Psychological age in psychology. What is it, definition of development

Definition : Psychological age is how old a person feels, acts and behaves. Its degree of adaptation to the environment.

Therefore, it is not necessarily equal to chronological age, that is, age since birth. Therefore, a person may have a psychological age that is greater than their chronological age if they feel older than they actually are. Psychological age may be less than calendar age if a person feels younger.

That is, psychological age (a person’s inner age) is how we feel in our souls. How old we feel, act and behave. This is a state of internal perception of the people around us and the world around us, attitudes towards life that influence a person’s behavior and his adoption of vital decisions. In adolescents, the psychological age often exceeds the calendar age. It may also be higher than businessmen who have achieved a lot at a young age. Or people who quickly made a career. For some people of the older generation, it is much lower than biological.

The concept of age in psychology

Many have noticed that people of the same age group often behave completely differently. Someone can be called a “big kid”, and the abilities of his peer evoke respect and admiration. This is all due to the peculiarities of psychological age (PA), which does not always correspond to the passport age.

On his life path, a person overcomes certain stages of growth, which are characterized by the individual characteristics of his development. These segments in psychology are called ages.

In general, age can be defined as temporary stages of personality development, which correspond to specific patterns of formation of physical and psychological characteristics.

The stages of growing up start from the moment a person is born, are improved through upbringing and training, and with the onset of psychological maturity, the concept turns into a chronological value.

Developmental psychology studies age as a specific stage of time. The pioneer of systemic analysis of a psychological category was Lev Vygotsky. An outstanding psychologist of the Soviet era called the fact of deep transformations of consciousness during the transition from one age level to another the key point in the social situation of development.

Psychologists of different times considered human maturation from the perspective of natural changes in the physiological and psychological plane, as a result of which the concept received several formulations.

Taking into account the results of psychological research and analysis of formulations, a definition of age has been established in psychology, consisting of 4 aspects:

• chronological age corresponds to the number of years lived (according to the passport), from birth to the actual moment;
• biological age is understood as a set of physical parameters necessary for the functioning of the entire organism;
• the level of social age is determined by human activity in the course of adaptation in the social environment;
• psychological age in psychology is the degree of development of mental abilities, their level is determined during diagnosis.

In real life, all 4 aspects are not always consistent with each other. Therefore, to determine the indicator of psychological development, the individual qualities of the psyche and physiology of a particular subject should be taken into account.

How to count

Tests developed by psychologists help you understand your worldview, the characteristics of your attitude to life and work, and help you understand your own thoughts and actions of other people. The most widespread is the questionnaire of S. Stepanov, a famous Russian teacher and psychologist who developed a simple scheme for clarifying the psychological level of personality development.

In the era of universal computer literacy, there are many sites offering testing to determine an important psychological characteristic. The questionnaires contain a different number of questions on various topics; based on their answers, the respondent receives a specific figure for their internal age.

To independently calculate your PV, depending on a person’s interests and goals, you can use simple mathematical techniques. They allow you to roughly assess the level of your own mental capabilities.

How to do it:

• write down on a piece of paper 5-year intervals of the life path from one year to the years that a person hopes to live;
• the saturation of events in each time interval (already lived) should be assessed on a 10-point scale;
• if the number of years lived is not a multiple of 5, then the sum of points received during this interval should be multiplied by 45;
• Next, you need to try to predict the assessment of the following periods of time, starting from passport age;
• Now you need to calculate all the points received separately - for those years that have been lived, and for those that are planned to be lived.

To obtain the internal age, you will have to continue the calculations - the number that turns out to be smaller must be divided by the larger one. Then multiply by the number of planned life years, the result will correspond to the value of the approximate life expectancy.

Psychological age can be called an identifier of awareness at a certain stage of the age ladder - youth, maturity, old age. In psychology, most often the biological age indicator does not correspond to the chronological one. At the same time, a fifty-year-old person can look like a thirty-five-year-old, and at the age of 25, some subjects look like wise old men.

The limitation in this case is not age limits, but the fullness of the life period with events of social and professional relationships, individual personal experience. Psychological age can also be called an age guideline for the realization of a person’s potential, when, with a harmonious flow of life, a person feels younger than the years indicated in his passport.

