Influence of social environment on mental health formation of an elderly person

Since the mid last century, due to chronological aging and biological rejuvenation of the population, psychology of the elderly people is undergoing significant changes. In 1990's in Russia, these changes received an additional profound impetus as a result of a radical change in the state system of the country. Peculiarities of the mental development of an elderly person are made up of several closely related factors, caused by the changes in social environment as well as in principles determining the status of an ordinary member of the society. Political, economic, moral and ethical components of the social environment determine the dynamics of a person's mental health during the entire gerontogenesis. At the same time, the process of age-related changes in the psyche depends on the nature of social-personal interactions and can be manageable in many ways. The purpose of the paper was to assess the influence of the main social environmental factors on the formation of psychological characteristics of elderly people, depending on their personalities and to identify the possibility of optimizing social-personal interactions...