Relationship between Perfectionism and Forms of Social Activity among Youth of Different Age Groups

The purpose of the study is to establish the interconnection between perfectionism and forms of social activity in students. The study involved representatives of different age groups, all of whom were students (N = 236): high school students (n = 118) and university students (n = 118) from Saratov and Saratov region aged 17 to 19. The methodological tools, that we used, involved a questionnaire aimed at recording various forms of social activity and the degree of their manifestation (R. M. Shamionov, I. V. Arendachuk, E. E. Bocharova et al.) and the "Multidimensional scale of perfectionism" (P. L. Hewitt, G. L. Flett; adapted by I. I. Gracheva). We used the above-listed tools to study the ratio of the correlation of manifestation of perfectionism parameters. Presumably, we can observe the presence of multidirectional relationships between the degree of manifestation of the parameters of perfectionism and self-assessment of various forms of social activity of an individual depending on their social status and age. The study found that representatives of school and student youth differ to a greater extent in the internal locus of perfectionism accompanied by absence of excessive adherence to other people's standards and norms. We recorded a tendency of negative dynamics in the frequency of manifestation of interrelationships between perfectionism and forms of social activity: the maximum number was observed in representatives of school youth, while its decrease was recorded among students. The ambivalence of functional manifestation of internal perfectionism was revealed: the development of a range of forms of social activity in schoolchildren against the background of the decrease of activity in the subcultural form of activity; in representatives of the student youth we observed actualization of activity in the form of spiritual activity against the background of deactualization of activity in the forms of protest and radical protest activity. In case of retention of the external locus of perfectionism, there is actualization of activity in the forms of socio-political and socio-economic activity in schoolchildren and in the form of Internet network activity in students. The applied aspect of the problem under study can be implemented in the practice of advisory services of educational institutions and organization of socially useful activities of young people, taking into account its perfectionist orientation.