In Kamchatka, researchers examined teenagers' fundamental beliefs about life and death.

Psychologists from the Kamchatka State University named after Vitus Bering examined contemporary teenagers' perspectives on life and death. A study conducted among students in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky revealed that girls exhibit a more conscious and reflective attitude toward the concept of life's finitude, while boys tend to approach it in a detached and rational manner.

2024-11-07 10:01:18https://naked-science.ru/article/column/ubezhdeniya-podrostkov-o

The study involved 80 adolescents aged 14-15, evenly split between boys and girls. The results indicated that girls perceive death as a transition to an unknown state and often contemplate the afterlife. Additionally, they exhibit a heightened level of anxiety related to the notion of death as a factor that interrupts opportunities for self-realization.

“Teenage boys approach death with greater detachment. In their view, it is seen as something inevitable and predictable. When describing death, they are more likely to use terms such as ‘expected’ and ‘predictable,’” notes Elena Vinogradova, an associate professor at the Department of Theoretical and Practical Psychology at Kamchatka State University named after Vitus Bering, and a candidate of psychological sciences. Researchers link this attitude to the protective mechanisms of the psyche and the later emotional maturation of boys compared to girls.

In their work, the scientists employed a range of methodologies, including the Death Anxiety Scale by D. Templer and the "Basic Beliefs Scale" by R. Janoff-Bulman. The results demonstrated statistically significant differences between the groups across several parameters. Teenage girls scored higher on the scales of "World Benevolence," "Self-Worth," and "Self-Control." These differences were confirmed at a significance level of p≤0.01.

Data analysis revealed a correlation between the adolescents' core beliefs and their attitudes towards death. Perceiving the world as benevolent and offering opportunities for growth makes it valuable and promising for developing teenagers. In this context, death is viewed as a factor that undermines these opportunities, thereby intensifying anxiety.

A commonality between both groups of adolescents was the emotional perception of the topic of death through the lenses of fear, sadness, and anxiety. Psychologists note that the more valuable and opportunity-rich life appears to a teenager, the higher their level of anxiety regarding death.

The study indicated that girls tend to hope for encountering death only in old age, while boys are characterized by the repression of thoughts about death, replacing them with reflections on current activities—study, leisure, and relationships.

The work of Kamchatka psychologists was published in the current issue of the journal "Azimuth of Scientific Research: Pedagogy and Psychology," where the full methodology of the study and its results are presented.