5.1. Newborn crisis

The first year of a child’s life can be divided into two periods: neonatality and infancy. Newborn period

is the period of time when the child is physically separated from the mother, but connected with her physiologically, and lasts from birth until the appearance of the “revitalization complex” (at 4–6 weeks).
The infancy period
lasts from 4–6 weeks to one year.

Newborn crisis

- This is the direct process of birth. Psychologists consider it a difficult and turning point in a child’s life. The reasons for this crisis are as follows:

1) physiological.

When a child is born, he is physically separated from his mother, which is already a trauma, and in addition to this he finds himself in completely different conditions (cold, airy environment, bright light, the need for a change in diet);

2) psychological.

Separating from the mother, the child ceases to feel her warmth, which leads to a feeling of insecurity and anxiety.

The psyche of a newborn child has a set of innate unconditioned reflexes that help him in the first hours of life. These include sucking, breathing, protective, indicative, grasping (“grasping”) reflexes. We inherited the last reflex from our animal ancestors, but, being not particularly necessary, it soon disappears.

The neonatal crisis is an intermediate period between intrauterine and extrauterine life. This period is characterized by the fact that at this age the child mostly sleeps. Therefore, if there were no adults nearby, he could have died after a while. Adults surround him with care and satisfy all his needs: food, drink, warmth, communication, restful sleep, care, hygiene, etc.

A child is considered unadapted to life not only because he cannot satisfy his needs, but also because he does not yet have a single formed behavioral act. Watching him, you can see that even sucking has to be taught to the child. He also lacks thermoregulation, but the instinct of self-preservation is developed: by adopting an intrauterine position, he reduces the heat exchange area.

The newborn period is considered a time of adaptation to new living conditions: the time of wakefulness gradually increases; visual and auditory concentration develops, i.e. the ability to focus on visual and auditory signals (for more details, see 6.2); The first combined and conditioned reflexes develop, for example, to the position during feeding. There is a development of sensory processes - vision, hearing, touch, and it occurs much faster than the development of motor skills.

Differences between psychological age and biological age

If the chronological category reflects the number of years lived from birth, then psychological age denotes the qualitative component. This is an ontogenetic (peculiar to an individual organism) stage of personality formation, taking into account living conditions, quality of education, characteristics of upbringing and living in specific historical conditions.

The concept of psychological age, as the level of mental formation, is based on the following aspects of maturation:

• an indicator of mental abilities, the degree of development of intelligence in accordance with a specific biological stage;
• internal age, its feeling from the perspective of a subjective idea of ​​events in the past, present and future;
• social maturity (level of adaptation to the environment of existence) and emotional maturity (susceptibility to emotions);
• awareness of the attitude towards oneself and episodes of the surrounding world, facts of communication with other people.

Psychological age in psychology is a number of important indicators; a large army of psychologists have studied them.

Calling PV a phenomenon of individual self-awareness, scientists came to the conclusion that in order to understand its criteria, it is necessary to determine the measure of the psychological past. Its relative amount is determined by the degree of psychological fulfillment at each stage of life's journey.

The biological age figure reflects the morphological and physiological picture of human development in relation to the average statistical indicator (health, innate and acquired skills, lifestyle and attitude towards it) for a given age category (chronological aspect).

To establish biological age, a scale of criteria has been developed:

• puberty is assessed by the degree of development of sexual characteristics (secondary characteristics);
• the level of skeletal maturity of bone mass is determined by the condition of the bones, the timing and degree of ossification;
• to assess dental maturity, data on the time of teeth eruption (deciduous/permanent) is used;
• take into account the influence of hereditary factors and constitutional characteristics of a particular person;
• intellectual maturity is assessed by the level of development of personal characteristics.

For adults, an abbreviated method for determining BV is used - this is a cardiopulmonary diagnosis, which includes a number of parameters, including measuring blood pressure and lung capacity.

The system also evaluates the state of the sensory organs, characteristics of the psyche, motor system, dentition, taking into account constitutional characteristics, gender and other factors.

