Specifics of the Social Mentality of Adopted Parents as a Social Group

Abstract

The article is part of a series of papers dedicated to the study of foster  parents’ value chain as the main regulator of child-parent relationships. The relevance of the study is linked to the need to study the outlook of the adoptive parents as the basis for the spiritual and moral upbringing of the child, which transmits the values, traditions and ways of behavior of the people.  The analysis of modern research has shown the special role of the value and meaning orientations of foster parents in the development of the institution of foster families, on the one hand, and insufficient empirical evidence on the other. The aim of the authors was to study the particularities of the mentality of adoptive / foster parents as a special social group, offering the State their services for the upbringing of orphaned children. The hypotheses of the study were that: 1) the basic identity orientation of the foster parents is relationship values; 2) the core of the structure of the foster parents’ social perceptions of the spiritual and moral sphere is filled with affective-sensual characteristics, such as love and affection. The methodological base of the research became “Unfinished proposals”, “Method of free association” and the questionnaire “Spiritual and moral upbringing”. 66  foster parents (average age M=49, 60±10.00 years) and 80 blood parents (average age M=47±4) years participated in the study. The theoretical basis of the study was the theory of social representations (S. Moscovichi) and “Psychological image of the people” (the concept of E.N. Reznikov). Quantitative and qualitative analyses showed the dominant value of relationships in the mentality of foster parents and weak expression of moral and psychological values of the affective-sensual sphere. The spiritual and moral sphere in the everyday consciousness of both foster and blood parents, is expressed by religious values and linked to the belief in God, that, according to E.N. Reznikov, forms the basis of the Russian mentality.