1

G. A. Valensa, PhD in Philosophy

Civic Platform New Country

PSYCHOLOGICAL AGE OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL AND

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF COMMUNITIES

The article discusses issues in the mental development of an adult in a social

context. The author formulates the concept of mental age and identifies the main stages
and factors of psychosocial formation of personality. The author presents a model that
demonstrates the relationship and close correlation between the main stages of
personality development, describes the socio-psychological structure of a community
and validates the existence of social groups and communities that show common
psychological age features.

Keywords: psychological age, personality development, childhood, youth, adulthood,

maturity, community, socio-psychological structure of community

The history and important features of the concept of "psychological age" of an

individual

Age is one of the basic and complex categories of psychology. We can

distinguish two levels of analysis of this concept: the absolute (calendar, chronological)
level, which expresses age in the number of time units (minutes, days, years, thousands
of years and so on), separating the time of an object’s emergence from the time its age is
measured; and the conditional (developmental) age level, which identifies the object's
location in a certain evolutionary series or in a development process, based on certain
qualitative and quantitative traits. Psychological age is measured in terms of the
correlation between the mental (intellectual, emotional, volitional) development level of
the individual and the corresponding "normative" level. Social age is measured in terms
of the correlation between the social development level of the individual (e.g., his/her
actions to master a set of social roles) and the level that is "statistically normal" for
his/her peers. There is also subjective personality age with an internal reference system.
[3]
Of importance is the fact that the individual’s level of psycho-emotional and
social maturity determines how he/she declares the structure of his/her needs, desires,
interests and values, chooses his/her style of communication behavior and develops
his/her social roles. Sources of motivation and ways of expression, the level of
 2

emotional competence and self-regulation and the level of the awareness of and ability
to articulate his/her interests and values vary across different psychological age groups.
Attempts to break mental development into periods have repeatedly been made
in the history of psychology. Their systematization was accomplished by L.S. Vygotsky
in his study "The Problem of Age" [2]. Vygotsky divided the periodizations in existence
at the time into three groups, doing it with such methodological success that modern
periodizations usually fit his systematization well.
The first group comprised the periodizations formed by analogy with the
stage-based construction of other chronological systems rather than through the
breakdown of the development process into stages. The first group included the
periodization by S. Hall, created by analogy with the notions of society’s developmental
stages.
In the second group, Vygotsky included the periodizations based on one (in rare
cases a few) of the developmental attributes. Following are the examples of this
periodization type:
● Freud’s model of (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital) psychosexual
development stages;
● Piaget’s approach, based on the following developmental stages of
intellectual structures: 1) preoperational thinking (sensorimotor
intellect); 2) pre-concept and intuitive thinking; 3) concrete
operations; and 4) formal operations;
● L. Kohlberg’s periodization, based on the formation of morals:
pre-moral level (associated with the focus on avoiding punishment and
obtaining reward); conventional morality level (associated with the
focus on a role model or authority); and autonomous morality level
(associated with the focus on a social contract and generally accepted
moral norms).
The second group has a sufficiently large number of periodization variants,
which Vygotsky called mono-symptomatic, as most of them are based on just one,
though important, developmental attribute.
In the third group, Vygotsky included the periodizations related to the
identification of the most significant attributes of mental development. One may include
in this group the periodization by E. Erickson [3], [7], which has the important
advantage of covering the individual’s entire life, rather than only the early age groups.
E. Erickson identified eight phases of development: 1) phase one (infancy: age one),
characterized by the child’s primary trust or mistrust of the environment; 2) phase two
(early childhood: ages two and three), characterized by autonomy or shame and doubt;
3) phase three (pre-school age: ages four and five), characterized by initiative or guilt;
4) phase four (school age: ages six to 11 to 12, i.e. to puberty), characterized by a sense
of value and industriousness or inferiority; 5) phase five (adolescence), characterized by
 3

