The study of personality predictors of self-destructive behaviour in the form of body modifications

Inroduciton. The problem of studying psychological mechanisms of self-destructive behaviour is a relevant science and practical task as it is related to prevention of self-destructive forms of behaviour among both citizens and law enforcement officers. The paper examines psychological mechanisms of self-destructive behaviour in the form of body modifications basing on the study of interconnection between the vision of the body and self-attitude, disorders in motivation and needs, emotional and will, communicative spheres of a person. Materials and Methods. The research was conducted from February to April in 2019 with a group of 50 students (from Russian University of Transport) aged from 18 to 20 years old. 25 students had body modifications (tattoos, piercing, aesthetic surgery). The first group included 18 female and 7 male respondents, the second group consisted of 15 female and 10 male respondents. The following methods were applied: Buss-Durkee test on aggressiveness, D. A. Leontiev test of life meaningful orientations, V. V. Stolin test of self-attitude, Szondi projective method, V. V. Boyko method of diagnosing the dominant strategy of psychological defence in communication. The data was processed via correlation analysis according to G. Spearman rank correlation method and assessment of differences according to Mann-Whitney criteria. Results and Discussion. The authors managed to reveal and describe the differences between the groups with body modifications and without them according to the structure of life meaningful orientations, hostility level, self-aggressiveness, self-attitude level. The group of respondents with body modifications is characterized by dissatisfaction in realizing life meaningful orientations (statistically important differences between the groups were revealed according to the “Control Locus - Life” scale) and dominant coping strategies in communication: “aggression”, “avoidance”. The group of respondents without body modifications is characterized by the “peacefulness” dominant coping strategy. Unlike the respondents without body modifications, the respondents with self-destructions are characterized by negative self-attitude, depend on the assessment given by the people around (statistically important differences were revealed according to the criteria: “self-sympathy”, “expected success from others”). For the respondents with body modifications it was possible to receive the profile according to the Szondi test revealing “Self”-destruction, proneness to self-destructive behaviour, decreased ethic and moral self-control. Integrated “Self” is typical for the respondents without body modifications. The authors established statistically relevant correlations between hostility and self-aggressiveness according to the Buss-Durkee test and the factor of “Paroxysmal drive” according to Szondi test, which ensured the description of the mechanism of self-destructive behaviour. Conclusions. The authors revealed individual psychological features typical for the people prone to self-destruction and described the mechanism of building the self-destructive behaviour in respect to unconscious tendencies. The tendency to accumulate the negative affect is a prerequisite of displaying self-aggressiveness in case of destroyed life meaningful orientations and decreased self-attitude level.