequate) choice of a profession, a young man has to do a lot of inner work. He needs to analyze his resources, the requirements of the chosen profession, realize potential inconsistencies and assess the possibility or impossibility of correcting these inconsistencies.

Professional orientation plays an important role in choosing a profession. E.I. Golovakha believes that the professional orientation of students should be organically linked to their life prospects and value orientations. It should not be limited directly to the professional sphere, but always focus on the most important life goals of young people.

Professional orientation is a complex psychological problem. It includes knowledge of personality traits and, above all, the abilities of a young man who is oriented in choosing a profession. The formation of abilities must be carried out taking into account the individual identity of the individual, i.e. internal conditions of development, along with taking into account external conditions (subject and micro-social environment).

In order to form a coherent and realistic life perspective, it is necessary to acquaint young men and women with specific examples of successful and unsuccessful life paths associated with the choice of a particular profession. It is especially important to know the future working conditions, which occupy one of the leading positions in the system of youthful requirements for a future profession. In career guidance work, it is important to take into account not only the rational aspects associated with the definition of life goals and plans, but also the emotional characteristics of the individual. In early youth, in order to organize successful self-determination, it is necessary to acquaint students with the psychological characteristics of professions, i.e. with the requirements that apply to attention, observation, thinking, will, character and other psychological characteristics of a person of a particular profession. It is important to acquaint them with what aspects of the personality are formed in a particular activity.

In choosing a profession, professional consultation is very important - this is part of the career guidance system, aimed at studying a person's abilities, giving him recommendations on choosing a profession and correcting the formation of required, but insufficiently developed abilities. There are three stages in professional consultation: preparatory, final and clarifying. Preparatory vocational counseling is conducted in the family and at school and has two goals: firstly, to study the dynamic functional structure of the student's personality and his abilities; secondly, to form insufficiently developed personality traits, its interests, abilities and vocation as a whole.

The final professional consultation aims to help the young man choose a future life path according to his ability.

Clarifying professional consultation goes beyond the scope of tasks secondary school and carried out in vocational schools.

4. Major neoplasms in early adolescence. Within the leading type of activity, the main neoplasms of early youth are formed - professional and personal self-determination, worldview, a system of value orientations and social attitudes.

Professional self-determination in adolescence is a preliminary choice of a profession. The various activities are sorted and oriented in terms of the young man's interests, then in terms of his abilities, and finally in terms of his value system.

Value aspects, both public (awareness of the social value of a particular profession) and personal (awareness of what an individual wants for himself), are more generalized and usually mature and are realized later than interests and abilities. Interest in the subject stimulates the high school student to engage in it more, this develops his abilities, and the identification of abilities, in turn, reinforces interest.

Early adolescence is a period of significant growth in social activity. Boys and girls are not just interested in the events of domestic and international life, but they themselves want to be active participants. The social activity of high school students has its own psychological characteristics. The romanticism characteristic of this age encourages young people to take on mainly big things.

In early adolescence, the formation of a complex system of social attitudes is completed, and it concerns all components of attitudes: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. But the period of early youth is characterized by great contradictions, internal inconsistency and variability of many social attitudes.

Early youth is a decisive age for the formation of a worldview. The first indicator of the formation of a worldview is the growth of cognitive interest in the most general principles of the universe, the universal laws of nature and human existence.

The ideological attitudes of early youth are usually very contradictory. Serious, deep judgments are strangely intertwined with naive, childish ones. A young man can, without noticing this, during one and that conversation radically change his position, equally ardently and categorically defend directly opposite, incompatible views. But this is a normal feature of early youth.

The ideological search includes the social orientation of the individual, i.e. awareness of oneself as an element of a social community, the choice of one's future social position and ways to achieve it.

The central place in the development of a worldview is occupied by the solution of fundamental social and moral problems, most often grouped around the question of the meaning of life. In fact, the young man is looking for an answer on how to fill his own life with socially significant content.

The formation of a worldview and value orientations, self-determination and self-education of a person presupposes his participation in serious socially and personally significant activities that ensure not only the formation of moral standards, but also the formation of appropriate behavioral habits.

