Characteristics of the Identity of Pregnant Women in the Context of an Approach to Socially Responsible Parenthood

The aim of the study is to study the identity of pregnant women from the perspective of cognitive psychology with optimal and non-optimal types of attitude to pregnancy. The subject of the study is the identity of pregnant women. The result of the study is the formation of the authors’ concept of socially responsible motherhood in pregnant women, the essence of which is as follows. The quality of adherence to group identity explains the observed relationships; pregnant women perceive themselves on the basis of their ideas about motherhood, which is associated with optimal adaptation to a new maternal role, since its formation takes a long time. Understanding the obligations of socially responsible parenthood, taking into account the congruence of the subconscious choice of the group formed during pregnancy, gives importance to their decisions. Perhaps commitment to the group category of identity with the image of the mother can serve as a sufficient basis for the further formation of socially responsible parenthood. The originality of the study is the analysis of the identity of pregnant women on the basis of the combination of E. Erikson’s psychosocial theory of human development and H. Tajfel’s social identity theory, as well as cognitive studies of personality and I. V. Dobryakov’ study of the features of the psychological component of gestational dominance (PCGD). The choice of a woman expecting a child to identify herself with the image of a future mother provides, according to her ideas, a higher status of a group of mothers in contrast to the status of a group of pregnant women.