ISSN: 1550-7521
ISSN: 1550-7521
Fatykhova RM* and Mingazova DV
Department of Psychology, M. Akmullah Bashkir State Pedagogical University, Russia
Received date: March 02, 2016; Accepted date: March 21, 2016; Published date: April 05, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Fatykhova RM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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The article presents the author's methods of determination of teenagers’ disposition to destructive communication, identifies the main types of destructive communication and provides their psychological characteristics. It specifies the correlation between destructive communication and certain personal qualities of teenagers. It also determines the main role of the diagnostics of teenagers’ disposition to destructive communication as a way of youth extremism prevention in the system of correcting conditions of this type of interaction.
Diagnostics; Destructive communication; Deviant communication; Mercenary communication; Barrier Communication; Conflictogenic communication; Narcissistic communication; Extremism; Correction; Prevention
Extremism is one of the most severe issues among the multiple contemporary issues. It is a wide spread fact of the life of the society of the 21th century, that doesn’t depend on borders, class or gender. This is evident from the fact that the vigorous destructive activities of the numerous parties and social movements increasingly appear in the political, economic, social, religious and other areas of society [1,2]. Analysis of extremism as a negative phenomenon leads to the conclusion that it is a model of an aggressive socio political communication, which built on the inequality of its parts and the opposition of their interests [3]. There are many views on the nature and expressions of extremism. Briefly, principal directions are as follows: extremism increased; extremism is forming; extremism is a reacting of strong emotions, extremism is the reasonable strategy in the race for power; extremism rises from an apolitical, eschatological ideology; extremism is a pathological disease [2,4,5].
On the basis of the definition given by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and due to the targets for determination of the role of education against extremism, Lynn Davies defines extremism as "when you do not allow for a different point of view; when you hold your own views as being quite exclusive, when you don’t allow for the possibility of difference and when you want to impose this view on others using violence if necessary” [6].
Extremism among the teenagers has unique features. They appear from the nature of teenagers as a social category and are defined by the transitional nature of the formation of its personality. In course of investigation of the formation of teenagers’ personality in the process of realization of their main social function, which are reproduction and innovational, U.A. Zubok points out that it (formation) is associated with the overcoming of both internal and external contradictions. Young people, especially the youngsters, are often forced to overcome internal contradictions that are the result of ambivalent manifestations, such as shyness and aggressiveness, openness and restraint, nihilism and fanaticism in an effort to gain self-sufficiency and independence from adults. External contradictions arise at the joint of interaction between teenagers and society, when meeting with its strict requirements. Realization of the contradictions promotes the extreme types of mind and behavior of youths, as its social group essential characteristics. This process is intensified under the influence of teenagers social status characteristics associated with the transitional nature of the formation of its personality. Teenagers is only in the process of becoming a subject of social reproduction, so its social position is characterized by incompleteness of the social status, marginality of the social attitudes, uncertainty of social identifications.
Adolescence has a special place in human life. During this period there are large number of difficulties and disruptions in communication, related to both personal characteristics and environmental conditions and activities. Analysis of scientific sources of communication barriers and irregularities causes makes possible to stand out several forms of dysfunctional interpersonal communication. These include: difficult communication in the form of shyness or immodesty, deficiency communication, which is evident as a disposition to loneliness and stangeness, defect communication, i. e. the combination of accentuation of personality, rigidity and anxiety of the person, as well as destructive communication, which is the subject of our study.
The term “destructive communication” is absent in the psychological literature. The analysis of encyclopedical and philosophic literature allowed identification of definitions and concepts of destruction and destructive human activity. Destruction (Latin: destruction – demolition) - demolition, damage of the phenomena structure. In the English language the term destructive means damaging, harmful. Known researcher I.V. Lysak gives the following definition of this phenomenon: “The destructive human activity is the specific form of an active relation of the subject to the world or to himself the main content of which is the destruction of the existing objects and systems” [7].
