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This article describes research on visual semantics, different forms of metaphor used in rhetoric and philology (tropes: metonymy, hyperbole, litotes, oxymoron, and others), and images, which are metaphorical also. The research was carried out using paintings. The authors state that the function of metaphor is to transform the sense of the image from a psychological point of view.

One of the central topics in the studies of O. K. Tikhomirov and his collaborators was the link between cognitive and emotional processes. It is important not only how emotions are involved in the process of the productive performance of thinking tasks but also how cognitive processes mediate the involvement of the emotions in the regulation of activity. The efficacy of this regulation is represented through goal achievement and also through the correction of one’s actions in the case of wrongdoing. Reformation of one’s errors is the best way to improve one’s abilities and skills. In moral philosophy the central instance of this reformation is conscience, which ensures positive or negative self-appraisal of one’s own and others’ actions. Unfortunately, in psychology this concept remains unclear. The goal of this article is to clarify it in the context of the contemporary psychology of emotion. Studies of emotions have shown the significance of appraisal in determining particular feelings. The special role of moral emotions, mainly guilt and shame, in the self-correction of one’s actions is emphasized. According to this model, guilt and shame in particular can represent twinges of conscience in the mind because the cognitive dissonance between our (or others’) actions and values shapes the basis of all these phenomena.

The paper introduces virtual reality systems as a new methodolology of carrying out both traditional and originally designed experimental studies in psychology and in a broader context - in neuroscience. This methodology, often differing from classical approaches toward planning and performing a study in cognitive, social, educational, organizational and numerous other disciplines within psychology, is placed in the context of genuine Russian and at the same time of world-wide psychological theories, conceptions and traditions. Advantages, currently available results, challenges and perspectives of the virtual paradigm in experimental psychology, psychotherapy and psychological rehabilitation are thoroughly described and analyzed. The ideas of immersive virtuality are also shown to play a profound role at diverse levels of innovative learning and teaching, including special, extracurricular, and college education. Besides, applied virtual reality sys­tems are presented as being of serious importance for the university students' training: it is expected that new generations of professional psychologists will use these systems extensively. The multifaceted theoretical activities and applied work of the staff and students affiliated with the Psychology Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University, aimed at development and usage of immersive virtual reality systems are fully presented in the paper.

This articles concerns the relatively and new and specifically developed in Russia methodology of research of social consciousness. The purpose and in the same time the method of the research using this methodology is reconstruction the system of categories (superordinate personal constructs in the terminology of G. Kelly) through which people perceive world and events around him (her). Especially it is very powerful method when dealing with political and socio-cultural issues, because allows to explicate implicit stereotypes which typically are very deep and difficult for diagnostic. Several examples from different topics of political psychology will be presented.

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 considers the potential for applying contemporary philosophical theories (which distinguish classical, nonclassical, and postnonclassical types of scientific rationality) to the specification of theoretical methodological principles in the study of clinical psychology. We prove that psychological syndrome analysis (developed by the Vygotsky–Luria–Zeigarnik school), taken as a system of principles for organizing research as well as for interpreting its results, conforms to the epistemological complexity of the object of study in clinical psychology, which is understood in the postnonclassical scientific view as a self-developing system. We present an example of the formation of a psychosomatic syndrome in 290 patients with mitral-valve prolapse, applying methods of qualitative and statistical data analysis in a longitudinal clinical-psychological study. We prove that the syndrome is system-defined and has a multilevel character, and that its structure is determined by several factors: the motivational factor (with the domination of the failure-avoidance motive and the unsatisfied self-approval need); the factor of the emotional-regulation disorders, represented by both excessive emotional repression and lack of emotional control; and a psychophysiological factor. We argue that a psychosomatic syndrome can be used as a means for approaching not only diagnostic but also prognostic tasks both in clinical psychology and in medicine. We conclude that the results of our empirical study, conducted within the framework of postnonclassical philosophy and using the methods of psychological syndrome analysis, not only expand the scientific background on the nature of a particular disease (mitral-valve prolapse) but also pose further questions whose investigation will broaden our view of the psychological mechanisms of psychosomatic- syndrome genesis.

