Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 2013, 1

Since the publication of its first issue in 2008, Psychology in Russia: State of the Art had served as a flagship journal for the Russian Psychological Society and has played an important and unique role for the field of psychology in Russia. And with the psychological science rapidly becoming increasingly international, integrated and multidisciplinary, the journal today enjoys a wide international readership and is becoming a source of scholarship in psychology worldwide.

This year marks the transition of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art from annual to quarterly publication to encourage exploration, development and validation of new scholarly discoveries in the field. This required our editorial team to streamline the journal’s review and publication processes to meet the challenge and see our journal evolve as it continues to grow in size and influence.

This chapter explains the strategy for the sociocultural reform of education as a socialization institution that plays a key role in the focused development of value systems, standards, paradigms, and behavioral patterns in the population of Russia. The author reveals the role education plays in modeling such phenomena of social development as the social consolidation of society, the civil identity of representatives of various social groups and national cultures, the encouragement of social confidence, the successful socialization of oncoming generations, and the social stratification of the population of Russia. This chapter also considers the benefits of the sociocultural reform of education as a growth driver for the competitive strength of the individual, the society, and the state and for the further design of long-term programs for the social and economic development of Russia, including the federal education-development program.

Over the past several years, the possibilities for Russia’s economic growth have been discussed widely. This problem is unquestionably topical. However, do material factors alone determine the well-being of a society and its people? Since the mid-1980s, the overwhelming majority of indicators of the psychological state of Russian society have been demonstrating a negative tendency, and this trend not only reflects on the citizens’ sense of self but also creates obstacles on the way to the country’s innovative development.

This article presents an analysis of Vygotsky’s work on the psychology of art and his use of the image of Hamlet in the psychological analysis of personality. It also describes the capabilities of the dialectic method for assessing psychological problems. Reference to three dialectical oppositions—of the story and the plot, of the main character’s spinelessness and his insanity, and of subject and personality—allows the development of a theoretical analysis of the psychology of personality in its relationship to culture. Culture is defined as the system of normative situations. Keywords: image of Hamlet, dialectic method, culture, normative situation, personality, subject.

The work presents historiographic and theoretical methodological study of establishment of fundamental theses of L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical concept within the field of clinical psychology.

We prove potency in application of contemporary philosophical concepts, which help distinguish between the types of scientific rationality (classical, nonclassical, and postnonclassical), for scientific reflection over the development of psychology and designation of paradigmatic status of cultural-historic concept suggested by L.S. Vygotsky and Vygotsky-Luria syndrome approach at the contemporary stage of science.

Present study of scientific works of L.S. Vygotsky and his followers demonstrated that fundamentals of cultural-historic conception suggested by L.S. Vygotsky and further developed in methodology of Vygotsky-Luria syndrome approach, these fundamentals presented the origins of not only non-classical, but as well post-nonclassical model of scientific rationality. They are characterized by post-nonclassical understanding of the object and method of psychological study and post-nonclassical mode of thinking of the scientists.

As it was showed, in works of L.S. Vygotsky there formulated general methodological requirements to organization of mental studies, which, on the whole, go in tune with the requirements introduced for study of complex self-developing systems. There were produced arguments to prove that the concept of Vygotsky-Luria syndrome approach describes mental syndromes as dynamic structures, which display the features of self-organization, self-determination and adaptive rationality. Hence, they can be regarded as open self-developing systems.

We assume and verify the hypothesis that the syndrome analysis, due to the features of post-nonclassic modeling of scientific rationality it reveals, may be regarded as theoretically productive methodological approach at the modern stage of science.

The article describes various aspects of symbolic mediation and is aimed at showing its specificity. The author views a situation of uncertainty as a structural element of a symbol and introduces the notion of a symbol being a special tool for orientation in such situations. On the one hand, a symbol is contrasted to a sign, and on the other, is regarded as a transitional form in the process of its mastering. Author pays special attention to understanding the role of symbol in connection with understanding of play and its role in child’s development. Emotional and cognitive functions of symbol are defined and illustrated by examples.

The author discusses sources for, problems in, and ways of forming a hierarchical model of the development of whole affective behavioral complexes, not just mechanisms of emotional regulation, as was done in the original level-based model elaborated by Victor Lebedinsky. The author describes specific traits of affective behavioral complexes and types of links between them on different levels. Primitive affective behavioral complexes, either isolated or rigidly linked, dominate on the lower three levels. On the fourth level attachment behavior plays a “star” role, mediating and regulating all vital behaviors. On the fifth level symbolic activity permanently rebuilds the experience obtained on the lower levels. The author discusses links between affective behavioral complexes and nuclear personality formations.

