This study was developed because vandal behavior is an increasing threat in the world. Countries, commercial companies, and individuals experience great damage to property as a result of individual vandal acts. In addition, vandalism threatens not only "tangible assets" but also the cultural and historical heritage of modern humanity. Despite the threatening spread of vandalism, the study of its psychological foundations, including its origins, in the context of individual life courses is in many ways terra incognita. The objective of the present study was to investigate the genesis of vandal behavior and the sociopsychological and individual personality factors in the formation of readiness to destroy public property and the property of others. A comprehensive study of children, adolescents, and young adults (N=1522), as well as of their social environment, revealed mechanisms of the readiness to commit vandal acts that were present since childhood. The study was conducted by examining four age groups: preschoolers (4-6 years), primary school pupils (7-9 years), adolescents (12-15 years), and young adults (17-22 years); the instruments used were specific-age batteries, observation, expert techniques, and questionnaires. We found that the characteristics of parent-child relationship are is the basis for forming the boundaries of the permissible activity of the child; disturbance in the parent-child relationship can lead to the development of forms of vandalism in children. We describe the specificity and intensity of the vandal activity of adolescents and young adults in the context of their environment, and we look at the individual characteristics that promote deviant behavior. Thus, vandal activity is not only a specific characteristic of adolescents and young adults, and it is not always very destructive. Basic vandal activity originates in the early stages of ontogenesis as a result of a deformation in social interaction that becomes fixed and converted into the destructive actions of people trying through this form of activity to understand themselves in social space.
Introduction.Graphic vandalism has become a widespread phenomenon in the space of modern cities. Traditionally, vandalism has been assessed as a negative phenomenon, leading to the destruction of the material, visual and social environment of urban public space. Recently, however, the discourse on the positive meaning of certain forms of vandalism (graffiti, street art, etc.) has been activated. At the same time, there is no discussion of the role and influence of vandalism on public and individual life, although, like any socio-cultural and socio-psychological phenomenon, vandalism has the basis and carries certain messages.Theaimof this research was to identify and describe the functions of graphic vandalism, taking into account socio-cultural and socio-psychological aspects.Methodology and research methods.The study was conducted in the spatial environment of the megalopolis (Ekaterinburg, Russia) by photographing results of vandal acts (more than 6000 photographs) with subsequent trace-assessment and content analysis of images.Results and scientific novelty.The structural functions of vandalism at the socio-environmental and individual-subjective levels are identified and characterised. The signalling and designing functions, preparation of social changes and management of public mood are referred to the first level. At the second (individual-subjective) level, the demonstrative-and-protest function, functions of reactions, compensation and self-expression are allocated. The functions are illustrated with the examples of visual representations. A two-dimensional model of vandalism functions is formed, where the functions are distributed in the spaces of “construction / reconstruction”, “emotional regulation / moral regulation”. It is noted that any function of vandal activity at the individual level becomes a kind of marker “points of tension” at the socio-environmental level. The functional variety of vandalism becomes the reason of its ambiguous perception with diverse and occasionally contradictory estimates. The authors came to the conclusion that vandalism is socially considered as the evolutionary managerial instrument of social development, which is capable to weaken impermeability of the normatively and traditionally established limits, providing adjustability of the cultural and material environment in the conditions of innovative and mobilisation changes of society. From the perspective of the personality, vandalism is concerned as individual behaviour over the socially defined limits of activity among ordinary members of the society. Thus, vandalism as the phenomenon of public life acts as a norm and a deviation, to which an assessment is given in dependence on functional significance and subject self-identification of the specific vandal act.Practical significance.The research materials and the results obtained can be used to improve and optimise the technologies for management youth vandal activity in megapolises, for prevention and sublimation of destructive forms of youth behaviour in an urban environment.
The study is devoted to the problem of primary school children's vandalism, and particularly its connection with child-parent relationships on the example of Russian families. We define the main predictors of a child's vandal activity on the basis of psychological diagnostics of 228 8-9-yearold children and the assessment of the frequency and specifics of their vandal behaviour by their 228 parents. The children are classified into 3 groups by the extent of their propensity for vandalism. The complex analysis identifies personal and emotional factors influencing the frequency of a child's acts of destruction and transformation of other people's items, devaluation of their own and others' things including those explained by the covert desire to acquire new items. The research findings confirm a significant role of the parent-child relationships in the formation of the child's readiness for vandal behaviour. In particular, we prove that limitation of a child's freedom by excessive strictness and hyper protection aggravates children's propensity for vandalism.Keywords: vandalism, vandal behaviour, attitude to things, child's emotional sphere, child-parent relationships, destructive behaviour at primary school age. Vandalismus bei Kindern: Das Problem der Erziehung und die Interaktion mit der Familie:Zu den wichtigsten Faktoren, die die Herausbildung und die Entwicklung der Persönlichkeit in der Kindheit bestimmen, gehören gewöhnlich Beziehungen, die sich auf die Vorstellung von der externen Welt und von dem Platz, den das Kind darin einnimmt, auswirken. Das Ziel des Forschungsvorhabens war die Ermittlung der sozialen und psychologischen Determinierung von Vandalismus bei Kindern im Grund-und Hauptschulalter. Die Grundannahme war, dass diese einerseits in der
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