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.

The article describes the development of an integrative bio-psycho-social model of personality disorders. This model is based on the interconnection of intellect, self-regulation, self-identity, and social relationships. The prognostic value of the category of “affective-cognitive style” is estimated on the grounds of a meta-analysis of various empirical studies and theoretical models. The article discusses the results of clinical and experimental studies that specify the functions of cognitive differentiation and integrity and of symbolic mediation and reflection in the regulation of the content, emotional valence, temporal stability, and spatial organization of intrapsychic representations of self and interpersonal relationships, as well as the systemic organization of defense and coping operations.

Authors discuss notable philosophical and psychological aspects of Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as different features of meditation techniques in their relations to psychological study of consciousness.

The article considers methodological foundations of the system anthropological psychology (SAP) as a scientific branch developed by a well-represented group of Siberian scientists. SAP is a theory based on axiomatics of cultural-historical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky and transspective analysis as a specially developed means to define the tendencies of science developing as a self-organizing system. Transspective analysis has revealed regularities in a constantly growing complexity of professional-psychological thinking along the course of emergence of scientific cognition. It has proved that the field of modern psychology is shaped by theories constructed with ideation of different grades of complexity. The concept “dynamics of the paradigm of science” is introduced; it allows transitions to be acknowledged from ordinary-binary logic characteristics of the classical science to a binary-ternary logic, adequate to non-classical science and then to a ternary-multidimensional logic, which is now at the stage of emergence. The latter is employed in SAP construction. It involves the following basic methodological principles: the principle of directed (selective) interaction and the principle of generative effect of selective interaction. The concept of “complimentary interaction” applied in natural as well as humanitarian sciences is reconsidered in the context of psychology. The conclusion is made that the principle of selectivity and directedness of interaction is relevant to the whole Universe embracing all kinds of systems including the living ones. Different levels of matter organization representing semantic structures of various complexity use one and the same principle of meaning making through which the Universe ensures its sustainability as a self-developing phenomenon. This methodology provides an explanation for nature and stages of emergence of multidimensional life space of an individual, which comes as a foundation for generation of such features of consciousness as its system character and sensibility.

The special status of the theme of consciousness in modern science is caused by a number of circumstances: considerable growth of scientific papers in the last quarter of XX and the beginning of XXI centuries, transition of modern society from the postindustrial phase to the informative, and also by the newest philosophy, new scientific ideology, ideas of postmodernism, etc.; there appeared such new integrated fields of knowledge as neuroscience, cognitive science, science of consciousness.

Suicide is a controversial phenomenon that people of different cultures and even of different epochs have had difficulty naming. It used to be an enduring theme of many medical, psychological, philosophical, and moralistic discussions. It is a paradoxical act of ultimate self-destruction, a flight from life to death. To commit suicide is to overcome the fear of personal death and to make a step into nothingness. Such a desperately brave deed requires an abandonment of one's sense of immortality, which we all have, a change of values and worldviews. But if one's suicide attempt proves unsuccessful, the question becomes how to explain to oneself and others one's recent act of self-violence. To discover these explanations, we conducted a study of 319 people, ranging in age from 18 to 25; they were all either students (n = 156) or patients in an emergency toxicology ward (people who had attempted to poison themselves, n = 163). This article summarizes theories of suicidal behavior and of the fear of death together with the ideas of cultural anthropologist E. Becker on these matters and puts suicide into the terror-management perspective. The suicidal act is viewed as a mortality salience, and the hypothesis is that people who deny their recent suicide attempt (n = 33) and who have one (n = 95) or several (n = 35) suicide attempts in their personal history exhibit different terror-management patterns in comparison with each other and with the control group. They fall back on different resources with various degrees of effectiveness. Implications of these results for understanding suicidal and postsuicidal behavior are discussed and suggestions for rehabilitation are made.

