Personality Development Features of Children Raised under Conditions of Maternal Deprivation

The article presents findings of a multi-year multifaceted research on intellectual, affective-need, and volitional spheres of orphans’ development. The findings are interpreted from a perspective of the concept of personality development by L.I. Bozhovich. They indicate the underdevelopment of internal mechanisms of mediation, development of which creates the possibility of transition from reactive to active, free behavior. The latter, in its turn, determines the main path of personality development. The study materials show how exactly “reactivity, rather than activity” of behavior is manifested in school aged children that are brought up in an orphanage while they solve intellectual problems, when they communicate with adults and peers, in situation of arbitrary regulation of behavior, in their motivation and Self-concept. The features of personality and behavior are viewed as various types of protective formations which ensure adaptation to conditions of children’s closed institution, but also impede development of an active person.

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