First, high self-awareness
Many psychologists believe that adolescence is the second leap in the development of self-awareness.
Before an individual enters adolescence, the development of self-consciousness has made a leap, and his age is about 1 to 3 years old, which shows that children can identify themselves with the pronoun "I". In the next few years, children's self-awareness is still developing, but the speed of development is relatively gentle and stable.
After entering adolescence, due to the rapid development of the body, junior high school students soon appeared the physical characteristics of adults. Because this physiological change happened too suddenly, they consciously or unconsciously pulled a large part of their thoughts out of the objective world they had been playing, redirected them to the subjective world, and made their thoughts re-enter themselves, thus creating a second leap in self-awareness. Its outstanding performance is that the inner world of junior high school students is getting richer and richer, and they often use a lot of thoughts for introspection in their daily life and study. "What kind of person am I?" "What are my characteristics?" "Do people like me or hate me?" A series of questions about "I" began to haunt their minds repeatedly, and this tendency can often be clearly observed in their compositions and diaries. For example, in the composition with "what I see" as the content, primary school students simply describe the objective world, while junior high school students are still describing the objective world, but their descriptions have a very strong personal emotional tone, highlighting personal preferences, troubles and expectations.
Another example is keeping a diary. In the diary of primary school students, I mainly describe what happened that day and my superficial understanding of it. Moreover, the attitude of keeping a diary is not conscious, and it is often done under the coercion of teachers and parents; The confidentiality requirements for diaries are not high, and sometimes they are even provided to others. A survey by Japanese psychologists shows that the diaries of junior high school students have changed significantly. First of all, the diary has changed greatly. The diaries of junior high school students focus more on their own experiences and feelings, which directly come from self-observation, self-reflection, self-criticism and self-expectation. Secondly, the attitude of junior high school students to keep a diary is also voluntary, which really comes from the inner need to express their thoughts and vent their emotions; The third change is that they began to keep their diaries as their absolute secrets, keeping them carefully and forbidding others to read them. The change of diary characteristics of junior high school students shows that their inner world is gradually enriched, and they are often immersed in thinking and feeling about "I". Because of this, their personality is subjective and paranoid.
On the one hand, they always think they are right and don't listen to other people's opinions; On the other hand, they feel that others always seem to treat themselves with a sharp and critical attitude, so when they hear others whispering, they conclude that they are talking about themselves; When you see others laughing, you think you are laughing at yourself; If the teacher looks at him one more time, he will think that he has done something wrong ... In short, they feel that people around him are judging him all the time, which makes junior high school students feel depressed, lonely and nervous.
This sudden surge in junior high school students' self-awareness has caused a temporary imbalance in their personality.
Second, rebellious psychology
Rebellious psychology is a common psychological feature of junior high school students. This feature is mainly manifested in the consciousness and behavior tendency of rejecting all external forces.
(A) the causes of resistance
The sudden upsurge of self-awareness is the first reason for junior high school students' rebellious psychology. With the rising of junior high school students' self-awareness, they are more inclined to maintain a good self-image and pursue independence and self-esteem. However, some of their ideas and behaviors can not be accepted by reality, and they have been frustrated repeatedly, so they have an extreme idea that the obstacles to their actions come from adults and have a rebellious mentality.
Excessive excitement of the central nervous system is the second reason for the decline of junior high school students' resistance. Physiologists point out that only when the function of the central nervous system is coordinated with the activities of the corresponding parts of the body periphery can the individual's body and mind be in a harmonious state. However, the physiological investigation shows that at the beginning of adolescence, the activity of the individual's sexual central nervous system is obviously enhanced, but the gonadal function is not yet mature, and the two are not in harmony ([Su] [T.B. borisov, translated as "The Road to Adolescent Physical and Mental Development", World Knowledge Publishing House, 1985 edition). As a result, the individual's central nervous system is in an overactive state, which makes junior high school students too sensitive and strong to all kinds of stimuli around them, including others' attitudes towards themselves.
