Oxana S. Saakyan

This article sets forth the problem of studying social creativity from the psychophysiological perspective. Presented here are the first experimental records of studying the cognitive component of social activity. This article describes the peculiar hemispheric activity during the resolution of interpersonal problems by students of different individual peculiarities and professional achievement levels. The author shows that when the solution to a verbal divergent task by young males and females of high creativity and professional achievement is reached, the frequency-spatial EEG indexes are higher in the parietal and frontal brain regions. In the solution of a convergent task, these indexes are higher in the frontal, central and cervical brain zones. In case of young males and females of low creativity and average and low levels of professional achievement, the solution of a convergent task is accompanied by increased EEG power in the central, frontal, parietal zones of both hemispheres.

Thus, the assessment of the psychophysiological mechanisms of the cognitive component in social activity has shown that a definite picture of hemispheric activation stipulates the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various levels of creativity and professional success.

This difference, revealed at the initial stage of investigation, demands a deeper study of the phenomenon of social creativity in the professional training of a personality that is inclusive of this personality’s individual peculiarities.

The objective of this research was to assess the motivational potential of psychology students using an egoskopiya method. Heart rate and EEG data were recorded while the participants performed the Mehrabian achievement motivation test. Thirty students of the Faculty of Psychology of Southern Federal University who were aged between 20 and 30 years participated. The psychodiagnostic study involved 136 students from the Faculty of Psychology of Southern Federal University who were aged between 18 and 49 years. To determine the lateral organization profiles of sensory and motor functions, a computer-based testing program termed “Profile” was used. The Compact Russian Structure of Temperament Questionnaire (STQ-77) was used to evaluate the features of temperament. 

The results revealed that people with a strong motivation to succeed exhibited a predominance of right features in their lateral organization profiles. Their cardiovascular systems were in more activated states than those of the people who were extremely motivated to avoid failure. The observed temperament features of psychology students with different levels of achievement motivation indicated that the level of achievement motivation is related to the properties of temperament such that students with lower levels of achievement motivation (i.e., motivation to avoid failure) exhibited the temperament traits of Neuroticism and Impulsivity in addition to low values on the scales for the Sensitivity to Sensations, Intellectual Ergonicity, and Sensitivity to Probabilities. High levels of achievement motivation (i.e., motivation to strive toward success) corresponded to the psychology students’ propensities for Sensitivity to Sensations, high levels of Intellectual Ergonicity, high levels of Sensitivity to Probabilities and low values on the scales of Impulsivity and Neuroticism.

This article shows that the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various creativity levels are stipulated by a definite EEG frequency-and-spatial arrangement. Young males and females of mixed and left lateral arrangement profiles demonstrate an expressed activity of occipital, central, and temporal areas of both cerebral hemispheres. In young males and females of right LAP (lateral arrangement profile), connections are clearly localized in case of solution of both convergent and divergent tasks. Solution of divergent and convergent tasks may condition certain frequency-and-spatial arrangement of EEG in young males and females with different levels of academic progress and a different lateral arrangement profile (LAP).