Relationship between hardiness and maladaptive schemes in students of different age groups

The current state of the problem of developing the hardiness of an individual at the stage of mastering the future profession is relevant for optimizing and increasing the effectiveness of the process of training and upbringing in higher education. The level of hardiness of young people is closely related to the nature of the course of the adaptation process, including the formation of maladaptive schemes at the early stages of ontogenesis. The research purpose is to check and substantiate a connection between hardiness, maladaptive schemes and coping behavior strategies among students of different ages. The study of the relationship between hardiness and maladaptive schemes and the comparison of coping behavior strategies among students of different ages were carried out on a sample of students from the Tula State Pedagogical University named after L.N. Tolstoy at the age of 18 to 24, in the amount of 67 people. S. Maddy’s hardiness test; Young’s schema questionnaire (YSQ-S3R); Lazurus’ Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WSQ) were used as a diagnostic material. Statistical data processing was carried out in SPSS Statistics 27 (IBM). The following methods of mathematical statistics were used: Pearson’s correlation coefficient; principal component method. The correlation analysis revealed strong inverse correlations of hardiness with maladaptive schemes “vulnerability” and “distrust” (r= -0.578 and r= -0.499 at a significance level p<0.01), “subordination” (r= -0.486), “underachievement” (r= -0.443), “stringent standards” (r= -0.441), “dependence/helplessness” (r= -0.431) and “deficiency” (r= -0.424) at p<0.01. As a result of the factor analysis, three factors were extracted: 1) maladaptive schemes, 2) hardiness and 3) coping behavior strategies. As a result, a greater severity of two factors can be observed in the group (22+) – hardiness and coping behavior strategies, while the factor “maladaptive schemes” is more pronounced in the group (<= 21). The study showed that hardiness is a dynamic process due to the age-psychological peculiarities of an individual and the experience of overcoming life’s difficulties. This is evidenced by differences in the structure of hardiness in different age groups, as well as an increase in the level of hardiness from adolescence to youth.