Abstract:

Values can be both significant inclusive factors and barriers to an individual's functioning in the society. In the psychological conception, values can be perceived as a subjective appreciation, which a person attributes to certain things, phenomena, etc. Values are formed and differentiated in the process of human socialization into society. Some of them are shared only by certain groups, others by the whole society. Just as society evolves over time, so do the values of the individuals who make up that society. It is therefore not surprising that the change in values is influenced by a number of events with a societal impact. Adolescence is a period of storms and crises, when an individual goes through a period of searching for his own identity and at the same time the values of life. Therefore, during this period there is a greater chance that adolescents will more often engage in various risky or pathological behaviours in connection with the significant influence of their peers. The main aim of the presented study was to evaluate the current state of adolescents in the Czech Republic in the context of their preferred values and to determine the relationship between the values, the social and health assessment among the adolescents in the Czech Republic. The research was methodologically based on a quantitative research strategy. The data were obtained using the Rokeach Value Test and the Social and Health Assessment Questionnaire (SAHA). The research group consisted of 1,100 respondents, who were adolescents of primary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic. The analysis of the data obtained were performed using descriptive, inductive and multidimensional statistics in the Statistica 12 and SPSS 22.0 software. The analysis was based on factor analysis with Varimax rotation and regression analyses. The research results point to the fact that there is significant relationship between the selected dimensions of the SAHA questionnaire and the preferred values in connection with the gender and the age of the respondents. The results also point out that adolescents tend to have dimensions of values that relate to the so-called individualism, i.e. values focused on themselves raher than values associated with other people or associated with the environment. However, the differences appear mainly in connection with gender, when the boys are more oriented towards individualism than the girls and at the same time boys show higher values such as addictive behavior, antisocial behavior and manifestations in hyperactivity. On the other hand, the girls show higher scores on emotional issues, prosocial behavior as well as peer problems.

Keywords:

values, Social and Health Asessment, Rokeach test of values, adolescents