Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, Moscow: Russian Psychological Society, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2022, 2

Background. Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) represent 1% of all gastrointestinal tumors and are included in the list of rare diseases.

Objective. 1. to evaluate levels of psychological distress, fatigue, and quality of life. 2. To identify the variables that most influence distress among Mexican patients with GIST.

Design. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a consecutive sample of 100 patients with GIST, who completed the following questionnaires online: Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) as a measure of distress, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI), and Quality of Life Questionnaire (QLQ C30).

Results. Distress was present in 31% of patients. No association was found between distress and sociodemographic/clinical variables. The patients with distress demonstrated higher scores in all fatigue dimensions and, regarding quality of life, had more symptoms and were lower functioning. Distress was positively associated with all fatigue dimensions and with QLQ C30 symptoms. Negative associations were found between distress and QLQ C30 functioning dimensions. The predictors of psychological distress were general fatigue, reduced motivation, and emotional functioning.

Conclusion. The percentage of patients with distress was akin to the levels found in patients with the most common types of cancer. Fatigue in patients with GIST should be evaluated and managed to improve distress levels.

Background. Initial psychological papers on COVID-19, mental health and well-being mostly focus on the aftermath lockdown-related stress and stress related to the disease itself. Still, we presume that personal well-being can be resistant to stressors depending on the way the person is settled in their life.

Objective. We seek to reconsider the contribution of lockdown-related stressors to existential well-being, to assess existential well-being during the outbreak and to compare the contribution of living conditions and COVID-19-related factors on well-being.

Design. An online survey was conducted during the peak of the outbreak in Moscow (April-May 2020) (N=880). The data was obtained using the “Test of Existential Motivations” questionnaire and a series of questions addressing (1) living conditions — mental and physical health, employment, and social distancing; (2) COVID-19-related stressors — non-chronic illness, financial losses, and unavailability of goods or services; (3) sociodemographic indicators — age, gender, and income. Data analysis included hierarchical multiple regression, one-sample t-test, and analysis of variance.

Results. Surprisingly, the existential well-being of Moscow citizens during the research period was moderate. Each of the three groups of factors predicted a similar proportion of the variance of well-being (3-3,9%). The strongest predictors of well-being were long-term mental health status and financial stability. The effect of COVID-19-related stressors was most pronounced when they co-occur.

Conclusion. The negative association between lockdown-related stressors and poor well-being is not universal. It is necessary to study the effect of COVID-19-related stressors in combination with individual living conditions and region-specific factors and to focus on the prevention of the occurrence of stressors.

Background. Although the interest in subjective well-being has flourished during recent decades, there is a general lack of research into this subject throughout the Arab world, and in the Jordanian academic environment in particular.

Objective. The present study aimed to identify any significant gender differences in the level of subjective well-being, and to examine the relationship between subjective well-being and social support among a sample of Hashemite University students.

Design. The study sample comprised 679 male and female undergraduate students from the Hashemite University chosen by purposive method. The College Student Subjective Well-being Questionnaire and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used to collect the data.

Results. The results showed no significant differences in the level of subjective well-being due to the gender variable, but indicated significant differences between genders in satisfaction with academics and school connectedness. The results also showed a positive relationship between subjective well-being and social support.

Conclusion. The current study contributes to enriching the theoretical literature related to gender differences in the level of subjective well-being of Jordanian university students and to examining the relationship between subjective well-being and social support.

Background. Media consumption by the digital generation in Russia should not only be of interest to media researchers or managers. The fact that young people's interaction with various information sources and the media is noticeably different from the daily practice of older generations and has created new trends and habits, must be taken into account by the teaching community, parents, and political forces. This issue is of particular interest to politicians, because it points to the need for them to transform their information policy.

Objective. The purpose of this study was to find out how media formats that appeal to emotions of young people influence their media consumption.

Design. During the first stage, we surveyed respondents in three cities with populations of over one million; the surveys allowed us to identify key sources of information and the motivation for various kinds of digital content consumption by youth. During the second stage, 20 in-depth interviews provided a deeper understanding of where the teenagers got their political news and what influenced their consumption.

Results. The authors of this paper have concluded that the digital generation does not consume political news purposefully. They rarely turn to socio-political publications and do not watch shows on federal TV channels. In fact, members of this generation mostly deny having any interest in this topic or awareness of it. However, through various entertaining, primarily humorous, content, which is the most popular among young people, a clear political agenda, albeit subjective, is being formed in their information space.

Conclusion. Our work refutes the common misconception of researchers, representatives of the state system, and journalists that the digital generation is not interested in politics. Rather, their pursuit of emotional experiences, primarily positive ones, have become their main incentive for consuming political news.

Background. Gender inequality continues to reproduce itself in hidden and ambivalent forms and leads to invisible barriers in women's careers and lives. The authors were interested in how social perceptions of gender differences would relate to the maintenance of gender inequality in various spheres of life.

Objective. The purpose of the presented research was to study social perceptions of gender differences in relation to the subjective significance of the gender inequality issue.

Design. The study was conducted via an online survey throughout February-September of 2019. The sample included 106 people aged 18 to 68 (M = 30.2, σ = 10.5), 49% of respondents were women. The authors have developed and tested a questionnaire assessing the adherence to ideas regarding evident gender differences in various spheres of life. The reliability of all scales of the questionnaire has been tested. Respondents also completed a questionnaire identifying their perceptions of gender inequality and shared their life experience with respect to this phenomenon in the form of free description.