personal individuality, identity or identity diffusion; 6) phase six (youth: ages 20 to 30),
characterized by closeness, intimacy and solidarity or exclusion; 7) phase seven
(maturity: ages 30 to 40), characterized by creativity, integrativeness or stagnation; 8)
phase eight (senior adulthood plus old age: ages 40 and higher), characterized by
integrity or duality and despair of the individual.
The basic periodization of the child’s mental development used in Ukrainian
developmental psychology is the periodization by D. Elkonin, based on the
cultural-historical psychology of Vygotsky. However, this periodization is reduced to the
consideration of only the early age groups. Following are the stages of child
development according to Elkonin: early childhood: infancy up to age three; childhood:
ages three to seven (preschool) and seven to 11 (primary school); adolescence: ages 11
to 15 (teens).
“In this regard,” writes N. Makarovа, “it should be emphasized that one of the
most urgent problems of modern psychology is to develop a detailed, scientifically
grounded periodization of mental development of an adult.”
Another study on a topic related to psychological age of adults is the
transactional analysis by Eric Berne [6]. While developing the concepts of
psychoanalysis, the author focused on the “transactions” that form the basis of
interpersonal relations. Certain types of transactions, which have a hidden agenda, he
calls games. Berne considers three states of the ego: Adult, Parent and Child (А-Р-С).
Coming into contact with the environment, the individual, according to Berne, is always
in one of these states. Each of these roles corresponds to a specific way of perceiving
and analyzing the information received and responding to reality. According to Berne,
each of these components contains both positive and negative aspects of regulation of
behavior.
Child acts as a carrier of biological needs and basic human senses. Child also
carries affective complexes associated with early childhood impressions and
experiences. Child’s positive qualities are spontaneity, creativity and intuition. Child’s
negative qualities are uncontrolled activity and lack of voluntary regulation of behavior.
Parent’s role is to be the bearer of social norms and prescriptions that the
individual uncritically adopts during childhood (mainly under the influence of his/her
own real parents), as well as throughout life. Parent expresses itself through aspects
such as control, prohibition, ideal requirements and automatisms. The negative aspects
of Parent are its dogmatism, inflexibility of prescriptions and dictatorship.
Adult is the most reasonable component, operating relatively independently
from the past, albeit using the information embedded in the Parent and Child roles.
Adult embodies the sense of proportion, competence, independence, tolerance and a
realistic assessment of the probabilities of situations.
By Berne, the formation of a mature personality is related mainly to the
formation of a fully functioning Аdult. Deviations in this process derive from the
 4

predominance of one of the other two ego states, leading to inadequate behavior and
distortion of the individual’s perception of the world. Psychotherapy should accordingly
be aimed at establishing a balance between these three components, developing
intelligent and independent behavior and thus strengthening the role of Аdult.
Psychological age model
While working in the field of psychotherapy, adult learning and group and
personal coaching for 12 years, the author found a model that describes the evolution of
the psychosocial self-realization of the personality.
Using the quadrants method as a research tool, the author managed to describe
the topology of the socio-psychological formation of the personality. The social
topology approach allows for applying the concepts of space, territories, "areas" and
"places" to the phenomena of social order.

In our study, therefore, the space of the personality’s psycho-social

development is formed by the intersection of the two parameters: "tangible" and
"semantic." The “Material production/consumption” and "Semantic
production/consumption" intersect to form four squares.
The material parameter is usually clear: it is the need to consume or the ability
to produce a material product. In the individual and social life of the person, both
material consumption and production are obviously natural manifestations. The
 5

parameters of semantic (or "spiritual") production and consumption require further

explanation. Semantic production can be identified as the creation by the individual and
mankind of ideas, fantasies and projects – phenomena that are not of material nature.
Semantic consumption is the implementation of previously created ideas at the level of
laws, customs and rules in a social setting. Like ideas, laws are not material and exist
only as objects of social contracts, while controlling human behavior. Using the
intersection of the two parameters, we draw four quadrants corresponding to four
psychological age zones.
CHILDHOOD: material consumption and semantic consumption
As a child, each of us is in the area of consumption, both in the material sense
and in the sense of integrating the child into the system of rules and customs. In some
ways, the child consumes literally everything he/she is offered: from food to touch to
voices to emotions to the usual behavioral types of those around, which become the
habitual norm or the rule of the child’s behavior, both consciously and subconsciously.
During childhood, the individual develops a mental basis that can be called "satisfaction
standard" and that his/her psyche adheres to for the rest of his/her life.
YOUTH: material consumption and meaningful production
As the individual develops a new perception of his/her body at puberty, he/she
aspires for the satisfaction that, unlike a child’s satisfaction, has the property of
reinforcing the impressions from and the sharpness of experiences. The individual
develops a hunger for expression and the need to be different and noticed and to feel
his/her advantages and personal uniqueness. In the sense of material values, the young
individual still cannot create anything socially meaningful and continues to consume,
but in terms of ideas and creating a new vision, the individual truly burst with fantasy,
develops imaginary scenarios and reveals his/her potential.