Under normal circumstances, there is a certain dependence between the intensity of external stimuli and the response of the nervous system, and the two should be coordinated with each other. However, in junior high school, this dependence has been affected, leading to a strong response to weaker stimuli. I often fly into a rage because of trivial things.
Independent consciousness is the third reason why junior middle school students have rebellious psychology. Junior high school students urgently demand independent rights, regard the life care and emotional caress given by their parents as obstacles to independence, and regard the guidance and teaching of teachers and other social members as constraints on their own development. In order to gain a sense of psychological independence, they tend to reject any external force to varying degrees. Therefore, it can be said that junior high school students' rebellious psychology is to deny that they are children and confirm that they are mature individuals.
(B) the performance of resistance psychology
There are probably two periods of resistance in the process of individual development. The first negative stage appears between 2 and 4 years old, which almost overlaps with the first leap period of self-awareness development. During this period, children's resistance mainly pointed to the physical aspect, that is, opposing parents' restraint on their physical activities.
The second period of resistance appeared in junior high school. At this time, the resistance is mainly aimed at some psychological contents, such as hoping that adults can respect them and admit that they have independent personality.
Junior high school students are generally prone to resistance under the following specific circumstances:
First, independence feels hindered. Junior high school students have a strong demand for independence, but their parents are not prepared for it or have not had time to adapt to this situation. They still treat them with the very caring attitude in the past, which leads to their rebellious behavior.
Second, autonomy is ignored or hindered. If parents don't listen to the opinions of junior high school students, they will be placed in a dominant and subordinate position.
Third, when personality extension is blocked, it will also cause extreme disgust.
Fourth, when adults force junior high school students to accept a certain point of view, the latter blindly refuses to accept it, showing a confrontational tendency.
Junior high school students' ways of resistance are also varied, sometimes very strong, and sometimes relatively resistant in an implicit way, often with the following specific manifestations:
1. Tough attitude and rude behavior
A considerable number of junior high school students are confronting some external forces in a stormy way. This kind of resistance happens very quickly, which often takes the other side by surprise. Any persuasion at that time was of no help, but after the situation subsided, this strong resistance would quickly disappear.
2. Indifference and indifference
Another kind of resistance of junior middle school students is not manifested in explicit behavior, but only in implicit consciousness. This situation often appears in junior high school students with introverted personality. They don't directly refute the object of resistance, but take an indifferent attitude and turn a deaf ear to each other's opinions. This kind of rebellious psychology and emotion is not easy to transfer with the changes of specific circumstances, and it is stubborn.
3. Mobility of resistance
The mobility of junior high school students' rebellious behavior means that when a character's words and deeds arouse their antipathy, they often transfer this antipathy and rejection to all aspects of the character, or even completely deny the person; Similarly, when one member of an adult group can't satisfy them, they tend to exclude all members of the group. This transfer of resistance often confuses junior high school students in the face of right and wrong. Under the influence of emotional factors, they tend to exclude some correct things, which will bring disadvantages to their growth.
Third, the contradictory characteristics of emotional expression.
In the emotional expression of junior high school students, it also fully embodies the contradictory characteristics of semi-maturity and semi-naivety. With the development of junior high school students' psychological ability and life experience, their emotional feelings and manifestations are no longer as simple as before, but far less stable than those of adults, showing obvious duality.
(a) strong, violent, gentle and delicate * * *
The emotional expression of junior high school students is sometimes very strong and violent. Someone once used the word "flurry and rainstorm" to describe the characteristics of strong individual emotions in this period. For the same stimulus, the intensity of emotional response caused by them is relatively much larger, even reaching shocking levels.
However, the emotional expression of junior high school students is not blindly strong, and sometimes it shows the characteristics of tenderness and delicacy.
The so-called emotional gentleness means that some personal emotions are expressed in a gentler form after modification. Compared with children in infancy and childhood, junior high school students have accumulated more experience and understood the fact that different emotions have different functions in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, their emotional expression is not very open and full, so they can properly control some negative emotions or decorate some emotions in a relatively mild form.