Results. The following two latent factors reflecting different aspects of gender perceptions have been identified: “Career Inequality” and “Differences in Social Spheres”. Indicators of the subjective significance of gender inequality (which include gender awareness, frequency of gender inequality witnessing, personal experience of gender discrimination and the emotional significance of this experience) were positively correlated with perceptions of career inequalities (these support ideas regarding gender differences when it comes to opportunities for professional realization) and negatively correlated with perceptions of differences within social spheres (these support ideas regarding the existence of essential gender differences within the family, politics and everyday life).

Conclusion. Articulation of personal experiences of gender inequality is associated with social perceptions of the absence of essential gender differences in various social domains (egalitarianism) and sensitivity to gender inequality with regards to career opportunities.

Background. Emotional intelligence is the ability to quickly and correctly recognize the emotional expressions of other people and to express and manage one’s own emotions. It contributes to the success of a person in activities related to communication and interaction with people. Emotional intelligence has been studied largely in the context of organizational and education psychology, but less is known about the influence of genetics on it.

Objective. We aim to study emotional intelligence in carriers of different СОМТ, BDNF, DRD2, and HTR2A genotypes.

Design. We used three methods to measure emotional intelligence. Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test is a set of tasks with forced choice and frequency-based correct responses. We also applied two self-report questionnaires by Lyusin and Hall. We recruited 280 participants who took part in all three measures. We also identified their genotypes of the СОМТ, BDNF, DRD2, and HTR2A genes.

Results. Carriers of the Val/Met genotype of the COMT gene, A/A genotype of the HTR2A gene and C/C genotype of the DRD2 gene showed the highest level of emotional intelligence, while no differences were found between carriers of the BDNF genotypes. These data were obtained by using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Self-report scores of emotional intelligence did not differ between carriers of different genotypes across all four of the genes in question.

Conclusion. Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test scores were differed for carriers of some genotypes, whereas self-reported emotional intelligence scores did not differ between according to genotype.

Background. Psychological boundaries are defined as one’s ability to distinguish various components of psychological life: conscious and subconscious, self and others. The Boundaries in the Mind concept by E. Hartmann belongs to the psychodynamic tradition and is implemented in the Boundaries Questionnaire, which assesses the thinness of one’s psychological boundaries. Its shortest version (18 items) has been adapted in Russian but is a one-scale tool. The BQ-46 version, developed by D. Rawlings, consists of six subscales which allow for structural analysis.

Objective. The objective of this study was to develop a Russian version of the questionnaire based on the BQ-46 and analyze its structure in a Russian-speaking sample.

Design. The BQ-46 was translated into Russian and back. Data collection was arranged online. Three hundred eighty-seven (387) participants filled in the Russian version of the questionnaire. Two hundred ninety-six (296) of them also filled out four additional questionnaires for convergent validity assessment, and one hundred and one (101) subjects completed a BQ-46 retest.

Results. The Russian version of the questionnaire (referred to as BQ-33) consists of 33 items and is a five-scale measurement tool. Its subscales are generally in line with the original BQ-46 version by D. Rawlings. The BQ-33 demonstrated acceptable-to-good reliability and good test-retest stability (r = 0.86). The convergent validity of the BQ-33 was supported by associations with the respective psychological concepts. My findings supported the idea of boundaries getting thicker with age, along with some tendency for gender differences for particular subscales.

Conclusion. The study results supported the validity and reliability of the BQ-33 in a Russian-speaking sample. This tool can be used to measure psychological boundaries and assess their structure.

Background. A person’s ability to solve several tasks simultaneously, or within a limited amount of time, -- i.e., multitasking -- is becoming more and more highly valued in society, despite experimental data in cognitive science about the low effectiveness of such activity. But, in the modern world, the term multitasking has become increasingly used in another sense – that is, a personal choice to perform several tasks simultaneously even if a person could do them consecutively.

Objective. The aim of this study was to reveal the relationship between a personal preference for multitasking, its subjective effectiveness in children and adolescents, and their tendency for and efficacy of multitasking under experimental conditions.

Design. One hundred and fifty-seven (157) schoolchildren of different ages participated in the study, which called for responding to four windows on a screen, including texts (SMS) and video images, and reporting on their subjective multitasking and its efficacy.

Results. The majority of children and adolescents said (the older they were, the more likely) that sometimes, or often, they combine several tasks, and argued that their performance was effective.

Conclusion. The subjective perspective on multitasking and its effectiveness was more likely to be related to multitasking by carrying out several tasks simultaneously, than switching between tasks, and was not related to actual effectiveness when undertaking a variety of activities within a limited time period. In the case of distractions (for instance, incoming messages while undertaking tasks), they might be related to a decrease in effectiveness.

Background. During the lockdown for COVID-19, children were limited in a number of activities which are essential for the development of executive functions (play, social interaction, and organized sport). Earlier studies found an increase in executive function issues in children during the pandemic, based on caregivers’ reports.

Objective. The present study was a pioneer in exploring the dynamics of children’s executive function development during the lockdown. Our purpose was to explore the effect of the lockdown on the growth of executive functions in children over a one-year period, as compared to their peers before the pandemic.

Design. The sample consisted of two cohorts of children. All the children had been attending the same kindergartens but in different periods of time. The executive functions of both groups were assessed twice, with a year’s break in-between (the first group was assessed before the pandemic; the second, during the pandemic). These groups were comparable in gender composition, age, and family's place of residence.

Results. The results have confirmed concerns about the slower growth of executive functioning in children during the lockdown versus their peers before the pandemic, especially for cognitive flexibility and working memory. Inhibition was not significantly affected by the lockdown. Moderation analysis showed that the lockdown impacted girls differently than boys in terms of working memory. The negative effect of social restrictions on working memory was significantly higher in females.

Conclusion. Our findings illuminate the negative effects the pandemic-related social restrictions had on the growth of children's cognitive flexibility and working memory. For working memory, the effect of social isolation varied depending on the child’s gender.