The individual’s “spiritual activity,” still unconfirmed by tangible external results, takes
the individual on a quest for himself/herself and makes him/her carry out experiments
and extravagant acts for the sake of attracting the limelight and winning a significant
role in the community. This is a period of bursts of energy, heroic achievements, ascents
and falls that occur against the backdrop of lack of resources, lack of experience and a
desire to be noticed.
ADULTHOOD: tangible production and meaningful production

Whereas the transition from childhood to adolescence has physiological causes

and occurs at puberty, the transition from youth to adulthood is a "purely spiritual" act,
the moment of a meaningful choice on the border between the desires of youth and the
challenges of the "real" adult world. Every time the individual has to choose a realistic
approach to life, an adult position requiring responsibility, consistency and ability to
think soberly and plan steps beforehand, he/she comes under great pressure. The rule
 6

and need of adulthood is to put one’s own ideas to reality and achieve result of one’s
own efforts. Material production here is the fruit of ideas conceived, chains of choices,
actions and decisions the individual had to make to set “the machine of reality” in
motion. Anyone who has done it at least once knows the pleasure of achieving a result.
To an adult, performance becomes a value in itself as his/her focus on everything that
brings about results intensifies.

MATURITY: tangible production and meaningful consumption

Experience and a sufficient amount of results make the mature personality

confident and relaxed about himself/herself and the way things work. How things work
no longer seems unpredictable. On the contrary, much becomes clearer as the worldview
stabilizes. The mature personality is able not to pay excessive attention to monitoring
the implementation of his/her ideas. Normally, when adult projects have already begun
to work "by themselves," there comes the time of contemplative observation of the
fruits of one’s labor: material production has been organized and its principles
understood. At this time, the individual begins to visualize patterns and a system to how
the life of people or a social group should or could be organized. The mature personality
becomes deeply concerned about "what will happen after me» and «what legacy I will
have left behind." Therefore, the calling of a mature person is legislature and
meaningful investment in the future.
Thus, all four types of the "psychological" age are important stages of the
formation of the individual’s personality. The results of each developmental stage form
the basis of the next level. The points of transition between the zones described are
critical and mark the line the psyche will have to cross to start mastering the next level:
the line between childhood and adolescence is puberty; the line between adolescence
and adulthood is the choice of profession and partner based on "love" and "sincere
interest"; the line between adulthood and maturity is the birth of a child or a new status
in society.
The psychological age model suggests that, in the psyche of every adult, all
four of the personality aspects operate simultaneously. The level of activity of each role
determines priorities and allows for building a psychological profile of the individual
based on four psychological age indicators. The external manifestations and behavior of
the individual in most social contexts match the leading and most pronounced
psychological age. But in some situations, such as stress, tension, conflict, comfortable
conditions, availability of resources or successful circumstances, the manifestations of
all the other three roles may take place. It depends on the features of personal history,
circumstances and situational factors, and, of course, on personal choice, desire and
effort. We should emphasize the fact that the psychological age is a dynamic feature that
 7

can change not only due to external circumstances but also due to the ways of
self-development chosen by the individual, the dynamics of the internal compensatory
processes and how the personality has chosen to resolve life’s various vital tasks and
challenges. Therefore, in his/her subjective feelings, every personality may find in
himself/herself the attributes of all four of the roles: child, youth, adult, mature
individual. The structure of the psychological age of personality (the sequence of
meaningful roles or "the psychological age profile") can be considered as a kind of
"adaptation model" in the living (existential) and social space, as this model is an
expression of the individual's personal history, his/her formation, his/her numerous
self-identifications, achievements and losses, accomplishments and failures, hopes and
intentions, conclusions and unconscious areas of experience. In essence, the individual’s
psychological age profile contains an imprint of the subjective evolution of experience,
as unique and inimitable as a face or a fingerprint.

