The Psychological Features of Predispositions to Various Addiction Among Youth

The article examines the psychological features of predispositions to various addictions among young people and analyses emotional barriers in communication, personal anxiety, impulsivity and their correlations with predispositions of young people to various addictions (addictive behaviour). The majority of the studied young people had certain difficulties in daily interacting with people, among which the most important were: inadequate expression of emotions, inflexibility and vagueness of emotions, inability to manage emotions and the least pronounced ones: unwillingness to be emotionally close to people and prevalent negative emotions. Young people mainly had high personal anxiety, manifested in the tendency to perceive various life events and situations as threatening and to react to them with increased anxiety, which could appear in tension, excitement, physical symptoms, avoidance of situations that cause discomfort etc. Young people’s personal anxiety correlated with television, romantic, food, computer, medicals addictions and addiction to interpersonal relationships. The tendency of young people to various addictions also directly correlated with emotional barriers in communication. In particular, emotional barriers correlated with smoking addiction, addiction to a healthy lifestyle, general tendency to addiction, personal anxiety. Unwillingness to be emotionally close to people correlated with television and smoking addictions. Prevalent negative emotions correlated with workaholism, general tendency to addiction, personal anxiety. Inadequate expression of emotions correlated with smoking and drug addictions. The respondents with high personal anxiety had significantly higher rates of addictions to television, food, computer (Internet, social networks), general tendency to addiction and impulsivity. Two types of youth were identified as a result of cluster analysis: the vulnerable impulsive type, characterized by higher rates of most addictions, impulsivity, anxiety, emotional instability, difficulties with controlling behaviour and greater vulnerability to formation of addictive behavioural patterns; and the moderate health-preserving type, characterized by lower rates of most addictions, impulsivity and anxiety, higher emotional stability and less tendency to risky and destructive forms of behaviour.