Development of "self" and "other" images in early childhood: gender aspect

Problem and purpose. The development of social consciousness as an integral system of social representations, especially in age and gender aspects, is an extremely relevant area of psychological research relevant to the development of various branches of psychology: general psychological knowledge, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and others. The authors of this paper focus on the problem of personal development of young children, the components of which are the process and mechanisms of forming the images of “self” and “other”, believing that there is a gender-related difference in their structure and characteristics, starting from the earliest ontogenesis. Firstly, the behavior of adults directed at children has features in terms of the formation of the gender of the child, starting from infancy, which in early childhood leads to the gender identity of the child. Secondly, the existing features of social information processing by boys and girls (for example, girls of early age, more than boys, are characterized by knowledge about gender-typical behavior and people's activities) affect the formation of images of “self” and “other”. It is necessary to develop systemic studies of the problem, because other researchers mostly study particular aspects of the problem of child development. Our aim was to obtain data on gender differences in the systems of children's social representations about themselves and the “other”, based on an analysis of the forms of communicative behavior, speech and language. Methodical support and research background. The study uses the method of content analysis in its modification, which allows to distinguish social information, implicitly and explicitly contained in the statement. The method of expert assessments made it possible to create a coordinated list of social representations of children. Frequency analysis was used to identify the most common speech of children - boys and girls - social representations. The database of the study - 320 statements of children aged from 1 to 3 years in situations of natural household and game communication, of which 160 belongs to boys, 160 - girls. Results. According to the speech and language, the repertoire of social representations of boys and girls is established, their typology is described, including ideas about themselves, the other, about the relations between communicative partners, levels of understanding of images of themselves and another: mental, emotional, intentional, behavioral, speech behavior. The difference is established in the structures of the images of “self” and “other” in gender samples. Self-images of boys include: mental and behavioral component, including verbal behavior; in girls: mental, emotional components and speech behavior; in both samples, the intentional component of the “self” image has low occurrence. The notion of the other in boys includes mental, emotional, behavioral components; in girls - emotional, intentional, mental, behavioral components, including verbal behavior. Conclusion. The results of the research can influence the increase in the knowledge-intensiveness of the developed pedagogical technologies specifically targeted at young boys and girls with the aim of developing social ideas about themselves and others.