Research was carried out to explore coping strategies in cancer patients. In all, 70 women with breast cancer were studied: 35 of them had visible postsurgery deformity, and 35 did not have visible postsurgery deformity. The purpose of the research was to uncover their preferences for using various strategies and resources to cope with their illness. The results showed that both groups of women had a special set of strategies for coping with stress. The women with visible postsurgery deformity made significantly less use of resources for coping with their illness than did the subgroup of women without visible postsurgery deformity.

Over the last decade, the problem of young people's health has been among the most important and complicated ones for Russian society; these problems affect not only young children but also students in higher education institutions. The low level of physical and psychological health of young people has become an alarming characteristic of the demographic situation in modern Russia.

This study was carried out at the State University of St. Petersburg, which is one of the largest higher education institutions in Russia. The university consists of many academic departments, and thus it is possible to study the health-related behavior of students with different professional backgrounds.

The results show that drug use among students in Russia still remains relatively rare and episodic; in most cases, students use "light" drugs and thus have both slow rates of developing an addiction and an alternative but successful socialization in modern youth subculture. Such drugs are also not generally associated with significant health risks.

The article aims to demonstrate advances in methodological means suggested by Vygotsky’s cultural-historical concept in association with a theoretical model of a Person-centered diagnosis and practical use of the construct for clinical psychology and medicine. This, to a greater extent, arises from the fact that the cultural-historical concept (due to its humanistic nature and epistemological content) is closely related to the person-centered integrative approach. But for all that the concept corresponds to the ideals of postnonclassical model of scientific rationality with a number of ‘key’ features. Above all it manifests its “methodological maturity” to cope with open self-developing systems, which is most essential at the modern stage of scientific knowledge.

The work gives consideration to ‘defining pillars’ of Person-centered approach in modern medicine, to humanistic traditions of the Russian clinical school, and high prospects in diagnostics of such mental constructs as “subjective pattern of disease” and “social situation of personal development in disease” - within the context of person-centered integrative diagnosis.

This article discusses the need for implementation a cross-cultural study of subjective pattern of disease and its correlation with a particular “social situation of personality development under disease conditions”. It aims at development and substantiation of the model of person-centered integrative approach, enhancement of its diagnostic scope and, consequently, improvement of the model of person-centered care in modern psychiatry and medicine.

The mass media have become one of the crucial institutions of modern society; it is hard to overestimate their role in the formation of people’s beliefs, values, and physiological characteristics. The media industries are now an integral part of the leisure and entertainment industries. With free time becoming a key economic resource of society, the individual lives and psychological well-being of people are significantly influenced by the processes of mass communication and by media companies; this level of influence results in the emergence of a new human being—homo mediatis.

The feminization of journalism, a process taking place in numerous countries worldwide, has been advancing at a much higher rate in Russia than elsewhere. This trend is based on both global and specifically Russian factors. The gradual migration of journalism from being a typically male profession to being a predominantly female one brings about a number of inner transformations and creates a certain inner psychological climate. To fully understand these changes, researchers should set new goals for their studies based on an analysis of gender transformations in journalism and on investigations of possible problems and conflicts entailed in the process.

This article looks at the content strategies of the Russian media and discusses whether they conform to humanitarian values. The content strategies that prevailed in different eras and the social and psychological effects that they engendered are compared. Special attention is paid to conflicts of values and other negative consequences of the communicative incompetence of the media in Russia; this lack of competence poses a threat to the information security of society.

This article examines the influence of the mass media and in particular television on the development of the values of pluralism and cultural diversity in children. The role of television is quite important in forming positive attitudes toward cultural, ethnic, and other groups and in inculcating an adequate perception of social reality and tolerant, multicultural awareness. The article also analyzes the functions and principles of public broadcasting, among which diversity of programming is one of the most significant.

Today, the media are often blamed for having a harmful influence on the moral, psychological, psychosexual, and social development of people. Indignant mothers, polemicists from politics and social fields, spiritual leaders, psychologists, and even researchers of the media attribute to the mass media truly horrific effects, such as the demoralization, perversion, and spiritual impoverishment of their audiences. The most blamed medium is television. Nowadays, television is considered to be the root of evil. The author tries to understand how justified such reproaches to the media are.