Based on the results of the research, psychologists came to the unequivocal conclusion that both age categories - biological and psychological - are subject to diagnosis, and PT is reversible. This means that a person, within the framework of psychological time, can both grow older psychologically and become younger if his psychological future increases or his past decreases.

PI can also be called multidimensional, since it depends on the level of the individual’s fulfillment in the family and professional sphere. Biological age can be stable or dynamic; decreasing it slows down aging, while increasing it speeds it up.

Main features of the development of internal state

Any problems of a person are connected with his internal awareness - when the harmonization of sensations occurs, the problems disappear. The relationship between biological age (life resource) and psychological age (attitude towards one’s own life) at a certain age stage is an indicator of the personal speed of mental development.

Psychological age in psychology is a tool that helps in shaping everyday reality. To understand how the internal state progresses, there is a system of age periodization proposed by psychologist Daniil Elkonin. The characteristics of the psyche are considered taking into account the influence of developmental characteristics at each stage of the age ladder.

If the level of physical indicators for people of the same age category is approximately the same or similar in appearance, then due to the unequal internal state, the psychological age rarely coincides.

Features of the internal age parameter influence decision-making, choice of behavior style, formation of goals and plans, relationships with other members of society.

Psychological age and self-awareness

Psychologists have found that the psychological time of an individual influences the dynamic formation of the subject’s awareness of himself as a unit of a society of human beings, his needs and his role. This criterion in psychology is called self-awareness, which is closely related to the parameter (time) of the psychological existence of the individual.

In the studies of domestic psychologists A. Kronik and E. Golovakha, psychological age was defined as a phenomenon of self-awareness - a long period of transformation of an individual into an independent personality.

In light of such findings, the fundamental dimension of psychology (FP) has been assigned three main characteristics:

• Psychological background. The internal reference system tool allows you to determine the value of psychological age through the characteristics of individual time. Diagnostics of the temporal category, according to scientists, will help measure the psychological past necessary to establish PT.
• Reversibility of PV. At different stages of human life, the fact of both aging and rejuvenation within the framework of psychological time cannot be excluded due to two criteria - an increase in the future or a decrease in the significance of the past. The fact of reversibility of PV is also mentioned in the concept of A. Tolstoy.
• Multidimensionality of PV. Each subject has his own way of measuring the age of the psyche; its measure depends on the sphere of activity in which the person realized himself most fully. For example, a person may feel fully realized in his family and at the same time suffer from lack of fulfillment in his chosen profession.

The feeling of individual age is recognized as a subjective concept, depending on the characteristics of temperament and lifestyle, behavior at the stage of youth and maturity. As a result, consciousness is strengthened thanks to the attitude of others, who judge a person by his sense of his own personal power.

Distortions of psychological age

Psychologists use the term “age” to designate a set of characteristics inherent in an individual at a certain time stage. By distortions of PV we understand the psychological reversibility of an age-related parameter. It is human nature to exaggerate or underestimate one’s age.

For example, a child may confidently insist that he is not little, but a teenager demands to be considered an adult. However, among older people, especially long-livers, there is a tendency to overestimate their already significant life experience.

Psychological age in psychology is a criterion for an individual’s adaptation to environmental conditions and life in a particular society. Therefore, psychologists do not have a common opinion regarding the causes of the phenomenon. The distortion of the age category may be associated with the mechanism of the subconscious - the desire to prolong life, overcoming the fear of death (Yu. Filimonenko).

According to the author, assessments of physical and mental state are identical at 25 years old, but in the process of growing up, internal age will cyclically lag behind physical age every decade. As a result, disagreements will accumulate between temporary images of the self-presentation - in the past, present and future.

Therefore, it is impossible to identify PT with psychological time due to the interrelation of all components of time (psychological, social, and so on), which are unique for each individual.