The so-called emotional delicacy refers to the meticulous characteristics of individual emotional experience. Junior high school students gradually overcome the simple and rough emotional experience in childhood, and their emotional expression becomes more abundant and detailed. Moreover, some emotional feelings are not directly caused by external stimuli, but many subjective factors are added. For example, after reading a literary work, many junior high school students are immersed in a certain emotion for a long time, which not only comes from the contents of the book, but also comes from a considerable part of their more complicated emotions and emotional experiences derived from subjective thinking and daydreaming.
(b) Emotional change and stubbornness * * *
Emotional variability refers to the characteristics that emotional experience is not stable enough and often changes from one emotion to another. This feature of emotion is generally caused by the lack of profound emotional experience. Although junior high school students have a strong emotional intensity on the surface, the depth of experience is not directly proportional to this, and one emotion can easily be replaced by another.
Emotional stubbornness refers to a stubbornness in emotional experience. Because junior high school students' understanding of objective things is still paranoid, it brings emotional stubbornness. For example, some junior high school students will be completely overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness and depression because of several setbacks, and they can't get rid of it for a long time.
Introverted and expressive * * *
Emotional introversion refers to a kind of concealment in the form of emotional expression. Junior high school students have gradually lost that kind of undisguised simplicity and frankness in emotional expression. On some occasions, they can hide their emotions such as joy, anger, sadness and joy in their hearts.
Emotional expressiveness refers to the conscious or unconscious presence of performance marks in the process of emotional expression. Junior high school students sometimes add a layer of performance color to some original emotions in the group for conformity or other ideas. In the expression of emotion, I lost the nature of my childhood, with artificial traces.
Fourth, the new characteristics of interpersonal communication.
Junior high school students also show completely different characteristics from childhood in making friends.
These new features are mainly manifested in the following aspects.
(A) gradually overcome the way gangs communicate.
The most obvious feature of childhood children in making friends is the gang phenomenon in making friends, which shows that 6 or 7 children often associate and play together. In this communication, children feel free and happy physically and mentally. Therefore, as far as the way of making friends is concerned, primary school is the age of cliques. In the senior grade of primary school, this form of making friends reached its peak, and then it gradually disintegrated and was replaced by new forms of communication.
After entering adolescence, junior high school students show a lot of psychological anxiety and anxiety. They need a place where they can talk about their troubles, exchange ideas and keep secrets, but the gang form of making friends does not have this function. Therefore, the range of their friends is gradually narrowing, and the best friends of junior high school students are generally only one or two. Their criteria for choosing friends mainly include the following aspects: ① having the same interests and pursuits; 2 have the same pain and trouble; ③ Have similar personalities; 4 can understand each other in many ways. Friends of junior high school students are generally of the same sex. At this stage, the relationship between friends is also very close, and the established friendship is relatively stable and lasting.
Friendship is becoming more and more important in the life of junior high school students.
Individuals of different ages live in different interpersonal relationships, and their feelings point to different objects.
Children mainly form a psychological relationship with each member of the family.
Although primary school children have their favorite friends of the same age, they are still emotionally dependent on their parents.
After entering middle school, junior high school students gradually tend to focus on their close friends. Chen Mei once made a survey, targeting primary school students, junior high school students and college students in China. One of the questions in the questionnaire is: "Who do you usually tell your thoughts to?" The subjects were asked to arrange the listed items in order of importance, and the pupils' answers were: parents, brothers and sisters, friends; The reaction of junior high school students is: friends, brothers and sisters, parents. It is not difficult to see that friendship is becoming more and more important in the minds of junior high school students (Chen Mei: Friends Needs and Group Characteristics of Children and Adolescents, Psychological Science, 199 1 year).
Junior high school students also have a new understanding of the significance of making friends. They believe that friends should be able to share joys and sorrows and get support and help from each other. Therefore, they put forward special requirements for the quality of their friends, believing that friends should be frank, reasonable, caring for others and keeping secrets. In the daily communication of junior high school students, good friends often reveal their most important secrets to each other. This kind of communication is of positive significance to the psychological development of junior high school students, enabling them to better understand their inner world and what is happening to them through others.
