Журнал «Психология образования в поликультурном пространстве»

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-ESTEEM AND PERSONAL ANXIETY IN YOUNGER SCHOOLCHILDREN

Author: Kopylova Natalia M., Faustova Irina V., Komlik Lyubov Yu.

The article studies the problem of personal anxiety at primary school age and its relationship with self-esteem. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that it is at primary school age that the child develops most intensively as an active subject, perceiving the surrounding reality and themselves, with his own views and self-attitude. In the modern world, schoolchildren, especially children of primary school age, quite often experience various types of anxiety, which can affect not only their level of self-esteem and self-respect, but also the process of personality formation as a whole. If at this age the child does not acquire, does not absorb the delight of knowledge, does not achieve the necessary skills and abilities to learn, does not adapt to make friends, does not believe in their own strengths and capabilities, then the further path of the personality formation will be difficult. Personal anxiety, as a rule, is generated by unfavorable socio-psychological conditions. In some cases, a child literally grows up in an anxious and suspicious psychological atmosphere of family and school, in which parents and teachers themselves are subject to constant fear, anxiety and apprehension. The child is infected with such a mood and receives an unhealthy form of reaction to the outside world, in which case spiritual growth, moral development, and moral character are deformed. In order to study the relationship between self-esteem and personal anxiety in younger schoolchildren, a set of diagnostic methods was used: the Dembo-Rubinstein method (modified by A.M. Prikhozhan), the “Scale for assessing the level of reactive and personal anxiety” (authors C.D. Spielberger, Yu L. Khanin), “Personal scale of manifestations of anxiety” by J. Taylor (adapted by T.A. Nemchin). The results of the study showed that children with increased levels of anxiety, namely with personal anxiety, tend to acutely experience a threat to their self-esteem. A psychological examination of fourth-graders showed that especially anxious children are usually characterized by low self-esteem; it was diagnosed in approximately 30 % of the sample.

Key words:
personal anxiety; self-esteem; primary schoolchildren; child’s personality