The foreign psychology describes a number of terms with the close meaning to our understanding of the destructive communication, among them there are "miscommunication", "communication breakdown", "deficiency communication", and "destructive communication". All of these terms are considered in the matter of communication as in foreign science interaction is regarded as a form of communication. The closest terms to our understanding of the destructive communication phenomenon are “deficiency communication”, “destructive communication”, since they describe situations in which the parties of communication are dissatisfied with each other, and unable to establish a positive dialogue, as a result barriers and conflicts appear [8-11].
Based on the characteristics of the phenomenon peculiarities, we give the following definition of destructive communication: destructive communication is a form of interpersonal communication, which is represented by subjectobject interaction, which has a complicated nature due to the personal characteristic of communicants, which as a result affects the personality of the partners and disrupts the interaction [12].
The presented author's definition of destructive communication is given for the first time in psychological science and so it has the novelty. In addition, the novelty of our approach lies in the fact that we determined the psychological content of destructive forms of teenagers’ communication and empirically confirmed their relationship with personal qualities. These relationships were discovered possible with the help of the created questionnaire, the description of which we give below.
The problem of the content, psychological characteristic and forms of appearance of destructive communication in the scientific literature remains understudied. Existing techniques give an opportunity to detect certain destructive communication appearances, but, unfortunately, don’t cover the entire range of the studied phenomenon in the respondents, and don’t allow the identification of the disposition to destructive communication [13]. Therefore the objective of this study is the formation of the author questionnaire “Methods of determination of the teenagers’ disposition to destructive communication” (MDDC), review of its psychometrical characteristics and standardization.
Participants of the study
The study was carried out on the basis of secondary general education institutions, among which were: Municipal Educational Institution (MEI) Secondary General School (SGS) No.1 of Chishmy village, MEI SGS of Alkino village of the Chishminsky district of Bashkortostan (RB), MEI SGS No.34, 54 and MEI Lyceum No. 96 of Ufa city. Totally 578 people took part in this study. Five experts-specialists in psychodiagnosis, professors of leading universities of Ufa city (M. Akmullah Bashkir State Pedagogical University, Bashkir Academy of Public Service and Administration under the President of the Republic of Bashkortostan) took part on the stage of validation of the questionnaire.
Research on the formation of psychometric properties of the method was carried out in six steps. More detailed description of the steps presented in the article [14]. The developed questionnaire provides an opportunity to study the destructive communication as an integral phenomenon and determine the disposition of the teenager to one or more types of the destructive communication.
Factor analysis of the characteristics which were obtained from the analysis of the testees responses to the statements of the developed diagnostic methods for determining the disposition of teenagers to destructive communication was used to define the types and the structures of the destructive communication[14]. The factor analysis found out five factors, which represents five principal types of the destructive communication (deviant, manipulative, barrier, conflictogenic and narcissistic), which combine in itself types that are similar in their properties.
“Deviant communication” includes the proclivity for aggression, authority, egotism and criminality. It manifests itself in communication by a lust for power, aspiration to take control of other people, inability to recognize the wrongness, ostentation and often by rudeness.
“Manipulative communication”, Aspiration to manipulate the partner and mercenary forms of destructive communication (falsehood, lies) dominates in this phenomenon. In this case, the partner is considered as a carrier of the properties which may be helpful in achievement of his goal. It manifests itself in the form of deception, hypocrisy, clinginess and attempts to deceive the partner due to self-interest or the desire to find enjoyment in the process of deceiving others.
“Barrier communication” is the interaction, which is based on the communication barriers - shyness, loneliness and strangeness. A person is characterized by low extroversion, a constant feeling of discomfort, tension in the interaction, which can be caused by low self-concept and self-esteem, sensitivity to the opinion of others, fear to be refused, and at the same time, fear of emotional bond and distrust of the people.
“Conflictogenic communication” manifests itself in in behavior and person interaction in the form of disposition to jealousy, envy, and high proneness to conflict of a person. The behavior is based on the conflict as a complex personal quality. It is characterized by the susceptibility, hot temper, suspiciousness and envy or jealousy to the others. A person disposed to envy in the process of interaction with people experiencing hostility feelings toward success, popularity, the moral ascendancy of another person, and the desire to destroy the object of envy. He feels bad the perception of his lower position in comparison with other people. The jealousy is come out in pursuit to be in the center of attention, in the fear of being left, become unpopular, as well as in the distrust of immediate circle.