5. Personal development and cognitive processes at early adolescence. In the upper grades, the development of the personality and cognitive processes of children reaches such a level that they are practically ready to perform all types of mental work of an adult, including the most complex ones. Speaking about the cognitive sphere in early adolescence, L.I. Bozhovich notes that "there is not a single intellectual operation in the cognitive activity of an older student that a teenager would not have." In fact, a young man, just like a teenager, thinks in concepts, uses various mental operations, reasons, remembers logically, although there are shifts in this respect as well. In adolescence, thought is finally connected with the word, as a result of which inner speech is formed as the main means of organizing thinking and regulating other cognitive processes. Intellect in its highest manifestations becomes verbal, and speech becomes intellectualized. There is a full-fledged theoretical thinking. Along with this, there is an active process of formation of scientific concepts that contain the foundations of a person’s scientific worldview within the framework of those sciences that are studied at school. Mental actions and operations with concepts, based on the logic of reasoning and distinguishing verbal-logical, abstract thinking from visual-effective and visual-figurative thinking, acquire final forms. Is it possible to speed up all these processes, and if so, how to do it?

From the point of view of the psychological and pedagogical development opportunities that high school students have, from the standpoint of improving education, this question should be answered in the affirmative.

The intellectual development of young men can be accelerated in 3 directions: the conceptual structure of thinking, speech intelligence and the internal plan of action.

The breadth of intellectual interests is often combined in early youth with dispersion, lack of system and method. Many young men tend to exaggerate the level of all knowledge and especially mental abilities.

The amount of attention, the ability to maintain its intensity for a long time and switch it from one subject to another increase with age. At the same time, attention becomes more selective, depending on the orientation of interests. Young men often complain of their inability to concentrate on one thing, absent-mindedness and chronic boredom. "Bad manners" of attention, the inability to concentrate, switch and be distracted from some stimuli and irritants is one of the main reasons for poor academic performance and some emotional problems of early adolescence.

The development of intelligence is closely related to the development of creative abilities, which involve not just the assimilation of information, but the manifestation of intellectual initiative and the creation of something new.

In early adolescence, important processes associated with the restructuring of memory occur. Logical memory begins to develop actively, the productivity of mediated memorization increases.

Active development receives reading, monologue and written speech. Reading develops from the ability to read correctly, fluently and expressively to the ability to recite by heart. Monologue speech is transformed from the ability to retell a small work to the ability to cook independently oral presentation, to conduct reasoning, express thoughts and argue them. Written speech improves in the direction from the ability to write in writing to an independent composition on a given or arbitrary topic.

The young man is concerned about the questions: Who am I? What am I? What am I striving for? Answering them, the young man forms self-awareness. The development of self-awareness is a characteristic feature of the personality in early adolescence. Self-consciousness is a complex psychological structure, the formation of which takes place almost throughout a person's life. It includes the following as components:

1) awareness of one's identity

2) consciousness of one's own "I" as an active, active principle

3) awareness of their mental properties and qualities

4) a certain system of social and moral self-assessments.

All these elements are related to each other functionally and genetically. But they do not form at the same time. The makings of consciousness of identity already appear in an infant when he begins to distinguish between sensations caused by external objects and sensations caused by his own body of consciousness "I" - from about 3 years old, when the child begins to use personal pronouns correctly. Awareness of one's mental qualities and self-esteem acquire highest value in adolescence and youth. But since all these components are interconnected, the enrichment of one of them inevitably modifies the entire system.

Self-consciousness arises from the demands of life and activity. A new position in the team, new relationships with others make the young man evaluate his capabilities, realize the features of his personality in terms of compliance or inconsistency with the requirements presented to him.

Self-awareness is a holistic view of oneself, an emotional attitude towards oneself, self-assessment of one's appearance, mental, moral, volitional qualities, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses, on the basis of which there are opportunities for purposeful self-improvement, self-education.

The formation of self-consciousness and a stable image of one's personality, one's "I" is the most important psychological process of early youth. It happens in several ways:

1) opening your inner world. The young man begins to perceive his emotions not as derivatives of external events, but as a state of his “I”, a feeling of his own peculiarity, dissimilarity to others appears, sometimes a feeling of loneliness appears (“Other people do not understand me, I am lonely”).

