Social anxiety and psychological climate as indicators of vitality in students of different education fields

Introduction.The paper presents certain social and psychological aspects of vitality, which received little attention in scientific publications. The paper aims to identify the relationship between vitality, anxiety, and psychological climate in students of different education fields. Materials and methods: Standard methods were used for the purpose of the study, including the E.A. Rylskaya human vitality test, O.A. Sagalakova and D.V. Truevtsev social anxiety test, A.F. Fidler psychological climate in a group test. The study involved last-year students of South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University (n = 69) and Ural State University of Physical Education (n = 35), including 27 male and 77 female students. Data processing was performed with correlation analysis and SPSS Statistics v. 17.0. Results. In sports university students, a relatively low alteration of general vitality and general social anxiety values was recorded; in pedagogical students, adaptation skills changed insignificantly. The mean values of general vitality in both groups corresponded to below average. The data of certain scales (social anxiety in the situation of being the center of attention, post-situational ruminations, and restraint in expressing emotions due to fear of rejection) of the social anxiety test reflect the average significance level for the reasons of these anxiety types regardless of students’ education fields. In both groups, psychological climate was characterized as predominantly positive. However, negative relationships were found between adaptation skills and the situation of being the center of attention/fear of being criticized. The rest correlations were principally different indicating a high variability of correlational structures of vitality in students of different education fields. Conclusion. An analysis of the structure of human vitality should take into account its relationships with socio-psychological components and can be used as a basis for developing and maintaining vitality in university students.