Psychological well-being of students in conditions of high uncertainty of the future

Abstract

In this article, the authors attempted to comprehend how the level of psychological well-being and the image of the future in students is transformed in the context of acute social uncertainty associated with the coronavirus epidemic. To answer this problematic question, we turned to the analysis of the need-motivational-semantic sphere of students before the pandemic and after the end of the self-isolation of Russian citizens. The study was carried out in two stages. At the first stage (October 2019), 185 students of Kostroma State University (M = 20,1; SD = 1,3) were interviewed on the subject of how they understand the phenomenon of psychological well-being, after which 45 respondents (M = 19,7; SD = 0,8) were asked for filling in the method «Color metaphors» by I. L. Solomin. At the second stage (January 2021), the study was carried out according to a similar algorithm (N1 = 185; M = 20,4; SD = 0,6; N2 = 45; M = 19,3; SD = 1,1). It is shown that the coronavirus pandemic and the associated self-isolation have become a context that influenced the change in the structure of connections between meaning-forming categories in the need-motivational-semantic sphere of students. The weakening of the tightness of connections between semantic categories in the minds of the respondents serves as an indicator of students' disorientation in psychological time and space, a marker of the emergence of problems in setting goals, defining meaning and seeing oneself. First of all, this is reflected in the idea of the future, oneself in the future, happiness as the category most closely related to well-being. The image of the future has become less concretized and blurred. In the psychological time space, values-goals became less significant, but values-resources became actualized («love», «family», «health», «entertainment» , «communication», «development», «money»), i.e. that helps to feel stability, comfort, increases confidence in the future and helps to distract from the oppressive atmosphere.