Features of the Internal Position of an Adult in Modern Students of Early Adolescence

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study dealing with the features of the adult internal position as a motivational basis for self-determination in modern high school and college students. The study aims to analyze the adult internal position in adolescent students, which is seen as a confluence of the social need for autonomy and the cognitive need for professional education. The hypothesis was tested that the peculiarity of the studied psychological phenomenon is due to the fact that the external conditions of development (environmental factors and institutional requirements for growing up) outpace the formation of internal conditions that ensure the modern young people’s individual psychological readiness for self-determination. We tested the assumption that the institutional requirements for adulthood outpaced the modern young people’s individual psychological readiness for self-determination. Standardized scale methods were used to diagnose the level of professional identity (A. Azbel), the level of ambition and self-esteem (the Dembo-Rubinshtein scale modified by A. Prikhozhan), the level of subjective control (modified by A. Gretsov), as well as to study the emotional attitude towards learning (modified by A. Andreeva-A. Prikhozhan). The sample of the study is 191 people, high school and colleges students from Moscow and Orsk. Correlative, cluster and factor analysis of the data obtained confirmed the assumptions made about the structure of the adult internal position in the early youth and the features of its formation in post-industrial societies. It is shown that the formation of the professional identity of modern high school and college students is more consistent with the objective requirements of the social situation, rather than the level of personal maturity necessary for making informed decisions.