Mergalуаs M. Kashapov

Background. Kindness and acts of kindness have the potential to cause tremendously positive effects on subjective well-being, reflected in improvements in mental and physical health, and interpersonal relationships. Fostering knowledge about kindness may help in self-development and psychotherapeutic interventions aimed to improve an individual’s emotional well-being. However, existing research data and understanding of this phenomenon in Russia, as well as descriptions of acts of kindness, are presently relatively limited.

Objective. To study the Russian understanding of kindness, its meaning in the Russian context; to categorize a variety of identified acts of kindness; and to define kindness based on the data derived from a Russian sample.

Design. There were 291 Russian participants, recruited using an online recruiting platform, who filled out an online questionnaire that identified definitions of kindness with corresponding examples. Also captured in the sample were the participant’s age, gender, and religiosity. The data underwent qualitative analysis through open, axial, and focused coding.

Results. As a result of qualitative analysis, four theme categories emerged to define kindness: a) personal states and qualities (one’s own states and self-perception, moral values and qualities, self-regulation and emotional stability); b) openness to others (attention to others, love and positive attitude); c) emotional and cognitive understanding of others and tolerance, actions and behavior (altruistic sacrifice, help, politeness and respect, forgiveness, generosity, pleasing actions). Concrete examples of kind acts and behavior were categorized. A definition of kindness was formulated based on the data.

Conclusion. The research results can be used in training, counselling, and therapeutic sessions to increase subjective well-being. Directions for further research have been defined.

This article describes the functions of metacognition and the role of these functions in professional pedagogical thinking (PPT): the discovery of the emergence of a problemacy, the organization of cognition processes, and the management of the comprehension and resolution of the problem situation. Thinking is related to the metacognitive activity of a subject. Components and strategies of metacognition are included in the PPT process and define (by means of conscious or unconscious regulation) the efficiency of discovering and solving problems in an interpersonal interaction situation that must be comprehended and transformed. One of the conditions providing for realization of the supra-situational thinking of professionals is a high level of metacognitive activity, although the level of the pronouncedness of metacognitive activity does not depend on the subject’s possessing basic professional education.

We have created and tested new psychodiagnostic techniques aimed at defining the level of forecasting in problem (conflict) situations and at evaluating metacognitive knowledge and activity. The sample group included about 800 people (university lecturers, school teachers, and teachers who train college students). It was proved that the metacognitive focus of forecasting stimulates the formation and development of various forecasting types: proactive, retroactive, and interactive. Forecasting is viewed as a metacognitive component of supra-situational thinking and a component of the cognitive side of communication. Situational and supra- situational types of pedagogical thinking are shown to have different properties and different orientations toward forecasting activity; these properties and orientations determine the differentiation and hierarchization of these types of thinking. It was discovered that the metacognitive properties of supra-situational thinking are achieved through a high degree of integration of all basic forecasting qualities (analyticity, depth, awareness, flexibility, prospectiveness, and validity).

The efficiency of our devised and tested program aimed at perfecting PPT is evident in the dynamics of its objective and subjective properties (an increased level of suprasituativity of thinking among the program participants and the participants’ subjective evaluations of transformation in coping with difficulties in conflict situations). The formation of supra-situational thinking—in particular, of components such as forecasting (in both a narrow and a broad context)—is closely connected with envisaging prospects, including those for one’s own professional and personality development.

The psychological basis of creative thinking training as a means of development of conflict competence of a professional includes: in the first place, the knowledge of psychological nature of creative thinking of a professional; in the second place, recognition of above situational thinking as a leading quality in the structure of creative professional thinking; consideration of above situational thinking in the context of development of conflict competence of a professional, in the third place. In order to develop conflict competence, it is necessary to learn to get above the level of momentary requirements of a situation, to detect above situational problems, to set the goals, excessive from the point of view of the initial task. Pro­fessionals, thinking in terms of above situation, while analyzing a conflict situation, start to realize and actualize their own resources, which facilitates a creative way in problems resolving. It is the detection of above situational problems that forms the basis for creative thinking and is characterized by a set of key personal qualities necessary for his self-transformation as an agent.

The aim of this study was to reveal correlation between motivation and creative professional thinking. Four hundred and seventy-one Russians of different trades participated in the study. It was supposed that motivational structure and level of creative professional thinking were interrelated. The connection between motivational components and professional thinking was revealed. Tendencies of transition form situational level of thinking to oversituational one were determined. It was found out that motivational structure of workers with situational thinking was much more consistent than that of workers with oversituational thinking.