Structure of needs, desires, interests and values typical of psychological childhood,

youth, adulthood and maturity

To clearly demonstrate the differences between the manifestations and

behavioral styles of each psychological age’s representatives, four parameters
corresponding to four significance levels have been selected: physiological and bodily,
emotional, rational and value-oriented. This selection allows for structured descriptions
of each of the four roles.
Needs are a physiological and bodily indicator whose fulfillment is required at
the level of the individual’s existence and a sense of basic comfort of this role. If this
indicator is not satisfied, the psyche cannot stay in a stable condition while playing its
desired age role. Left unsatisfied, a need leads to suffering and intolerable discomfort.
The needs indicator is often associated with material needs, property and bodily needs
of the person and is necessarily projected onto the plane of the material.

Desire is an emotional need that consists in the acceptable attitude of the

individual toward himself/herself, his/her emotional background, the mood that the
person feels to be "normal" and a satisfying atmosphere of communication with people
and interaction with the world. This gives the individual an opportunity to continue to
be alone or to continue to communicate. This opportunity contains an acceptable level
of tension, sufficient for self-expression and making a statement about oneself in one’s
environment. This parameter applies to emotional significance, a sense of belonging or
alienation of the individual associated with confidence, the ability to "feel oneself," a
manifestation of oneself, a "sense of coherence" of what is happening.
Interests are rationalized and conscious desires, calculated based on resource
indicators. Interests are the awareness by the individual of his/her preferences and
 8

priorities in both the internal and social environments. As regards the future, interests
represent the best state of affairs relative to the status quo, a perspective, a perceived
opportunity, the implementation of which is within the individual’s responsibility.
Interests carry a semantic and purpose-based charge for the psyche: "this is where I am
moving and what I aspire to achieve", "this is what I am in the near term." An interest is
an entire sphere of preferences and the individual’s potential. For comparison, a goal is
a specific object in the individual’s sphere of interests. Interests are often associated
with passions, educational interests, hobbies and with everything that gives a sense of
control over reality by means of a certain rational component.

Values ​are a concept endowed with profound significance for the individual.
Values are usually rather abstract concepts that have a great subjective meaning for the
individual and that answer the question of "what is important to me?" Each value
summarizes a part of reality that is important to the individual: love, freedom, family,
friendship, honor, joy, happiness. Behind each value, there is an entire set of
experiences, motives, feelings and concerns, which has exclusive meanings for the
individual. What pertains to values is often ​described as being "more expensive than
money" or as something "no amount of money can buy." The concept of "money" is
used here as a universal "value indicator," a social method for appreciation of certain
objects or phenomena. Therefore, values per se in the individual’s subjective experience
are "higher" than this conventional monetary measure.

Childhood
It is in childhood that the formation and strengthening of the basic consumption
models and thus all lucid ideas and unconscious reactions making up our sense of
security take place. In physiological adulthood, when feelings of security come under
threat in the circumstances of stress or conflict, a childish behavioral pattern could
manifest itself. This is often expressed the naive emotions of passion, confusion,
unhealthy optimism, tearfulness, an urge to be protected or outright panic. It seems as if
the childish part in every adult’s psyche has retained a basic security model and a level
of satisfaction with environmental parameters that it has considered "normal." As long
as these conditions of satisfaction are met, there is no reason for concern. But as soon as
outside events breach the key parameters of this – purely personal to each of us –
standard, the psyche seems to expose its vulnerable sides. These security settings are
formed in different periods of childhood, and many of them remain unchanged
throughout life. They comprise an entire set of domestic and personal characteristics of
the individual: from breathing, movement, sleep and nutrition habits to dealing with
things at home, the rules of hygiene, acceptable or unacceptable smells, touches,
sounds, voices and many others. In particular, the following parameters are fixed in
childhood and remain as components of a certain “satisfaction standard”: 1) the child's
attitude to himself/herself based on the roles performed by him/her in relations with
 9

parents (a favorite and/or an exile, an A-student and/or a beauty); 2) a model of

behavior in relationships between men and women based on the parents’
communication model; 3) a model of attitude toward money and the social group (a
source and a way to obtain funds and the role of others in the process).

