Articles

This article presents the results of a theoretical and methodological analysis and empirical study of semantic formations in the structure of a world image as factors in teenagers’ self-destructive behavior in contemporary Russian society. During the teenage years the value-semantic bases of a world image are being formed. A world image is the integral, multilevel representation of the subject, which consists of social reality and himself/herself; it exists in the mind as a unity of sensual fabrications, significations, and personalized meanings. Transformations of semantic components of a world image that are inadequate for the environment or that are externally and internally rigid can serve as preconditions for disadaptation and for one of its extreme forms—self-destructive behavior. The purpose of our empirical research was to determine the main characteristics of basic conceptual formations in the structure of a world image—that is, attitudes, intentions, motives, and values— that serve as predictors of disadaptation in modern teenagers. The teenagers in the study were born in different generations with a ten-year interval (1990–1991 and 2000–2001). Our empirical research of the semantic world-image structures that serve as bases for the self-destructive behavior of modern teenagers consisted of two phases. The first phase provided a comparative analysis of the relationships, value preferences, and basic conceptual intentions that raise the possibility of disadaptation and self-destructive behavior among teenagers. In order to perform this analysis, we analyzed data from the Character-Pathological Diagnostic Poll (PDP) of A. E. Lichko. During the second phase, a comparative analysis was carried out of the basic semantic components of teenagers’ images of the world and self-destructive and normative behavior. The main conceptual world-image structures were defined with the help of projective methods: the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the modification for teenagers and youth (TAT-Y), which was developed by A. N. Alekhin and others. The main changes in the value-semantic orientations and personality dispositions of Russian teenagers in the late 20th to early 21st centuries were defined. The features of the semantic organization of these teenagers’ world image as a precondition for disadaptive behavior were uncovered, and the personality preconditions for their self-destructive behavior were identified: their world image is fragmentary and self-contradictory; their personality features include cognitive distortions, a negative emotional state, ambivalence of motives and disposition, and disharmony with world-image semantic structures. The indicator for social disadaptation and behavioral deviation in modern Russian teenagers is evident deformation of personal relationships as the basic cognitive structure of their world image.

The study of personal qualities’ development and the peculiarities of value-motivational aspects in groups with various manifestation levels of these qualities are of particular interest for contemporary researchers as well as for practicing psychologists who develop psychotechnologies aimed at personal value-motivational sphere management.This article suggests new approaches for analyzing and studying value-motivational aspects of personal activity, predetermining innovation activity. It also provides an analysis of a comparative empirical study that evolves value-motivational characteristics in students with various innovativeness levels.

The author submits a detailed theoretical analysis of innovation behavior based on manifestations of personal value-motivational activity. Resulting from the given theoretical analysis, a suggestion is made that the manifestation and development of personal potential is determined by values and motives. Personal innovation potential is regarded as an effective combination of various activity forms, and innovativeness is a personal quality that is manifested by a form of effective activity. Currently, psychologists are highly interested in evolving value-motivational structure of personal innovativeness.

The given article discusses the results of an empirical study aimed at revealing value- motivational peculiarities of students in groups with various levels of innovativeness manifestations. Indicative peculiarities of value-motivational characteristics are revealed in groups with low, middle and high levels of innovative qualities. Furthermore, gender differences in innovativeness manifestation and value-motivational characteristics of this quality in young men and women are thoroughly described.

New data concerning the personal and gender specifics of the value-motivational sphere and innovativeness manifestation in young adults are presented using a thoroughly described research strategy as well as results substantiation.

Television has a strong impact on gender-identity development. Theoretical analysis shows that the direct perception of different gender characteristics in advertising images has a specific impact on gender self-consciousness, primarily at the unconscious level. The purpose of our study was to uncover features of this impact.

In this study, the effects of advertising images on the gender self-consciousness of teenagers were investigated. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) Perception of gender images in TV commercials has individual variability and is connected with gender features of self-consciousness (gender type of personality, gender differentiation of consciousness, the specifics of gender identification). (2) Direct perception of gender images in TV commercials has a differential influence on the transformation of verbal (cognitive) and nonverbal (emotive) levels of selfconsciousness.

The commercials, which were for chocolate, contained different gender types of male and female images (masculine female images, androgynous images, and feminine male images); they used as stimulus materials in an experimental situation involving 61 teenagers. The contents and dynamics of gender self-consciousness in adolescents were investigated using the psychosemantic method of “multiple identifications.”

We discovered that the girls’ preferences for gender images were more varied than those of the boys. Despite different variants in the gender characteristics in the advertising images, their impact on the gender self-consciousness of the adolescents consisted mostly of gender differentiation and identification with the images of their own gender. In general, in regard to the direct impact in the experimental situation, at the cognitive level, the girls revealed changes in the enhancement of gender identification with images of their gender, and the boys were characterized by the enhancement of gender differentiation. At the level of emotive evaluation, in contrast to the cognitive level, we observed stronger dynamics of the changes in selfconsciousness (enhancement of gender differentiation and enhancement of identification with images of ideals and parental images).

The results clearly showed the quite high plasticity of self-consciousness structures and their susceptibility to externally designated images. We concluded that, in their direct perception, features of gender images in TV commercials have specific effects on the consciousness of adolescents: they reinforce already-formed gender categories and self-identification. We consider this research a pilot study, and we are planning to check the results on a more representative sample with different age groups.

The interest of psychologists in the study of safety in the educational environment and its psychological characteristics is increasing. The aim of this study was to select, substantiate, and disclose the psychological factors in the educational environment that influence the psychological well-being of pupils. There were three stages in our research: clarifying the level of psychological safety in the schools in the study; revealing the consistency of the teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the level of psychological safety in those schools; determining the nature of the influence of the psychological safety of the educational environment on the psychological well-being of the students. The study involved 172 teachers and 876 students in Moscow and St. Petersburg schools.

