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6ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ФЕНОМЕНА МАРГИНАЛЬНОСТИ В РЕСПУБЛИКЕ КРЫМ
Черная С.Е.
Крымский Федеральный Университет им В.И. Вернадского, Таврическая академия, магистрант
факультета психологии
RESEARCH ON MARGINALITY PHENOMENON IN REPUBLIC
OF CRIMEA
Chernaya S.Y.
V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University, Taurida academy, Master's student of Psychology Department
АННОТАЦИЯ
Статья посвящена проблеме маргинализации и адаптации к новой социокультурной среде. В частности, предполагается, что некоторая часть крымчан находится в состоянии маргинальности в связи с жизненными изменениями после вхождения Крыма в состав РФ. В данном контексте феномен маргинальности проанализирован с психологической точки зрения. В результате исследования обнаружены корреляции между локус-контролем представителей населения Крыма, типом их адаптации к новой социокультурной среде, превалирующими психологическими защитными механизмами и психологическим состоянием.
ABSTRACT
The article is devoted to the problem of marginalization and adaptation to the new sociocultural environment. In particular, it is assumed that some part of Crimeans is in the state of marginality due to the life changes after the accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation. The phenomenon of marginality is analyzed in this context of from a psychological perspective. As the result of the research there found correlations between locus control of Crimeans in the marginal state, type of adaptation to a new sociocultural environment, the dominant defense mechanisms and psychological state.
Ключевые слова: маргинальность, социальная адаптация, маргинальная ситуация, внутрипсихиче-ский конфликт.
Keywords: marginality, social adaptation, marginal situation, intrapsychic conflict.
Marginality often stands for being located at the fringe of consciousness, or staying «on the periphery of any (political, moral, spiritual, mental, religious, etc) phenomenon of social human life in relation to the dominant tendencies of the time or generally accepted philosophical or ethnic tradition» [1]. On the one hand, a stream of information, global processes, multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism of modern civilization contribute to ethnic identity diffusion. On the other hand, they incite to «seize» on something traditional, stable and grounded in phylogenetic layers in the psyche. Such duality may be a catalyst for intrapersonal conflicts and a peculiar kind of marginal state as the result. Staying at the fringe make impact on a psyche and a lifestyle [2]. In the consequence of free will self-actions or any forced circumstances (such as migration) in relation to unique life story a person may be found in a marginal situation. However, there are times when he is involuntarily immersed in deep sociocultural, political, economic changes. This happens, for example, after a territory redomiciliation and any changes in the sphere of a human ontogenesis. So a man is born, socialized, educated, lives and works in his country and suddenly «falls» in another one, i.e. another political, economic and sometimes even linguistic and sociocul-tural space. Most of Crimeans have experienced this twice: first was the collapse of a large country when they found themselves in the newly formed Ukraine,
and then, after living there for almost 23 years, in Russia. At the same time, a significant part of the population, Crimean tatars (in general), also have resided in Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan. At any rate, they have been moving, so deliberately changed their living space, while waiting and preparing to return to the homeland. Although most of Crimeans have not moved anywhere and have not been waiting or preparing for any change. Nevertheless, the political situation has changed in 2014 and the consequences are still palpable. For some reason a part of the population have difficulties at calling themselves Russians, and at the same time, they do not feel as Ukrainians anymore. There are many questions: firstly, we do not know the number of these people; secondly, what is the obstacle for them to define themselves clearly - perception stereotypes, personal rigidity, an ability to visit Ukraine and friendship or business in there, Ukrainian information realm still presented in Crimea through satellite broadcasting and Internet, cautious attitude towards Russia or Russian political, economic situation and government political regime? Either all of these reasons together? It is not a question of formal status of Crimea which is clear both for Ukraine and Russia, because this is an issue of politics and law and a subject of political and social researches. The subject of psychology is feelings and emotional experience independent on laws and documents and based on self perception considering unique life story. The key concept (and emotional experience)
is civil, regional, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious identity. What also matters is its severity, intensity, positive or negative valence, certainty or blurry, dif-fuseness. For historical reasons, civil and regional identities of Crimeans have been interlacing in various combinations, or distancing and contradicting one another. Calling themselves and Crimeans (I am Crimean) a part of population identified with either USSR or Ukrainian SSR (later- Ukraine: I am Ukrainian citizen), and rarely with Russia (I am Russian). Some people still consider themselves to be soviet up to the present day...A lot constitute themselves as Crimeans and at the same time ethnically both Russian and Ukrainian because they descend from ethnically mixed families. This is why in their view Crimea has been the part of Ukraine and Russia at the same time. However, such view has only lead to discomfort in certain cases, and a marginal state was defined by intrapersonal conflicts connected to identity.