Therefore, the basic need of the childhood age can be considered to be safety,
which includes a variety of methods and strategies "to ensure one’s existence" in any
environment proposed, i.e. secure the satisfaction of (foremost the physiological) needs,
obtain access to a combination of resources, including space and time necessary for
survival and development. The desire of the psychological childhood and the emotional
environment agreeable to that age consist in the ability to make safe contacts and be
received with openness and friendliness. At the interests level, the main type of activity
is the game, which has unconditional cognitive importance and causes bursts of energy,
curiosity and admiration. A value that forms in childhood and accompanies us into
adulthood, often subconsciously, consists in the confidence and openness towards the
world, people and, of course, the individual himself/herself. Healthy contact with own
needs and the child’s role are what give the adult the feeling of being truly safe.

Youth

Based on the satisfaction of childhood needs, youth puts forward specific

requirements. First, it is the need for the satisfaction of pleasures/states of trance, sexual
expression, physical activity and feedback, including the non-verbal type, all of which
the mind interprets as extreme experiences and all of which are new to the teenage
psyche. Youth’s desires are born of the atmosphere of the unknown and mysterious, fun
and dynamics, risk and challenge. Youth encourages the individual to go on quests and
promotes rapid discovery of new sources of information, contacts and, again, pleasures.
Youth’s interests are traditionally unstable. They are novelty, development, achievement
of the next level of benefits, ability to dominate and show oneself off in the best
possible images and self-assertion.

The main value of youth is freedom: freedom of self-expression and of any

manifestations that entitle the personality to "be himself/herself" and have his/her own
uniqueness. Bright formation of identity, stabilization and tests of self-esteem are what
take place at this age. The main cross-cutting issue of youth is "who am I?" Responses
to that question come in great numbers, each of them important, valuable and
extraordinary for the young person. The value of oneself in one’s own understanding is
one of the most important values of the psychological age of youth.

Adulthood

The need of adulthood is to independently manage available resources and be

the owner in the full sense of the word. Deprivation of access to the management of
 10

property could cause serious moral injury to the person of the adult psychological age.
At the level of the body, resource management translates to a specific tone of physical
activities aimed at results. The need to "manage oneself" applies to the desire to always
“be in good shape,” keep oneself in a working order and demonstrate exemplary health
and energy.

The desires of the adult consist in the atmosphere of concentrated attention,

control, seriousness and business sense. For the adult, it is important to stay in an
atmosphere of constructive dialogue, when it comes to communication.

The interests of the adult are always associated with projects relevant to
him/her. At times, he/she is able to take interest in an area rather remote from him/her
for the sole reason of it being necessary for his/her business project, and vice versa, to
abandon all interest in something truly interesting, if the business project so requires. It
is in the adult’s interests to act in line with his/her plans and put the plans to reality. The
perseverance of a purpose-driven adult may strike those around him/her as somewhat
fanatical.

The value of the adult psychological age consists in self-realization, results and
the relevant social status and recognition. The adult is proud of his/her achievements,
considering himself/herself an individual worthy of respect. He/she knows what he/she
is worth and capable of.

Maturity

The need of maturity is to contribute to the future, to see decent prospects and
to “extend oneself" in one’s own heritage. The mature individual is not indifferent to
what exactly he/she is going to leave behind: children, the personal example, i.e.
heritage that must go on living “when we are no longer around.” The mature find it
important to see the fruits of their achievements and to dispose of the results of their
own heritage for the benefit of others. The mature foster a donor’s need to invest in
something that can grow and evolve. This is why the mature psychological age comes
with the need for philanthropy and investment into the future.

Maturity’s desire is to be in the atmosphere of calm and contemplation, which

gives the opportunity to observe the operation of the “whole system in general.”

The interests of the mature individual are usually well understood and found in
the area of informed investment of time, money, effort and the focus of attention.
Among the values of mature individuals are wisdom and knowledge, based on
experience, faith, and accuracy of information, traditions and creation of fair laws.

Psychological age as a socio-psychological parameter in the description of

communities
 11

In the context of the psychology of communities and large and small social
groups, modern methodological issues are concerned, in particular, with the definition
of the approach to what should be considered a structural basis for the psychology of
communities.

In distinguishing among the many bases of classification, scientists examine

various types of communities united by a particular parameter or multiple parameters.
For instance, by size and number of participants, communities fall into large, medium
and small groups; by activity, they fall into professional, political or interest-driven
groups; by blood or lineage, they fall into family, tribal, ethnic and national groups; by
age, they fall into generations, intergenerational associations, territorial groups, local
groups and others.