The consistency of views and actions is also one of the important conditions for the psychological proximity between junior high school students' friends. On some occasions, good friends often have to make a consistent course of action, and if they violate it, they will be severely reprimanded. They believe that loyalty to agreements and friends is a very important measure of friendship.
Junior high school students also have a multi-level feature in making friends. As their hobbies develop more and more widely and their inner lives become richer, it becomes more and more difficult to meet their various needs with a friend. Therefore, their interaction with one friend may be limited to one interest, while their interaction with another friend is limited to another interest.
The friendship between friends in junior high school is more straightforward and easier to observe than that between friends of all ages in the future. The friendship between boys is stronger, while the friendship between girls is softer and more delicate.
The friendship of junior high school students is very important for developing their psychological level and emotional stability. With friends, they will show more enthusiasm, enthusiasm, confidence and courage, and better develop various social skills.
(3) Relationship with friends of the opposite sex
In infancy and childhood, children's communication is generally neutral, and boys and girls often play together. Even sometimes gender separation is not caused by gender consciousness itself, but by differences in interests.
After entering junior high school, the relationship between boys and girls presents new characteristics. Both sides began to realize the gender problem and gradually became interested in each other. But in the initial stage, their interest in the opposite sex is in the opposite way, or they show an indifferent attitude in front of the opposite sex students; Or show contempt for students of the opposite sex in words and deeds; Or attack each other in an unfriendly way. In short, on the surface, they are not close, but mutually exclusive.
By junior high school, boys and girls gradually began to get along well. Moreover, in the hearts of some boys and girls, there will be a friend of the opposite sex whom they like. The survey shows that girls are generally more likely to have a good impression on natural, friendly, not rude and energetic boys; Boys are generally attracted to good-looking, elegant and lively girls. But boys and girls generally don't disclose this kind of emotion. In many cases, this is just a permanent secret. Because, with the passage of time, with their development and maturity in all aspects, with the constant change and adjustment of values, this emotion generated in junior high school is likely to gradually fade away or even disappear completely.
Therefore, the love between boys and girls in junior high school is very immature, lacks a solid foundation, rarely survives, and eventually develops into love and marriage. But as long as it is handled properly and controlled within a fairly limited degree, this feeling is also meaningful. When a junior high school student likes a classmate of the opposite sex, he (she) naturally hopes that the other person can accept himself, so he (she) can improve himself as much as possible according to the standards of a good teenager, thus promoting all aspects of development. However, if this relationship continues indefinitely, it will hinder the normal progress of junior high school students.
(d) Changes in relationship with parents
Family is the basic cell of society, and parents are important people who influence children's early growth. Before childhood, children's image of their parents is supreme, and they respect and trust their parents.
After entering adolescence, the relationship between junior high school students and their parents has undergone subtle changes.
This change is manifested in many aspects. For example:
1. Emotional separation
Because junior high school students have other attachment objects emotionally, their relationship with their parents is not as close as before.
2. Behavior separation
Junior high school students have a strong desire for independence and oppose parents' interference and control in behavior.
3. From a point of view
Junior high school students like to analyze and judge any events by themselves, and are unwilling to accept ready-made concepts and norms. Therefore, they have to re-examine many opinions that their parents have always believed, and the results of the review are often inconsistent with their parents' opinions.
4. The role of parents as role models is weakened.
With the expansion of junior high school students' life, other adult images will enter their minds through various channels, and these characters are all close to the ideal level, in contrast, their parents will be eclipsed; On the other hand, with the improvement of junior high school students' thinking level and cognitive ability, they will gradually find some shortcomings that exist in their parents but were not aware of in the past, which will also weaken their role as role models.
(e) Changes in relations with teachers
In primary schools, most children have a friendly relationship with their teachers. Generally speaking, primary school students can accept any kind of teacher.
Junior high school students don't blindly accept any teachers. They began to evaluate teachers, and each student had one or two teachers he admired most. Junior high school students' favorite teachers generally have the following characteristics: knowledgeable, high teaching level, warm and kind, concerned about students' growth, energetic and so on. In the eyes of junior high school students, their favorite teachers can almost reach the point of perfection, and they can make the best response to these teachers in action. For example, they will study hard for the subjects that their favorite teachers are responsible for; I will carry out all the requirements put forward by this teacher very seriously; I will undoubtedly accept and absorb all kinds of views and opinions put forward by this teacher, and so on.