From the standpoint of sociocultural approach to conception of marginality, many of Crimeans that find themselves «on the fault line» represent some kind of «strangers». The do not feel comfortable neither in Ukraine, nor in Russia, experiencing their otherness. At this instant «crimean» identity becomes aggravated. According to G. Zimmel or A. Schutz, this is the part of people which are devoid of traditions, culture and history of a new group [4; 5]. They do not have the same attitudes and therefore fluctuate between closeness and distance, trying to balance and feel the borderline. This process becomes a very painful one. Then, while feeling identified to the native group, from time to time they surprisingly feel the same to another community. This can be experienced differently, but anyway, such people cannot live in the native community «over the hill» because things have changed, so as them inside. Thereafter, they may change their old attitudes to the new ones, successfully finish acculturation and stop being strangers, or deny the attitudes and stay marginal [3].
Perhaps, some people among Crimeans (partly Crimean tatars, Ukrainians and other) consider Russian literature foreign or unfamiliar. Facing difficulties make them feel the big difference of this prevailing in many aspects in Crimea culture from their own. In order to get through such stress there must be some ample coping resources. However, habitual psychological defense mechanisms and coping strategies may not be always so efficient. In this case, acculturation process, i.e. gradual learning of another culture in absolute sense, becomes very severe.
Object of research - personal marginality in the context of social adaptation and disadaptation.
Subject of research - ethnocultural peculiarities of Crimeans' marginal state in relation to the accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
Goal of research - to determine the essential characteristics of experiencing marginal state, to define the behavioral features of Crimeans in the marginal state and correlate them with their prevailing psychological defense mechanisms and locus control level.
The hypothesis:
- there is a correlation between a types of adaptation of Crimeans in marginal state, type of adaptation to a new sociocultural environment, their prevailing psychological defense mechanisms and level of locus control.
In accordance with the purpose and hypothesis of the study the following tasks were solved:
- To analyze the phenomenon of marginality in the context of the accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation from a psychological perspective.
- To determine the locus control of Crimeans in the marginal state and compare this feature with their type of adaptation to a new sociocultural environment.
- Compare the type of adaptation with the dominant defense mechanisms and psychological state.
Sample and research methods description.
A group of respondents consisted of 150 people (70 males and 80 females in the age from 18 to 60), that have been living in Crimea for all their life. There are 50 Crimean tatars, 50 Ukrainians, 50 Russians. At the beginning there were more respondents, however, the empirical research was made only with those who were characterized by us as a person experiencing difficulties and in a state of marginality.
The instruction to our questionnaire asked the potential respondents to choose an answer to several questions:
1. Please, specify your gender
2. Age
3. Please, specify your nationality
4. How long have you lived in Crimea?
5. Have you ever had a feeling, as if you are «in between of two countries»?
a) constantly (before and now); b) sometimes; c) never; d) other (please, specify);
6. Have you often felt (or do you feel now) that you are kind of misplaced?
a) constantly (before and now); b) often; c) sometimes; d) other (please, specify);
7. Has your social status changed after the accession of the Republic of Crimea to the Russian Federation (for the better? for the worse?)
a) yes, for the better; b) yes, for the worse; c) no, has not changed; d) other (please, specify)_
8. Does it seem to you as if the news readers speak with someone else's voice?
a) yes; b) sometimes; c) no; d) other (please, specify)_
9. Do you get the feeling as if you do not control your life?
a) yes, often; b) sometimes; c) no; d) other (please, specify)_
10. In your opinion, is there a sense to try to change or anyhow influence on the political and social situation in Crimea?
a) no, nothing will change; b) yes, everything can be changed; c) I do not know; d) other (please, specify)_
Considering locus control level to be a quite stable characteristic, we assumed that it has not essentially
changed among the respondents during the period after 2014 or independently from the relevance of the marginal state.