By V.O. Vasyutinskiy’s definition, a community should be identified as a

“relatively large (numerous) nominally real social group distinguished by the presence
of a common attribute that for many or most of its carriers turns out to be subjectively
meaningful, while the number of such carriers attains a sufficiently critical level.” [1] In
mentioning the difference between the psychological and sociological understanding of
the community, the author accentuates that the sociological approach focuses on
community as a single entity and the method of its operation in society without going
into the exploration of the needs, interests and motivation of the individual. As regards
the psychology of communities, the significant element is none other than the link
between the behavioral, cognitive, and identification features of personality and its
affiliation to one community or another.

Given this approach, we can explore communities by using psychological age

characteristics as the basis on which to group these communities. In a bid to portray
communities based on the attributes of common needs, desires, interests and values, we
will note that the communities of children, youths, adults and mature individuals can
contain rather recognizable social groups.

Children's communities

The common characteristics of this category of communities are as follows:

● High level of financial dependence (material consumption vector); focus

on own needs, along with inability for any reason or lack of skills to
independently satisfy them; low level of social mobility and the need for
care.
 12

● Low level of influence in the semantic space (semantic consumption

vector), implying dependence on the decisions taken by others, living by
the rules of others or the need to follow the laws and traditions imposed
“before them,” “without them,” “instead of them;” often low level of
education; low level of integration into the local culture; the mismatch
between the individual and the modern social dynamics, etc.

This portrait takes on more expressive features when illustrated using

examples. First, this applies to the social group of children of various ages, including
teenagers and college students, deprived of the opportunity to generate independent
earnings. The so-called “vulnerable population categories” definitely also belong to this
conditional community: needy families, people with special needs, seniors and
representatives of minorities. All those who for a variety of reasons cannot take care of
themselves, despite their physical age or, like pensioners, because of it, inadvertently
fall into the category of “children” in a social sense. But that is not all. Sometimes a
perfectly (physically and psychologically) able-bodied adult individual can fall into the
category of patients or low-income persons and in this capacity fall into the state of
dependence. Therefore, the “door to social childhood” is not shut to any one of us,
which is worth remembering.

Youth communities

● A high level of financial dependency remains ( material consumption

vector); the needs, both physical and emotional, increase; experiences
and opportunities for independent satisfaction of these needs are scarce,
which trains the individual to acquire resources primarily in
communicative space, increasing his/her expression skills;

● Semantic activity makes this category more mobile, more open to

contact and more capable of creative solutions; it pushes young people
and “psychological boys and girls” of an older age to actively search for
forms of expression, change places, engage in intensive interaction and
in experimental and risky (sometimes illegal) actions.

These communities and their representatives are characterized by the desire to

gain recognition, location and the space of self-importance, to learn “who I am,” to
make sure they have advantages relative to others and to gain a convincing evidence of
their own influence. The lack of own material resources makes them fight to secure a
“place under the Sun.” Such communities are quite prone to conflict, gravitate toward
hierarchy and anarchism at the same time and require passionate leadership, both
constructive and destructive at times. However, these groups, both the more or less
 13

resilient and situational, are able to generate creative and innovative solutions, seeking
change through revolutionary processes. Examples of these communities are naturally
found in various student groups united by attributes varying from a common alma mater
to being fond of a particular music or clothing styles to common ways of relaxation. The
value of freedom and the importance of making a statement about oneself and getting a
reaction from the environment prevail here. Adherents of various ideological and
religious currents, fans of numerous celebrity and sports clubs and even secluded
sociopaths considering themselves to be too exclusively unique for intensive
communication all serve as examples of youth communities. Also, an entrepreneurial
movement, consisting of small business owners trying to conquer their share of the
market may be numbered among youth communities. Perhaps a somewhat surprising
example of an “economic youth” community comes in the form of the earners of initial
capital who used to operate on uncontrolled territories (colonial North America, United
States) and the new, “wild” markets (post-Soviet Ukraine, the CIS). Therefore, the
model of modern oligarchy, wherever observed, demonstrates a youth type of behavior
and forms communities with relevant attributes.

