Meaning of train-surfing through the frame of Pierre Janet’s theory of personal development

Abstract

The paper provides the comparative analysis of train-surfing in press and in self-reports of train-surfers. The data of qualitative and quantitative analysis of 40 mass media publications and 50 self-reports of train-surfers (15-23 years old) are discussed on the basis of Pierre Janet’s theory of personality development. The texts of train-surfers are significantly more related to the body and personage level of personality: descriptions of physical activity, activity regulators, mechanisms of social influence, social feelings, social hierarchy, special forms of memory (fabulation), confrontation of a group and an individual etc. Mass media texts are mostly fixed on the themes of danger and deviation, and suggest a critical attitude towards elementary tendencies and primitive forms of excitation in press. At the same time they appeal to elementary tendencies and processes while discussing and aiming to prevent train-surfing. The necessity of scientific research is stressed.