Contradictions in Social Interactions and Ways of Dealing with Them as Perceived by Schoolchildren of Various Age and Statuses

The paper presents and discusses empirical data of the research into the notions about contradictory situations in social interactions and ways of dealing with them in schoolchildren of various age and statuses. The research shows that children's notions about contradictory situations and the possible behavior related to such situations undergo qualitative changes over the course of their study. The ability to define the limits of normative subspaces and to detect the confusion of norms in contradictory situations has certain specifics in students of each age group. The amount of students with this ability increases significantly from early school age to late adolescence. It was also revealed in the study that students with different sociometric status in their class tend to choose different behavior strategies in contradictory situations. Furthermore, such distribution depends greatly on the age group to which the student belongs.