“Narcissistic communication” takes its name from narcissism as personal property manifested in the process of interaction, influencing on the result of communication. Narcissism is represents borderline state of person, and expressed in the form of hysteroid behavior and highly contradictory self-construction [15]. A person is characterized by infantilism, egocentric motives orientation, feelings of inferiority, the constant mental and physical fatigue, often hypochondria, strangeness, insane quest for excellence, the internal permissiveness, lack of lofty aims, excessive idealization of people from circle of contacts, lack of creativity, low motivation to work.
The correlation analysis of personal qualities and types of destructive communication was carried out given the fact that the destructive communication is based on the certain personal qualities. Correlation analysis pointed out significant relationships between outlined characteristics (Table 1)
| DC types Personal qualities | Deviant communication | Mercenary communication | Barrier communication | Conflictogenic communication | Narcissistic communication |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manipulativity | 0.20 | 0.79 | 0.18 | 0.34 | 0.21 |
| Egoism | 0.48 | 0.59 | 0.16 | 0.41 | 0.34 |
| Negativism | 0.32 | 0.16 | 0.08 | 0.24 | 0.26 |
| Verbal aggression | 0.81 | 0.04 | 0.04 | 0.22 | 0.06 |
| Displaced aggression | 0.25 | 0.36 | 0.09 | 0.31 | 0.01 |
| Soreness | 0.17 | 0.21 | -0.01 | 0.34 | 0.21 |
| Suspiciousness | 0.19 | 0.45 | 0.61 | 0.23 | 0.24 |
| Susceptibility | 0.14 | 0.12 | 0.10 | 0.28 | 0.10 |
| Disposition to overcoming of norms and rules | 0.34 | 0.17 | 0.04 | 0.18 | 0.16 |
| Authority | 0.74 | 0.09 | -0.35 | 0.23 | 0.14 |
| Dependence | 0.06 | 0.23 | 0.74 | 0.01 | 0.10 |
| Obedience (shyness) | -0.42 | 0.01 | 0.61 | -0.51 | 0.07 |
Table 1: Correlation relationships between the personal qualities types of destructive communication (DC) (N=207, p<0.01000).
Deviant communication has significant associations with egoism (0.48, p<0.01), negativism (0.32, p<0.01), verbal aggression (0.81, p<0.01), disposition to overcoming of norms and rules (0.34, p<0.01), authority (0.74, p<0.01) and negatively correlates with obedience (-0.42, p<0.01). It can be seen that the deviant communication is basically developed thanks to a high level of person egoism and a desire to dominate over partner on the interaction, in the absence of acquiescence and emotional restraint it is often expressed in the use of different ways to achieve his aims verbally by altercation, menaces, abuse.
Mercenary communication in turn has relations with personal qualities such as disposition to manipulation (0.79, p<0.01), egoism (0.59, p<0.01), displaced aggression (0.36, p<0.01), suspiciousness (0.45, p<0.01). The basis of this type of destructive communication is the egoism and high degree of manipulativity.
Positive correlation shows the association of the barrier form of destructive communication with suspiciousness (0.61, p<0.01), dependence (0.74, p<0.01) and obedience (0.61, p<0.01), and also negatively associated with authority (-0.35, p<0.01). The person initially relates to the outward things and the people suspiciously and incredulously, he is not able to protect his own interests. Significant positive relations were found between conflictogenic communication and disposition to manipulation (0.34, p<0.01), egoism (0.41, p<0.01), displaced aggression (0.31, p<0.01), soreness (0.34, p<0.01), susceptibility (0.28, p<0.01), and negative association with obedience (-0.51, p<0.01). This means that the person demonstrate distrust, envy and hate to others, uses gossips, jokes against others, very irritable and disposed to manipulation Last form of the destructive communication of teenagers is narcissistic communication that has significant associations with egoism (0.34, p<0.01)and negativism (0.26, p<0.01). According to the results the personal qualities have a close interrelation with the occurrence of destructive types of teenager communication. This applies primarily to such qualities as the disposition to manipulation, egoism, displaced aggression, suspiciousness, that have significant associations with a variety of types of destructive communication of teenagers. Conspicuous is the fact that all types of destructive communication, except the barrier, positively correlate with the person egoism. The obtained results confirm hypothesis and opinions of some authors that destructive communication is based on the qualities of the person [16,17].
