The paper presents the research results that deal with the dependence of individual adolescent autonomy on the characteristics of the social situation of development, i.e. the nature of parent-child relationships and relationships with peers from the perspective of the developmental approach (L.Vygotsky). Non-linear nature of the development and heterochronic components of adolescent autonomy are shown. The highest rates are identified for the evaluative and cognitive components of autonomy, while the lowest ones are identified for emotional components at a fairly low level of behavioural autonomy. Individual autonomy develops functional unity of all the components that form its value-affective and operational-technical component. Advanced development of cognitive autonomy due to the transition to the education and career with elements of self-education is the basis of the formation of behavioural and value autonomy. The latter determines the vector of motivation and sense of identity and consequently also creates conditions for achieving emotional autonomy by adopting self-worth and self-sufficiency. Features of relations with parents and peers in five groups of adolescents, whose individual autonomy level and structure vary, are identified and described.

A relation of autonomy level and its individual components to the nature of the adolescent relationship with parents and peers is identified. The most important parameters for autonomy development are as follows: parent-child relationship as parental control, freedom and autonomy in parent-child relations, cooperation. Relationships with parents and peers play different roles in developing adolescent autonomy. In relations with parents, adolescents get aware of the need for autonomy and motivation. In relationships with peers, the need for autonomy, approbation, role experiments with value choice and decision-making, their behaviour and activities become subjective.

This paper discusses diverse theoretical approaches to the study of adolescent personal autonomy, including psychoanalytic approach (A. Freud, M. Mahler, P. Blos), attachment theory (J. Bowlby, Ainsworth, M. P. Crittenden), self-determination theory (E. Deci and R. Ryan), activity approach (A.N. Leontiev, D.A. Leontiev) and developmental approach (El’konin, T.V. Dragunova, L.I. Bozhovich, G.A. Zuckerman, G.V. Burmenskaya). Analysis of the adolescent personal autonomy has demonstrated the diversity of theoretical approaches and empirical research to explain the phenomenology, mechanisms and conditions of developing the complex personality constructs. The study of modern foreign and Russian research has allowed to analyze the main ways of separating from parents and the role of social context in shaping adolescent autonomy.

The paper describes the structure of adolescent personal autonomy construct. During its operationalization, the necessity of including the moral autonomy as part of the value autonomy in the four-tier personal autonomy is emphasized. The significance of parent-child relationship for developing adolescent personal autonomy is outlined. On the one hand, autonomy is represented as a characteristic of the relationship, i.e. social background, and on the other hand, it is the I-image used by a teenager as pattern in relationships with adults and peers. The paper highlights the benefits of the developmental approach in the research of the personal autonomy and presents how to use the concept of social situation development. The developmental approach that considers the social situation of development as a hierarchy of social contexts that determine the vector and development of the key age-dependent features, opens the opportunity of studying the orienting activity in the system of social and interpersonal relations in the development of personal autonomy.