2) there is an awareness of the irreversibility of time. This makes the young man seriously think about the meaning of life, his prospects, his future, his goals. Gradually, somewhat more or less realistic plans of activity begin to emerge from the dream, between which you have to choose. The life plan covers the entire sphere of personal self-determination: moral character, lifestyle, level of aspirations, choice of profession and one's place in life. Awareness of one's goals, life aspirations, development of a life plan - milestone self-awareness.

3) a holistic view of oneself is formed. Moreover, at first, a person realizes and evaluates the features of his body, appearance, attractiveness, and then his moral, psychological, intellectual, volitional qualities. Youthful self-assessments are often contradictory: “In my mind, I am a genius + a nonentity.” Based on the analysis of the results achieved in different types activity, taking into account the opinions of other people about themselves and self-observation, self-analysis of their qualities and abilities, a young man develops self-esteem - a generalized attitude towards himself.

In youth, due to the breaking of the old system of values ​​and a new awareness of one's personal qualities, the idea of ​​one's own personality is being revised. Young men often tend to put forward inflated, unrealistic claims, overestimate their abilities. This groundless self-confidence often irritates adults, causing many conflicts and disappointments.

But as youthful self-confidence is unpleasant, psychologically lowered self-esteem is much more dangerous. It makes self-image contradictory and unstable. Young men with low self-esteem often have difficulty communicating and tend to close themselves off from others.

Self-esteem is closely related to other personality traits, including self-esteem. One of critical tasks educational work is the formation adequate self-esteem. This is due to the fact that one hundred and both extremes - both low and high self-esteem lead to serious internal conflicts. Significant for the development of adequate self-esteem and self-awareness is joint work with peers and elders, constantly correcting the idea of ​​a young person about himself, his capabilities.

A high level of self-awareness in early adolescence, in turn, leads to self-education.

The problems of self-determination in adolescence are solved in communication with parents, peers, teachers.

In early adolescence, the trend towards restructuring relationships with parents on the basis of equality continues, and the desire for autonomy is growing.

In modern psychology, the question of the autonomy of young men is specifically posed. At the same time, behavioral autonomy is distinguished, which consists in the need and right of a young man to independently decide on his own personal issues, emotional autonomy - the need and the right to have their own attachments, chosen independently of their parents, moral and value autonomy - the need and right to their own views and the actual existence of such .

Young men first achieve behavioral autonomy in the sphere of leisure, of course, within certain limits. Young men often prefer to have peers as leisure partners than adults.

Emotional autonomy is accompanied by great difficulties. This is due to the fact that it seems to young men that their parents underestimate the change that has taken place in them, do not take seriously their experiences. The slightest tactlessness is enough to keep the inner world of a high school student for a long time for parents. Early adolescence brings maximum emotional problems, often causing alienation from parents. Of course, this does not in any way mean a break in the attachment between them. It depends on the sensitivity and tact of the parents whether they will be able to maintain the mutual understanding that is so necessary for both sides.

In the sphere of moral attitudes and value relations, young men zealously defend their right to autonomy. Sometimes deliberately extreme views are expressed only in order to reinforce this claim to originality. But in fact the influence of the parents remains predominant here. The authority of parents turns out to be predominant in solving such problems as worldview, choice of profession.

Early youth is the age when it is most important for young men to be accepted by their peers, to feel needed, to have a certain prestige and authority among them. Low status in a team is correlated with high level anxiety.

The expansion of the range of communication and the complication of the life of a high school student lead to the fact that the number of groups and collectives to which he belongs or to which he is guided and with which he correlates his value orientations increases significantly. These are organized school groups and informal groups and companies that are formed in the process of interpersonal communication. This creates certain role conflicts and puts the individual in front of the question of which belonging is more important to her. In educational work, it is important to take into account the influence of spontaneous groups and companies. The negative consequences of spontaneity can be avoided by revitalizing the work of organized teams and making them more active.