The analysis of the content abundance, frequency of occurrence and the interrelation of the destructive communication with the personal qualities, mostly negative, bring to the conclusion that the early diagnostics of teenagers and young people disposition to destructive communication is necessary in order to prevent the transformation of the disposition into stable extreme forms of behavior. The necessity of diagnostics and subsequent correction of teenager destructive communication caused by the fact that the inconsistencies of views, marginality and unformed state of persuasion and worldview, which are common to this age can lead to aggression, fanaticism and criminogenic communication in the absence of such work and under unfavorable conditions of social situation of development, the rejection of immediate circle.
Results of our research are coordinated with the opinions of some researchers in the field of formation of resilience to extremism among young people: «the key ingredients that should guide teaching outcomes for building resilience are:
1. A focus on building personal resilience and a positive sense of identity: supporting young people to be emotionally resilient to life’s pressures and able to foster a positive sense of self.
2. Development of critical thinking skills, i.e. continually encouraging young people to think for themselves and in doing so take account of a balanced range of evidence and alternative perspectives.
3. Opportunities for interaction and team-work, so that young people develop transferable skills for positive collaboration and ongoing engagement [18].
Extremism as the most major problem of that time is becoming more widespread in the world. In most cases, extreme forms of behavior are observed among young people. This is caused by the transitional nature of personality formation of young people, associated with overcoming of both internal and external contradictions. Realization of contradictions contributes to the formation of extreme types of mind and behavior of young people as their social group, essential characteristics. The greatest number of communication difficulties and defection accrue to teenage years. The most characteristic form of a bad interpersonal communication of teenagers is destructive communication,which is based on mostly negative personal qualities. The above determines the necessity of preventive activity with teenagers for the prevention of aggression, violence and fanaticism. For these purposes, early diagnostics of various types of destructive communication and their correction is extremely important.
Further studies could be aimed at determination of the causes of disruptions in communication and on the basis of these causes - identification of certain groups of teenagers. This will help to make the preventive maintenance more individual and to perform it systematically as well as to predict negative behavior of teenagers during communication.
1. Active formation of communicative and personality sphere of human the which development is immediately interconnected takes place in the teenage years. Successful passage of this step contributes to the formation of person which effectively functions in the society. The occurrence of various disorders, destructions in the process of communication is not uncommon for this age stage, which is much of it is owed to the fact that a teenager is developing person and in many respects the formation of communication models and interaction with society is still going.
2. The created questionnaire, “Methods of determination of the teenagers disposition to destructive communication” (MDDC), is primarily focused on the diagnostics of the main types of destructive communication as a form of dysfunctional communication that adversely (destructively) affect the personality of participants of the interaction. Diagnostic material allows effective detection of the disposition of respondents, and simultaneously the level of expression of the five major types of teenager destructive communication: deviant, mercenary, barrier, conflictogenic and narcissistic communication.
3. The analysis of the content abundance, frequency of occurrence and the interrelation of the destructive communication of with the personal qualities, brings to the conclusion that the corrective work with teenagers in the educational establishments is necessary in order to prevent the transformation of the disposition into stable extreme forms of behavior. The necessity of correction of teenager destructive communication caused by the fact that the inconsistencies of views, marginality and unformed state of persuasion and worldview, which are common to this age can lead to development of criminogenic communication as well as negativism and fanaticism in the absence of such work and under unfavorable conditions of social situation of development.
4. Objective and early diagnostics of teenager disposition to destructive communication is essential condition and principle part of the complex target program on prevention and correction of youth extremism, based on the principles of the dialogue, subject-subject interaction and non-directive work methods.
The project was realized within the frame of the Competition of fundamental and searching scientific studies in order to create scientific reserve in the university professors.
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