Strategies to cope with complex social situations based on group experience symbolization

Abstract

The purpose of the article lays down in highlighting the strategies examination results helping to cope with complex social situations by symbolizing the experience gained in small groups of people that occurred in crises environment. The strategy for coping with complex social situations refers to a sustainable set of activities that an individual or group of people consciously or unconsciously apply to a situation.

The method and methodology. Total 132 participants made up the target group and further they were split into 16 small groups of two types. The permanent groups of people pertaining experience to live in social crises like military conflict and related humanitarian crises became the first type, while the newly established psychological self-help groups made up the second type. The second group consisted of people from the war zone in Eastern Ukraine, families of demobilised servicemen, veterans of the ATZ (antiterrorist zone/ JFO (joint forces operation). Various questionnaires, online observation, phenomenological analysis, modelling social and psychological processes in artificially created conditions (role-playing games) were used as the methods to record the group interaction results.

The results of the group work illustrate that the symbolism of the process to cope with complex social situations differs if applied for individual or group experiences. The symbols of individual overcoming process pertain dynamic nature, while the group process is static mainly. Three strategies for coping with complex social situations were identified and described in the article. The constructive strategies envisage that the members of the group self-organize to overcome complex social situations with the following statements like ‘I can cope with it’ or ‘Tell me how and I will do it too’. The conditional constructive strategies manifest that the member of the group is waiting for the proper situation to start the action: ‘Search for reasons’ and ‘Forming the readinesses. The destructive strategies presuppose that the help of the group and its synergistic interaction is devalued and is rejected by the group member with comments like ‘My situation is unique’, ‘Loneliness in the group’, ‘Complexity of the situation’.

The practical relevance of the article lies in applying the obtained results during interaction with the groups having experience of coping with complex social situations to further integrate this expertise into life through the symbolization and conscious choice of strategies to overcome such situations.