Manifestation of Cognitive-emotional Conflict in Self-Attitude of High School Students of Different Sex

Abstract

Background. Despite a significant number of studies of self-attitude, the specifics of self-attitude in high school students of different sexes remains insufficiently studied due to the peculiarities of their conscious (cognitive) and emotional regulation. Objective. The target is to identify the relationship between the frequency of manifestations of cognitive-emotional conflict during the video dialogue with the parameters of self-attitude in high school students of different sexes. Methods. Manifestations of cognitive-emotional conflict were recorded in a video dialogue and identified on the basis of formalized integral expert assessments. During the dialogue, questions or approval of the methodology “Research of self-relationship” by S.R. Pantileev were pronounced aloud by the experimenter. The respondent had to answer aloud in detail, and after the answer spontaneous clarifying questions and remarks of the experimenter, uttered in order to provoke a cognitive-emotional conflict and to increase emotionality of the dialogue were possible. The dialogue was conducted by an experienced psychologist (woman). Sample. The study involved 37 people — schoolchildren, grades 8–11 (average age 15 years, standard deviation 1.5 years) from different cities of the Russian Federation (15 boys and 22 girls). Results. As a result of correlation analysis of 9 parameters of self-attitude and the frequency of occurrence of cognitive-emotional conflict, it was shown that the frequency of conflict is associated with the nature of self-attitude and has a pronounced gender specificity. It was revealed that boys have a significant correlation only with the scale "closedness — openness", while girls — with the scales "self-acceptance", "self-attachment", "internal conflict" and "self-accusation". Conclusions. It was found that the more are young men characterized by openness, reflection and self-criticism, the more often they manifest cognitive-emotional conflict in the experimental situation. In girls, the emergence of a cognitive-emotional conflict in a research situation is associated with a decrease in self-acceptance (a general negative background of self-perception), self-worth (dissatisfaction with oneself and the desire to change oneself), as well as a general high internal conflict and self-accusation. Practical application of the results. The results obtained are important both for differentiated education and for organizing more effective psychological support for students in the framework of educational work at school.

Keywords

• self-awareness
• emotions
• self-attitude
• cognitive-emotional conflict
• gender
• high school students