Similarly, in the minds of junior high school students, there are always one or two teachers they dislike the most. Psychologically, junior high school students reject the opinions of teachers they don't like.
Fifth, the negative emotions of junior high school students.
Psychologists believe that human beings must complete the process of psychological integration in order to achieve physical and mental harmony. The process of psychological integration at least includes the following two links:
First, the continuous link. Through this link, individuals can realize that I have developed and changed from the past, and everything in my present and future has developed on the basis of the past.
Second, the link of unity. Through this connection, individuals can realize that they are a unified and coordinated whole.
It is generally believed that individuals cannot complete this task of psychological integration until they are 25 years old or even later, so as to achieve the stability and balance of their mentality.
With the great changes in physiology, junior high school students are temporarily confused about the continuity and unity of psychological integration, which leads to their inability to accept themselves well and some negative emotions.
A sudden increase in trouble
After entering junior high school, many new problems followed, which made it difficult for junior high school students to adapt in a short time and added a lot of troubles.
1. I don't know what posture I should appear in front of the public.
The change of appearance and image makes junior high school students urgently need to change their image in others' minds, but many similar questions can't find satisfactory answers on how to change and in what posture to get recognition and love from others.
2. There are cracks in the relationship with parents.
Junior high school students feel that their parents can't understand their ideas, and some of their wishes and demands are often obstructed and interfered by their parents, which leads to their emotional alienation from their parents. How can we win the understanding and support of our parents? How can we restore the relationship with parents to the intimacy of childhood? Problems such as whose fault it is to disagree with parents often plague junior high school students.
I don't know how to maintain or establish my due position among my peers.
There are usually two situations on this issue. There is a situation that some junior high school students are excellent in all aspects of primary school and have always been excellent among their peers. However, after entering junior high school, for many reasons, their status among their peers is relatively low, which makes them unacceptable. They strongly hope to maintain their superior position among their peers in the past, but it is very difficult.
On the other hand, some junior high school students never had a superior position among their peers in the past, but at that time, they didn't seem to have too deep negative feelings about it. After entering junior high school, with the rise of self-awareness, junior high school students have increased the need to gain self-esteem. They hope that their peers can accept themselves, affirm themselves and love themselves. This kind of desire puzzles those students who have never had the above-mentioned personal experience, and their abilities in all aspects are slightly insufficient.
(2) Loneliness
Psychologists call the period from adolescence to early youth "psychological weaning", that is to say, from then on, individuals will be psychologically separated from the protection and attachment of their parents and gradually grow into independent members of society.
"Psychological weaning" from adolescence has brought great anxiety to junior high school students. Although they have subjective independent requirements and desires, it is actually difficult for them to adapt to independent life in a short time. Junior high school students have many inner conflicts and setbacks in reality. They can't solve many problems by their own strength and ability, and they don't want to ask their parents or others for help, for fear that it will damage their independent personality. Therefore, there is a lonely mood.
(3) pressing
Depression is also a common psychological state of junior high school students. Repression is a psychological experience in which needs and desires are not satisfied and realized.
With the growth of age, junior high school students have a variety of needs, including both physical and psychological aspects. However, due to various reasons, there are many unmet needs, sometimes because the desire itself is unrealistic; Sometimes it is because of social resistance or parental restrictions; Sometimes I fail because I am inexperienced. Therefore, junior high school students' self-esteem is vulnerable to attack, but they have the impulse to be competitive. In this contradictory situation, they are often in a depressed psychological state.
Of course, in addition to the above mental state, junior high school students also have some positive emotions. For example, desire is a typical positive emotion that exists at this stage. But generally speaking, negative elements account for a large proportion in the mentality of individuals of this age in junior high school. Therefore, it is especially necessary for parents and other educational forces in society to give careful guidance and help.