Adult communities

The experience of independent implementation of one’s own ideas, control

over material resources and their channeling to achieve independently defined goals is
an identifying feature of such communities.

● The semantic production vector requires individuals of the adult mental

age to remain loyal to their vision, responsibility and projects. The adult
is clearly aware of the personal meaning of the independent
implementation of his/her ideas and of all the importance of his/her
project for his/her self-realization. “Nobody but me” becomes a natural
slogan. Similarly, the adult is aware of the risk of failure to
implementation his/her plans. This encourages active and independent
action with a high level of responsibility.

● The material production vector requires full concentration and

accounting for resources and control over processes in general and
procedures in particular: time, space, or any other resources, including
human resources involved in the process of creation, are important. Also
a personal resource is the psychological adult’s ability to account for and
 14

regenerate: usually they consciously take care of their own health and
performance.

Examples of adult communities are the professional and business communities;

groups united by the purposes of implementation of joint projects, including civic
projects, conscious and controlled satisfaction of their own interests, mutual benefits,
development benefits and sharing capabilities.

Mature communities

● The material production vector continues to "work" by generating

sufficient income for the survival and security (and sometimes wellbeing
and development) of representatives of the mature psychological age.
The material element is no longer of concern and does not affect the deep
psychic strings of a mature personality.

● The semantic consumption vector at maturity means that the results of

experience gained are becoming for such people the basis of rules and
laws that they leave as legacy to their successors and apply to their own
environment, considering such laws and regulations to be beneficial and
acceptable to the people around them.

Essentially, the communities of mature people are rather small groups of

investors, thought leaders and moral authorities that have reached publicly meaningful
results and have been recognized as such whose experience is worth transferring to
future generations. That is, the vector of "semantic consumption" by the representatives
of the mature psychological age consists in the fact that the experience of their lives and
activities now becomes the law and rule, the basis for the development and existence of
other people. This happens usually when the "mature" are turned to with requests for
help, advice or recommendation. Their function in society is the actual lawmaking, the
transfer of household practices, skills of interactions in business, the affairs and culture
of achievements, moral guidance, political decisions in the best sense of the word and
cultural leadership in the broad sense of the word.

In describing the different types of community maturity, we note that every

society is composed of a large number of communities of different psychological ages.
This model makes possible a more detailed and informative description of the
socio-psychological structure of society, as well as large and small communities and
social groups in the midst of society. It makes possible a systematized study of needs
and requests, prospects and possibilities, directions of development and “dead ends” of
 15

each of the communities. This approach can be used as a tool for social marketing, in
particular for creating portraits of target audiences in various communities, for the study
of the driving forces and contradictions in communities, for the identification of the role
of personality in the social space and for the formation of strategies for the development
of various social systems.

Therefore, the psychological age, being a complex indicator of the level of

personal development, is both an essential component and a structural fundamental of
the formation of communities. Using the proposed model of the psychological age
creates the possibility to clearly separate the basic socio-psychological levels of
maturity, realize the key parameters of stability and development in each of the next
stages of evolution, both of the individual and of a group. At the same time, the
topology of the internally psychological and social space outlined in this paper
demonstrates integrity and closeness, connectedness and interdependence of all four key
elements: the psychological childhood, youth, adulthood and maturity. All elements of
the system are linked together in a balanced unity, which enables the use of the model in
further studies, as well as for the purpose of diagnosing and designing on the personal
(coaching, psychotherapy) and group (social marketing, description of the needs of
target audiences) levels.

Bibliography:

1. Vasutinsky V. O. The psychological dimensions of community: a

monograph. – Kyiv: Golden Gate, 2010. – 120 p.

2. Vygotsky L. S. the Problem of age. // Vygotsky P.S works In 6 V. V. 4.

–Pedagogy, 1984. – 432 p.

3. Childhood and society Erik G. Erikson, Ed. 2-e, Rev. and additional. Transl.
eng. works : "Speech", 2002. — 416 p. ISBN 5-89740-036-9

4. Psychology: Lecture notes / IV Makarova. - 2nd ed., Ext. - Moscow:

Publishing Yurayt; ID Yurayt, 2010. - 237 p.
5. Tonis F. A Community and Society: basic concepts of pure sociology. - K .:
Spirit and Letter, 2005.
6. Yeryk Berne: Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy
7. Erikson E. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1974.