Relationships with peers are divided into comradely and friendly. Boys and girls are recognized and respected by peers who are their close friends. With the rest, only comradely and friendly relations are maintained. Especially popular are those of the comrades who themselves are kind and attentive to people. Such peers are responsive, restrained, cheerful, good-natured, compliant, have a good sense of humor. Those whose attention and interests are directed exclusively to themselves, who are rude, tactless and indifferent to other people, are not respected.

Relationships with peers are associated with future psychological well-being. Discord in relationships with peers often leads to various forms of emotional and social isolation.

Young men consider friendship the most important of human relationships. The heightened emotionality of youthful friendship makes it partly illusory. A young man often idealizes not only himself in friendship, but also friendship in himself. His ideas of a friend are often closer to his ideal self than to his real self.

In early adolescence, along with friendship, many young people have an even deeper feeling - love.

The emergence of a feeling of love is associated with several circumstances. First, it is puberty, which ends in early adolescence. Secondly, this is the desire to have a very close friend with whom one could talk on the most intimate, exciting topics. Thirdly, it is natural human need in a strong personal emotional attachment, which is especially lacking when a person begins to experience a feeling of loneliness. It has been established that such a feeling in an aggravated form first appears precisely in early adolescence.

Friendship and love at this age are most often inseparable from each other and coexist in interpersonal relationships. Friendship can turn into love, and in place of comradely and friendly relations, courtship can arise. Boys and girls themselves are actively looking for interpersonal communication, intimate contacts with each other, they are no longer able to be alone for a long time.

In adolescence, the ideal of a lover arises and persists for a long period of life, including a person of a certain appearance, who has a set of specific personal virtues.

PSYCHOLOGY OF EARLY YOUTH

Youth- the period of life after adolescence to adulthood (age limits are arbitrary - from 15-18 to 21-23 years). This is the period when a person can go from an insecure, inconsistent child, claiming to be an adult, to actual maturation.

In adolescence, a young person has a problem choice of life values. Youth strives to form an internal position in relation to itself (“Who am I?” “What should I be?”), in relation to other people, as well as to moral values. It is in youth that a young man consciously works out his place among the categories of good and evil. "Honor", "dignity", "right", "duty" and other categories that characterize a person are acutely worried about a person in his youth. In youth, a young man expands the range of good and evil to the utmost limits and tests his mind and his soul in the range from beautiful, sublime, good to terrible, base, evil.

Having started in adolescence the creation of his personality, having begun to consciously build ways of communication, a young man continues this path of improving qualities that are significant for himself in his youth. However, for some it is spiritual growth through identification with the ideal, while for others it is the choice of an anti-hero to imitate and the consequences of personal development associated with this.

Youth is an extremely important period in a person's life. Having entered youth as a teenager, a young man completes this period with true adulthood, when he really determines his own destiny for himself: the path of his spiritual development and earthly existence. He plans his place among people, his activities, his way of life. At the same time, the age period of adolescence may not give a person anything in terms of developing the ability to reflect and spirituality. Having lived through this period, a grown person can remain in the psychological status of a teenager.

In adolescence, the mechanism of identification-separation receives a new development. It is in youth that the ability to empathize with the state of others, the ability to emotionally experience these states as one's own, is sharpened. That is why youth can be so sensitive, so subtle in its manifestations to other people, in its experience of impressions from the contemplation of nature and identification with it, in its attitude and understanding of art. Identification refines the sphere of human feeling, making it richer and at the same time more vulnerable.

In youth, a person strives for self-determination as a person and as a person included in social production, in labor activity. The search for a profession is the most important problem of youth. It is significant that in adolescence, some of the youth begin to gravitate towards leadership as an upcoming activity. This category of people strives to learn how to influence others and for this they study social processes, consciously reflecting on them.

Leading type of activity in adolescence - educational and professional activities. Early adolescence is a period of preparation for a future profession. There is a choice and implementation of the professional future - there is a transition to vocational training. Learning motivation changes qualitatively in structure, because it educational activity is a means of realizing the life plans of the future. Teaching as an activity is aimed at mastering knowledge: there is a structural organization, completion, addition and introduction of new information. The development of independence, a creative approach to solving problems, the ability to make such decisions, analyze, constructively critically comprehend existing knowledge.

