Development of Socio-Psychological Adaptation of Personality in College Students from Substitute Families

The research featured various means of psychological and pedagogical support of college students from foster families aimed at developing their socio-psychological adaptation. The authors identified the key characteristics of the socio-psychological adaptability of underage orphan students. Students that spent less than a year in foster families combined adaptation with behavioral regulation and demonstrated communicative potential, long-term goals, interest in life, and a sense of purpose. They were active, strong, and satisfied with their self-realization and self-image. Their maladaptation disorders, as well as asthenic and psychotic reactions, were minimal. The key characteristics of the socio-psychological adaptation of minor students from foster families were manifested in the inverse relationship of maladaptation with the life process, locus of self-control, behavioral regulation, communicative potential, moral norms and maladaptation disorders. In underage students from orphanages, adaptation was associated with the locus of control – life, behavioral regulation and minimized asthenic reactions. The authors designed and tested a set of means of psychological and pedagogical support that improve the socio-psychological adaptation of students from foster families. The experiment demonstrated a positive dynamics in the level of adaptation, emotional comfort, sense of purpose, internality and personal adaptive potential, as well as a decrease in the level of maladaptation.