Childhood emotional experience as a prerequisite for optimism and social activeness in senior age

Abstract

The subject of this research is the childhood emotional experience of the people of senior age, i.e. the “children of war” generation. The author pursues the goal to study their emotional experiences associated with childhood that fell on the war period as the prerequisite for their life optimism and social activeness in the senior age. The analysis is bases on the materials of biographical narratives collected over the period from 2012 to 2019. The sampling included 34 men aged 75-85, and 57 women aged 75-90. The method of non-standardized biographical interviews became the means for collecting data. The acquired narratives were processed through the method of content analysis (for formalization of the variables “optimism”, “pessimism” and “social activity”), and comprising structured descriptions of emotional experience of the wartime childhood, summarizes in the basis of two highlighted nominations – socially active optimists and pessimists with low social activeness. It was determined that the positive emotional experience of the children of war contributed to formation of their optimistic perception of the world and subjective position on life, which remained until senior age and manifest in their social activeness and interaction with the surrounding world, while the negative emotional experience created the foundation for pessimistic worldview and contributed to formation of infantile position on life, which in senior age manifest in low social activeness, helplessness and complaints to the world. The author indicates seven characteristic of the positive and six characteristics of the negative childhood emotional experience, which can be viewed as the prerequisites for optimism/pessimism and social activeness/passiveness in the senior age.