One of the main psychological neoplasms of age- professional and personal self-determination, the ability to make life plans and choose ways to achieve them.

The young man carries within himself a sense of personality and strives to appear before others and himself as a person in situations of feverish youth disputes and in situations of choosing a line of behavior and an act being performed. Youth, acquiring the potential of a person entering the time of the second birth, begins to feel liberation from the direct dependence of a close circle of significant persons (relatives and close people). This independence brings the strongest experiences, overwhelms emotionally and creates a huge number of problems. In order to reach an understanding of the relativity of any independence, in order to appreciate family ties and the authority of the experience of the older generation, youth will have to follow the spiritual path of the biblical prodigal son through difficult, unbearably difficult experiences of alienation from the circle. significant people, through deep reflective suffering and the search for true values ​​to return in a new incarnation - now as an adult, able to identify himself with significant loved ones and now finally accept them as such. It is an adult, socially mature person who carries the constancy of worldview, value orientations, organically combining not only independence, but also an understanding of the need for independence of dependence - after all, a person carries the existence of social relations.

Introduction
Psychological features of early youth
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

In developmental psychology, adolescence is defined as the stage of development from the onset of puberty to adulthood. According to the domestic periodization of child development, early youth, or senior school age, refers to the period 14.5 - 17-18 years. A young man is an intermediate link between a child and an adult. Youth is the final stage of maturation in the formation of personality.
The psychological content of this stage is related to the solution of problems professional definition and entry into adulthood

