Sabina Barszcz

The main goal of this research was to recognize the psychosocial consequences of undertaking the developmental tasks in early adulthood. We wanted to focus on verification of the influency developmental tasks (undertaking them, their importance, satisfaction, and punctuality) on the sense of adulthood, and life satisfaction. The sample consisted of 343 people, 19–35 years old. The results showed that: (1) all studied aspects of developmental tasks have a positive influence on the sense of adulthood; (2) stronger sense of adulthood and (3) undertaking two developmental tasks (marriage/partnership, professional activity) result in a higher life satisfaction.

Learning a variety of school subjects may involve experiencing repeated inability to perform tasks effectively despite one’s efforts. The negative consequences of such experiences are called intellectual helplessness (Sędek, 1995). One of the factors relevant to its occurrence may be the feedback provided by the teacher. The main aim of the study was to determine whether there is a relationship between the frequency and type of praise and criticism formulated by Polish language teachers or mathematics teachers and intellectual helplessness in a given subject, as well as to examine gender differences in this respect. A total of 381 (193F and 188M) students aged 12–16 years participated in the study. Two methods were used: the School Communication Questionnaire (Bąk, 2016) and the Intellectual Helplessness Scale in versions for Polish language and mathematics (Sędek, 1995). The results indicate that girls and boys do not differ in the level of intellectual helplessness in both subjects. However, in the group of girls, the intensity of intellectual helplessness in mathematics increases with age. Boys experience a wider variety of ineffective feedback from the teacher than girls. The level of intellectual helplessness in students in both subjects decreases along with the increase in the praise and reduction of the often ineffective criticism.