From there our research was conducted using the following methods:
- «Adaptation to a new socio cultural environment» questionnaire (L.V.Yankosvky);
- Rotter's locus of control scale (adapt. By E. F. Bajin, S. A. Golikina, A. M. Atkind);
- «Life Style Index» (LSI) questionnaire (R. Plutchik, G. Kellerman, H. R. Conte)
- Self-evaluation of psychological states (H. J. Eysenck)
To confirm our hypothesis, we used the Spearman rank correlation method.
The analysis of the results confirmed and concretized our hypothesis: Crimeans in the state of margin-ality have prevailing psychological defense mechanisms and types of adaptation connected; these adaptation types also correlate with locus control level and psychological state. The following correlations have been accepted with the level of significance as p = 0.01 and p = 0.05.
1. High level of internality positively correlates with high levels of depressiveness, nostalgia, alienation. People with a high level of internality believe that most of important events in their life are result of their own actions, that they can totally control them. They feel their responsibility for their life and how it goes in general. Perhaps, in the situation when familiar norms and values change, and there is no opportunity to control their lives in a habitual way, such people are apt to depressive, nostalgic or alienated type of adaptation. They are anxious, feeling hopeless, disharmonic inside and discomfort due to the loss of connection with the native culture, feeling misplaced, worried and lost.
2. There is also a negative correlation between general externality and the level of nostalgia, also a positive correlation between externality and the levels of depressiveness, alienation. External people do not see the connection between their actions and important life events. They don't consider themselves able to control their development and believe that most of things happening do not depend on them but on other people or just fortuity. There is a negative correlation between high level of regression and the level of adaptability, interactivity.
3. Rationalization highly positively correlates with adaptability, interactivity, and also negatively correlates with compliance, alienation.
4. Crimean tatars have a connection between the levels of regression, projection and compensation, alienation and nostalgia. This shows obvious rigidness and frustration, both externality and internality correlate with alienation, internality itself also correlates with nostalgia.
5. Ukrainians have connection between alienation and frustration, denial and frustration. Rationalization
correlates with adaptability. Extreme internal locus control correlates with alienation and rigidness.
6. Russians have connection between extreme internality and nostalgia. Rigidness correlates with projection and compliance. Rationalization correlates with adaptability.
Conclusions:
1. As a result of the study there is a confirmed assumption about the relationship between Crimeans' adaptation types, their prevailing psychological defenses and locus control scale. In particular, it can be argued that the most unconstructive and complicating the process of adaptation defense is regression. We assume that it proclaims rising of intrapsychic conflict and general infantilizing of respondents in the marginal state and, consequently, it proclaims straightening of respondents' passive consumer positions in the society.
2. The most constructive psychological defense mechanism in the state of marginality is rationalization. So, the dominance of the intellectual rather than the emotional aspects of defensive behavior make it more efficient.
3. Strongly expressed indicators of both internality and externality positively correlate with unconstructive adaptation types (high levels of depressiveness, nostalgia, alienation). Obviously, extremities are unconstruc-tive: extreme values of locus control are connected to problematic types of adaptation.
7. Revealed regularities, despite the unknown number of people in the marginal state, disquiets. However we can clearly claim that the marginal conflict and marginal state completely grasps personality on the both conscious and unconscious levels.
8. The prospects of this research involve the development of recommendations for adaptation work with the people in the state of marginality. Also, it involves implementation of psychosocial support approach to the practices of social care centers.
References
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