Psychological features of early youth

In the psychological periodizations of A.N. Leontiev, D.B. Elkonin, the emphasis is on a new type of leading activity - educational and professional. L.I. Bozhovich connects youth with the definition of one's place in life and inner position, the formation of a worldview, moral consciousness and self-awareness.
The transition to adolescence is connected with the expansion of the range of social roles that are actually available to a person or normatively obligatory, with the expansion of the sphere of life.
According to I.S. Kohn, the development of intelligence in adolescence is associated with the development of creative abilities. This is not just the assimilation of diverse and complex information, but a manifestation of intellectual initiative. Observation becomes more focused and systematized. In the development of memory, abstract verbal-logical memorization prevails, various mnemonic techniques are used to improve memorization. Attention becomes completely controlled. Older students can focus their attention for a long time without much stress, they improve their ability to switch and distribute attention. But the most significant changes occur in mental activity, in the nature of mental work.
The most important new formations of the intellectual sphere, according to I.V. Dubrovina in adolescence are: the development of theoretical (hypothetical-deductive, abstract) thinking, philosophical reflection; craving for abstraction, broad generalizations, the search for general patterns and principles behind particular facts; the tendency to exaggerate the strength of one's intellect, level of knowledge and independence. The degree of individualization in interests and abilities increases, an individual style of mental activity is formed.
The development of intelligence in adolescence is closely related to the development of creativity and the desire to create something new, which leads to an individual style of mental activity. Many children of this age tend to exaggerate their uniqueness. The development of temporal representations is closely connected with both mental development as well as changing life perspectives. After the age of 15, self-esteem increases, shyness decreases and interest in one's future increases more and more.
Adolescence is associated with the formation of an active life position, self-determination, awareness self-importance, the formation of beliefs and values.
In social terms, notes I.V. Dubrovin, young men are characterized by awareness of themselves as a particle, an element of a social community (social group, nation, etc.), the choice of their future social position and ways to achieve it. The circle of personally significant social relations is expanding, the need for friendly, intimate communication is growing.
In emotional and personal terms, adolescence is vulnerable, since it is characterized by the inconsistency of the level of claims and self-esteem, the inconsistency of the image of the “I”, the inner world, etc. Mental health standards for young men are significantly different from those for adults.
Central psychological neoplasm of adolescence, according to D.I. Feldstein - the formation of a stable self-consciousness and a stable image of "I". This is due to the strengthening of personal control, self-government, with a new stage in the development of the intellect, with the discovery of one's inner world and its emancipation from adults. Young men are especially sensitive to their inner psychological problems tend to overestimate their importance. In adolescence, there is a tendency to emphasize one's own individuality, dissimilarity to others.
Great changes in one's own body and appearance associated with puberty, with a certain uncertainty of the situation (after all, no longer a child, but not yet an adult), with an expansion of the circle of persons with whom a person must correlate his behavior; all this taken together sharply increases the activity of value-oriented activity in adolescence. The young man is preoccupied with the assessment of new knowledge and seeks to build his behavior on the basis of consciously developed or learned criteria and norms. Early youth is characterized by the emergence of a sense of one's own uniqueness, personal individuality; in the negative version, there is a vague "I", role and personal uncertainty.
The main neoplasm of this age is the discovery of the “I”, the development of reflection, the emergence of a life plan, the gradual growing into various spheres of life. Positive traits associated with the choice of profession, life in society. The discovery of "I" implies a special attitude of the individual towards himself and includes three interrelated elements: cognitive - knowledge of oneself, an idea of ​​one's qualities and properties; emotional - assessment of these qualities and the self-love, self-respect associated with it; behavioral - practical attitude towards oneself.
The process of becoming self-conscious and. first of all, such an important component as self-esteem, closely correlates with various psychological states of a young man, in particular, such as anxiety, fears, self-doubt, etc. These are peculiar emotional indicators of the development of both self-esteem and self-awareness.
As noted by L.D. Stolyarenko, the fears experienced by high school students are largely due to one of the main contradictions of this age: the contradiction between the desire to be oneself, to preserve one's individuality and at the same time be together with everyone, i.e. belong to the group, conform to its values ​​and norms. To resolve it, the young man has two ways: either to withdraw into himself at the cost of losing ties with peers, or to give up excellent freedom, independence in judgments and assessments and completely submit to the group. In other words, a high school student faces the choice of either egocentrism or conformism. This contradictory situation in which the young man finds himself is one of the main sources of his fears, which have an obvious social conditionality.
The consequences of fears are manifold, but the main one is the growing uncertainty, both in oneself and in other people. The first becomes a solid basis for alertness, and the second for suspicion. As a result, this turns into a biased attitude towards people, conflict and isolation of the “I”. All this L.D. Stolyarenko also qualifies as a manifestation of obsessive fears or anxiety. Obsessive fear (anxiety) is perceived by a high school student as something alien, going involuntarily, like some kind of obsession. Attempts to cope with it on your own only contribute to its strengthening and growth of anxiety.
Another feature in the formation of self-consciousness, according to V.Ya. Yadov, consists in a heightened sense of self-worth. It often seems to a young man that they want to humiliate him. For him, as noted above, in general, an increased need for human kindness is characteristic. He reacts painfully to falsehood, pretense, although he often behaves in this way.
So, although in the period of the early youth all aspects of the personality's self-consciousness are represented, it is not necessary to speak of its completeness and formation. Youth is the final stage of primary socialization.

Conclusion

Thus, the psychological content of early youth is connected with the solution of the problems of professional definition and entry into adulthood; the most important new formation of the intellectual sphere in adolescence is the development of theoretical (abstract) thinking; adolescence is associated with the formation of an active life position, self-determination, awareness of one's own importance, the formation of beliefs and values; the central psychological neoformation of adolescence is the formation of a stable self-awareness and a stable image of the “I”.

Bibliography

1. Bozhovich L.I. Personality formation in ontogeny // Questions of psychology №2. – M.: Enlightenment, 1978.
2. Vygotsky L.S. The historical meaning of the psychological crisis // Sobr. op. In 6 volumes - M .: Pedagogy. 1982.
3. Kon I.S. Psychology of early youth. - M .: School-Press, 1989.
4. Self-regulation and prediction of social behavior of the individual / Ed. V.Ya. Yadov. – L.: LGU, 1979.
5. Stolyarenko L.D. Pedagogical psychology. - Rostov-n / D .: Phoenix, 2003.
6. Feldstein D.I. Psychology of personality development in ontogeny.- M.: Education, 1989.
7. Formation of personality in the transition period from adolescence to adolescence/ Ed. I.V. Dubrovina. - M.: Enlightenment, 1983.
8. Elkonin D.B. On the problem of periodization of mental development in childhood // Questions of Psychology. 1971, No. 4.