Frustration of students’ basic needs as a risk factor for distortion in self-realization during university training

Abstract

Being a university student is one of the main stages of socialization and adaptation to living in society. A student’s time at university is a transition from an immature to a comprehensive form of self-realization. This is due to the active formation of a student’s personality and his/her professional development. University psychologists should pay special attention to how, at certain stages of ontogenesis, a young person formed a range of tools to overcome difficulties and solve the necessary tasks as well as how the forms of self-realization relevant to each age unfolded: self-affirmation in the preschool period, self-determination in adolescence, self-actualization and selfdevelopment in young adulthood. It is also important to study the issues related to the frustration of an individual’s basic needs at different stages of ontogenesis. A lack of experience in optimal resolution of frustrating situations leads to the formation of negative attitudes toform any activity (learned helplessness) and the search for pseudo-activities, i.e., different forms of deviant behavior both addictive and antisocial. The long-term effect of the frustrator in relation to basic needs fixes and expands the range of situations that are perceived as unknown, unstable and, therefore, threatening. This leads to the development of intolerance to uncertainty. It can be assumed that one of the specific forms of intolerance to uncertainty and, at the same time, a strategy for coping with it is a new, little-studied phenomenon of precarity. This phenomenon is becoming more widespread among adolescents and young adults, including university graduates. Thus, the frustration of basic needs occurring at different stages of ontogenesis can result in various distortions of the process of self-realization, which is clearly manifested at the stage of university training. These distortions range from distortions in self-affirmation to pseudo self-realization through extremist actions. The severity of the distortions will, to some extent, depend on the university environment. In this regard, it is important not only to investigate the peculiarities of personality formation during ontogenesis, but also to identify the most favorable conditions for personal selfrealization within the university educational environment.