Features of Self-Regulation in the Context of Subculture of Football Fans

The paper presents some outcomes of a research on features of transition to adulthood in a specific context of the subculture of football fans. This period is analyzed from the perspective of development of self-determi¬nation mechanisms. The hypothesis was advanced that comparing features of meaning regulation and ways of life in fans and non-fans may help reveal the patterns of development. This was tested on a sample of 148 sub¬jects aged 18—30 years, among which were 73 fans and 75 non-fans. The specifics of the subjects' ways of life explored with V.P. Serkin's technique of semantic differential suggest that there are considerable differences between the fans and non-fans in the rates of activity, happiness and some other characteristics. At the same time, the rates of self-determination, meaning regulation and tolerance to uncertainty proved to be insignifi¬cant in terms of group differences. However, the conducted pattern analysis (D. Magnusson) helped to reveal four types of self-regulation and to correlate them with independent research on self-determination during the transition to adulthood. The paper concludes that studying developmental processes in subcultural contexts as identifiers of personally significant meanings can be very promising.