Horror Stories as a Way to Expand the Repertoire of Coping Behavior of Children at Primary School Age

This work is devoted to the study of the use of horror stories as a type of fairy-tale therapy in the context of expanding the repertoire of coping behavior in primary school children. The problem of the work is the lack of sufficient knowledge at the present stage of the development of psychological science about how horror stories can be used to form and expand the repertoire of coping behavior. The paper provides a theoretical review of the phenomenon of coping behavior, psychological aspects of horror stories, as well as an analysis of existing research on the problems of work. For the study, author's fairy tales-horror stories were written, which demonstrate all 9 types of coping behavior (R. Lazarus, S. Folkman). It should also be noted that for the study, audio versions of horror stories were recorded using audio effects, background music and the participation of voice actors in order to use the sound channel of perception, the child's imagination and enhance the impression of the listened fairy tale. The total sample size is 61 people. The subjects were asked to give advice to a friend who was in a difficult life situation, the most typical for primary school age, as well as listen to an audio version of one of the author's fairy tales-horror stories. The changes in the respondents ' responses before and after listening to the author's horror story were evaluated. The results were processed using expert evaluation, as well as comparative analysis criteria. According to the results, the theoretical and empirical hypotheses were confirmed. The subjects demonstrate the expansion of all types of coping strategies with a predominance of problem-oriented ones.