Social development of adolescents in the context of existential categories

Abstract

The article deals with the concept of the meaning of life among adolescents. According to the findings, understanding of the meaning of life among 8-9 grade students is more truthful, whereas senior students tend to see the meaning in the satisfaction of their hedonic needs. Similar trends are observed in the meaning of such concepts as suffering, the culture of death, and the sense of life time. Discussions on the above existential categories should help to develop a psychological resistance to various possible traumatic events (experiences) later in the adolescents' lives. A statistically reliable dependence between the absence of the meaning of life among students and pedagogical assumptions has been established: bad relationships with teachers - 29 percent; bad relationship with family - 6 percent; bad relationship with peers - 6 percent; inability to find help - 47 percent; low self-esteem - 20 percent.