The main research objective was to study characteristics of children community`s mutual activities that infl uence the eff ectiveness of implementing security in the children`s community. In the process of training course taught using diff erent programs followed by comparison of the resulted actions in an emergency situation of three school classes (N=527) the following conclusion was made: the class that had an integrated basic safety course and at the same time attended practical classes and psychological trainings, coped with an emergency situation more effectively, quicker and with fewer personal injuries.

This paper summarizes the organizational and scientific outcomes of the 5th Congress of the Russian Psychological Society. It shows the RPS's dynamics of development since its establishment to the present day, and presents a report on the Congress's major events, and the statistics in comparison with the other events of international scientific life. Scientific sections of the Congress are grouped that allowed to showing the main trends in modern psychology. The new directions of psychological research debuted on the Congress are shown, the most important domains of the psychological science are highlighted, and possible reasons for some of them not having succeeded are given. The new subjects and objects of psychological studies new to psychologists are identified. Based on the historical view of the contemporary psychology, were analyzed the future directions of its development.

This article reveals the motives of the terrorist activity. It analyzes psychological mechanisms of basic human needs that are implemented at different stages of involvement in terrorist organizations. The authors also discuss the causes of psychological attractiveness / desirability of terrorism in the context of influence of modern technologies on the dynamics of norm and pathology standards.

Conceptual grounds of the system anthropological psychology, that allow to represent the innovative potential of a personality in the context of understanding the mechanisms of self-development of a person as an open self-organizing system, are discussed in the article.

The article contains a brief review of the concept «context» which is gaining its place among the key concepts in modern theoretical and empirical psychology. A comprehensive analysis of scientific literature leads the authors to distinguish two complementary conceptions of context – structural (which regards a fragment of a text as a semantic system) and functional (which treats it as a mental sensegenerating mechanism). The authors suggest an understanding of mentality as a recursive-contextual phenomenon, where each fragment of its subject matter exists in the context of other fragments – parallel, preceding or ensuing. Such understanding may form a basis for the contextual approach in psychology.

The article reveals the subject-matter of the systemacity (consistency) principle in psychology and some forms of its realization. Basic statements of the original version of the system approach by major Russian psychologist and science institutor Boris F. Lomov are considered. The state and the tendencies of development of system approach in the modern period are discussed.

The article is devoted to the problem of using a new experimental technology of “virtual reality” (VR) in psychological research. Methods of virtual reality actively become embedded in tooling of up-to-date experimental psychology. Next in turn there is a task of embedding of VR technologies in various areas of applied psychology like sport psychology. Application of modern computer methods discovers new perspectives for sport psychology.

The original experimental scheme was developed to investigate athletes’ functional states (FS) dynamics. The procedure allowed modeling various FS important for predicting the professional success of athletes: psychological and physiological stress, fatigue, and optimal FS (OFS). There were two main criteria for differentiation of the FS under study: efficiency rates and the psychological and physiological costs of the achieved efficiency level. Analysis of the FS-dependent psychophysiological changes showed significant interindividual differences on a number of parameters. Thus, no single indicator could be used as effective diagnostics for the FS criteria. A minimum number of indicators need to be recorded included cardiovascular indicators (heart rate, ECG), respiration, muscle tension (EMG), and brain activity (EEG) in the range of alpha and beta waves. The main problem can be artifacts induced by movement and muscle tension. The special procedure for artifact rejection and reduction of the artifacts was developed. It allowed recording EEG, ECG, and EOG signals simultaneously. Another problem was related to the development of the mathematical algorithm to analyze individual data and differentiate patterns of the signals recorded from the athletes. An original approach to differentiate the FS – the k-means clustering algorithm – was offered based on seven psychophysiological indicators. Results of clustering showed that the k- means algorithm for seven-component vectors allows one with confidence to differentiate state of quiet wakefulness, states of psychological and physiological stress. As the number of parameters used is attenuated from seven to four (without the EEG parameters) the accuracy of distinguishing FS is significantly reduced. To construct a complete and accurate differentiation of an athlete’s FS one should collect some statistical data on the dynamics of each FS in different time periods of the person’s life – in the process of training, after successful competition, and after losing competition.