Event-Situational Aspect of the Subjective Experience of Mental States

Abstract

The article reveals the content of the subjective experience of mental states—in particular, the event-situational aspect. Mental states that people experience are determined by certain situations in their lives. The subjective experience of mental states contains a wide range of indicators that reflect various manifestations of person’s experience, internal and external determinants of mental states. We studied the subjective experience of mental states of the following groups of subjects: adolescents with deviant behavior staying at a juvenile correctional facility, adolescents brought up in family deprivation conditions, adolescents with disabilities, and normotypical adolescents living in a family. The selected mental states differ in the level of mental activity (high, medium, low) and modality (positive, negative). Subjects retrospectively described their mental states. To identify the components of the subjective experience of mental states, the method of content analysis was used. It was found that the subjective experience of mental states of each group of subjects has both common and specific components. The specificity of the content of the subjective experience of mental states of children is associated with physical and social conditions of their life, as well as with situations that caused the experiences. The subjective experience of mental states of individuals with different living conditions has common features which, in our opinion, allow individuals to identify and recognize the mental states of other people.