Lutsenko O. L. Patterns of person’s psychological adaptation at the modern stage of evolution. – Manuscript.
The dissertation for the Doctor degree of Psychological Sciences in specialty 19.00.01 – general psychology; history of psychology. – V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. – Kharkiv, 2018. – Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine. – Kyiv, 2018.
The thesis presents the main points of the evolutionary psychological approach to the study of psychological adaptation phenomena: the phylogenetic origins of complex and insufficiently studied forms of behavior from the areas of gender, family, political psychology, health psychology, aggression, critical thinking and primativity (as a tendency to rely on instinctive impulses as opposed to rationality) are traced.
Specifically it were studied women's coquetry construct as a personal feature of women who can be attractive to men, to bring in their desire for long-term relationships, to financial, time and energy contributions to them; problem of relationship between the parents-in-law and their daughters-in-law / sons-in-law; surrogate motherhood; ineffective political choice; primativity and connected with it behavioral patterns: school bullying, health behavior violations and uncritical thinking.
To identify, measure and conceptualize these phenomena, a set of new test methods and questionnaires was designed, and existed psychological, socio-psychological, psychophysiological, qualitative and mathematical-statistical methods were used.
The studies were conducted during 2007-2017 and covered 2579 people (814 men, 1765 women) aged from 8 to 70 years. People of different social status are covered, including schoolchildren, students of different specialties, employees of private and state institutions, pensioners, unemployed, etc. from different cities and urban villages of Ukraine.
Results of practical implementation of the developed psychodiagnostics methods are provided.
The evaluation and classification of the investigated adaptive patterns on groups of ancient non-functional, ancient functional and new forming adaptations is made.
Part of the studied behavior patterns partially lost their adaptability, namely primativity, ineffective political choices, conflicts between “new relatives” after joining up the families, and bullying – these are ancient non-functional adaptations. Some of the studied phenomena have saved their adaptability in modern conditions, namely, women's coquetry and critical thinking which are ancient functional adaptations. There are also new adaptations that are still in the phase of forming, in particular, surrogate motherhood and healthy lifestyle.
On the basis of the conducted researches it is shown that ontogenetic and phylogenetic adaptations form a whole adaptation system, in which there are transitions between adaptations of different functional significance. Also there are several ways of co-existence of phylogenetic / ontogenetic adaptations, which is displayed in the structural-functional models. These adaptations can co-exist in three ways: ontogenetic adaptations are manifestations of phylogenetic, ontogenetic adaptations can be built up on phylogenetic and modify them, ontogenetic and phylogenetic adaptations can function at different levels of the psyche – the first at the level of consciousness and the second – at the level of the unconsciousness. In the first case, examples of phylogenetic adaptations in the form of ontogenetic adaptations are primativity, bullying, ineffective political choices, relatives’ conflicts after joining the families. In the second case, such ontogenetic adaptations as healthy lifestyles and critical thinking are built on phylogenetic ones and begin to modify them. In the third case, surrogate motherhood and coquetry are carried out at a conscious level, but at the subconscious level, they operate on the basis of phylogenetic mechanisms of cooperated parenthood, competition for the partner and resources.
For further analysis of the adaptive value of certain psychological phenomena, it is necessary to consider the environmental conditions of human existence (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), namely the factors that limit the possibility of survival and reproduction of the human population during a certain period (selection pressures).
Among those selection pressures which act in the modern period, there is an increase of unhealthy food production, environmental pollution, the high level of alcoholism and drug addiction, the HIV / AIDS pandemic, cyber-insecurity, etc. As a result, there are such new adaptations appear as the development of the eco-technologies of existence, the keen of healthy eating, etc.
Keywords: psychological adaptation, evolution, human, family, coquetry, surrogate motherhood, primativity, bullying, health psychology, critical thinking.