5.5. Leading activity

The leading type of activity in infancy is emotional and personal communication

with adults, i.e. with those who mainly care for the baby: mother, father, grandmother, grandfather or other adult. A child cannot do without the help of an adult, since at this age he is weak and completely helpless. He is not able to satisfy any of his needs on his own: they feed him, bathe him, dress him in dry and clean clothes, move him in space (take him in his arms and walk around the room, take him for a walk, etc.), monitor his health and, which is very important, they just communicate with him - talk. The need for communication arises in a child at 1–2 months. The revitalization complex that appears at the sight of a mother or another adult caring for a child indicates the emergence of a need for communication that must be fully satisfied, since with positive emotional communication with an adult, the child becomes more active, a joyful mood arises, which contributes to the development of his movements , perception, thinking and speech.

A child deprived of full communication with an adult (is alone in a hospital for treatment, placed in an orphanage, etc.) has mental retardation. This is manifested in the following: the child has a meaningless and indifferent gaze directed upward, he moves little, is lethargic, apathetic, and has no interest in his surroundings. All this leads to delayed physical development and late appearance of speech. Therefore, we must remember the following: in order for a child to develop normally both psychologically and physically, it is necessary not only to properly care for him, but also to communicate.

How to find out your psychological age

At each step of the time ladder, a person overcomes a number of internal conflicts, suffering from age-related crises. Therefore, the life expectancy figure is changeable and often differs from passport data, but is more important than the number of years actually lived. After all, while a person matures physically, the development of his psyche can overtake physiology, or vice versa - the individual is able to become younger.

The importance of psychological age is that the formation of a range of interests and hobbies, life goals, and behavior in different life situations depends on it.

Tests

Today, to determine age characteristics, it is not at all necessary to go to a psychologist; you can take testing online on the Internet. The testometrika website offers a large selection of surveys, including a test to determine your psychological age. The survey was compiled on the basis of the Manual on Psychological Intelligence, author A.V. Kurpatov.

The questionnaire includes 25 questions; based on the answers to them, the respondent receives a final figure, taking into account the actual age limit, level of education, and belonging to a certain gender.

In addition to PV, the test results contain the number of points indicating the level of positivity (out of 28), passion (out of 16), openness to experience (out of 28) in relation to the maximum indicators for these concepts.

How to decipher the survey results:

• Psychological is less than the age according to the passport (chronological) - “teenager”. The subject is confident in himself, his vital energy is at maximum, he is friendly and sociable, optimistic and will not grow old soon.
• Psychological is equal to chronological - “adult”. Having abandoned the temptations of youth, a person found himself on the threshold of maturity, sacrificing the ability to rejoice. This is an average type, serious and responsible, but lacks optimism.
• Psychological more than chronological - a mature personality. The test taker faced problems, overcame a series of life trials, experiences added experience and knowledge, but limited the range of knowledge.

Taking into account the diagnostic results, the test equips the respondent with a list of recommendations for a better understanding of their actions, the state of their own psyche, advantages and disadvantages at this stage of the age ladder.

For adult behavior to become the norm, a person has to repeat certain actions many times throughout life until they become skills.

The results are reflected in the figure of psychological age, which can be called a criterion for the spiritual development of an individual. In psychology, PV is recognized as an age guideline. This is a set of changes in the psyche and inner world at a certain time stage; the parameter affects life expectancy.

Author: Tatyana Larina

5.2. Mental development of a child during the newborn period

During this period, the child is able to distinguish salty, bitter, sweet tastes and respond to sound stimuli. However, the most important point in his mental development is the emergence of auditory and visual concentration. Auditory

concentration occurs in 2–3 weeks.
The child freezes and becomes silent at a sharp sound, such as a slamming door. In the third or fourth week, he already reacts to a person’s voice. This manifests itself as follows: he not only freezes, but also turns his head towards its source. visual
appears . It happens like this: the child freezes and briefly holds his gaze on a bright object that comes into his field of vision.

Thus, thanks to the development of auditory and visual concentration in a child, by 5–6 weeks the foundation for the transition from sensations to perception begins to be laid. He can already perceive an object not in parts, but as a whole, follow a moving object with his eyes or turn his head behind a moving sound source. He reacts to the stimulus in the following way: he freezes and focuses only on the sound source or object, all other reactions stop at the moment.

Over time, after acquiring the ability to recognize the voice of the mother caring for the child and see her face, emotional contact with her is established. The so-called “revival complex” appears (see 5.3).