The Problem of Personality Development in Juvenile Offenders: A Cultural-Historical Approach

Quite a number of scientific works focus on psychological differences between juvenile offenders and their ordinary peers. These differences usually come down to the fact that deviant and delinquent adolescents have less developed cognitive abilities, creativity and self-regulation. However, these ideas do not reflect the essence of the psychological problem of deviant behavior. A completely different understanding of the problem can be obtained if we consider the problem in the context of the cultural-historical approach of L.S. Vygotsky. In the framework of this approach, the development of the mind occurs due to the increase in self-regulation, the ability of a person to control his own mental processes. Here the question of whether human behavior is determined by external situational factors or by internal volitional efforts comes to the fore. We argue that this issue cannot be resolved mechanically as it is sometimes done. It is the individual himself who determines his/her attitude and semantic content of the surrounding social reality, and not vice versa. The results of out studies show that the psychological basis of deviant behavior is the weak development of personality in the cultural-historical sense. In other words, it is the weak subject of activity that lies at the core of deviance.

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