Psychological safety is a condition of educational environments that are free from psychological violence in the interactions of the people in them; psychological safety contributes to the satisfaction of the needs for personal trust and communication, creates for the participants a sense of belonging (the referential importance of the environment), and contributes to their mental health.

The empirical study revealed that (1) the level of the psychological safety of the educational environment in the evaluations of the teachers was higher and had more expressed differentiation than did the level in the students’ evaluations; (2) the psychological well-being of the students was closely correlated with the level of psychological safety for the teachers; (3) such components of the well-being of the students as emotional comfort, self-confidence, a higher level of cognitive activity were developed in those schools with high levels of psychological safety for the teachers.

The results can be useful in educational psychology and environmental psychology as well as when creating technologies to support the safety of school environments and of the people in them, including situations related to minimizing safety violations and reducing risks and threats.

The negative sociocultural transformations that are taking place in modern society and the resulting psychological transformation of personality and mode of life strongly require searching for ways of providing social safety to the next generation, with teachers being the implementers of this process. Teachers’ professionalism is determined by their willingness to solve personal and socially relevant problems, including the willingness to provide social security for other people, to thwart social risks, and to build constructive interpersonal relationships.

The aim of our research was to reveal and to analyze the psychological factors affecting the readiness of teachers to ensure social security in educational environments.

The environmental factors of social risk have been theoretically characterized. It has been shown that the essential factor in ensuring students’ social security is providing a safe social environment in educational institutions; such an environment provides the learners and the teachers with sociopsychological security and psychosocial well-being. The empirical part of our study was devoted to identifying negative social phenomena in the schools in the Ivanovo region (with the help of a questionnaire administered to 700 students) and to identifying the personally and professionally important qualities of the teachers and the subjective psychological factors of their readiness to ensure social security in the educational environment (through interviewing 300 teachers); the administration of the questionnaires and the interviewing were followed by an assessment of their significance (with the help of a questionnaire administered to 140 teachers). Using factor analysis we identified the relevant indicators and grouped them into six factors of the readiness of teachers to ensure a safe educational environment.

Relevant personal and professional qualities of teachers were revealed; these are the subjective factors of the readiness of a teacher to ensure social security in the educational environment: social anticipation, resistance to sociopsychological stress, social tolerance, professional orientation, responsibility, communication skills.

Data were collected in the analytical and experimental studies to determine ways to improve the organization of educational processes in order to ensure the social security of students and society in general. The identified psychological factors, their relative weight, and content must be considered when designing a system for training teachers and developing in them the required personal and professional qualities.

Years of social, economic, and political changes have resulted in intensive and extensive migration activity. The appearance of compelled and voluntary migrants has brought about the development of a new direction in social psychology: the psychology of migration. Many disciplines are connected with the study of migration, the problems of migrants, and adaptation processes. In the social-psychological literature, various models of adaptation to new conditions of a social-cultural environment are considered (I. Jasinskaja-Lahti, K. Liebkind, J. Berry; S.-K. Lee, J. Sobal, E. Frongillo). Various social-psychological features of migrants are studied: for example, ethnic identity, characteristics of psychological adaptation, emotional well-being, and mental health. In the Russian scientific literature the following problems are considered: emigrants’ interactions with representatives of foreign cultures (N. S. Khrustaleva), degree of cultural similarity (T.G. Stefanenko), personal features of emigrants (S. H. Schwartz, E. Prince-Gibson), features of ethnic identity (G.U. Soldatova, S. D. Gurieva), and many others. In Russia, research regarding the influence of the social-cultural environment on processes of adaptation were begun only in 2004.

The main objective of our study was to identify psychological mechanisms of migration flows (incoming and outgoing) as indicators of sociopolitical and psychological stability in the Pskov Region. Participants in the study were citizens permanently residing in the Pskov Region who by age and social characteristics represented the population structure of a part of that region. In total, 52 persons aged 17 to 69, with an average age of 42.3, participated.

The technique used was focus groups. A content analysis was made of the answers received in the focus-group sessions. During these sessions, participants could freely share their views on questions asked by the facilitators who had a college-level psychological education. In each group, two facilitators worked cooperatively. One facilitator was in charge of group dynamics; the other was in charge of asking all the questions covered as well as of keeping track of all the substantial aspects of the conversation. This arrangement encouraged the participants to discuss issues of the region in an open manner.

The findings allowed us to classify all the migrants and potential migrants in the Pskov Region according to their reasons and motives for migration. For example, in the Plyussa settlement, which is “depressed” and remote from the region’s center, migrants seek to escape their extreme poverty and unemployment; they can be called “survival migrants.” In the “favored” central area, the city of Pskov, migrants seek to significantly increase their income level and improve their quality of life. We can describe them as “migrants seeking new opportunities.” In a border area, the town of Gdov, people living in close proximity to other countries (Estonia, Latvia) compare their financial situation and opportunities with those of their foreign neighbors. Migrants living in Gdov tend to move because they want to avoid an environmental crisis or progressive degradation of the environment, structural unemployment, and poor economic opportunities. We can call them “migrants in search of hope and prosperity.”

In the Pskov Region, the labor (economic) situation is a typical reason for migration. Migration for economic reasons is a resettlement of people for the purpose of employment and proper remuneration. Labor migration can have such causes as a desire to change one’s job, as well as sociocultural, housing, environmental, nature, climate, and other conditions. Without a developed economy and social sphere, regions are able to prevent only elderly or incapacitated people from migrating. To retain the younger generation, it is necessary to inform people of all the possible difficulties that potential migrants may face and to make systematic and large-scale efforts to develop the region, to improve the image of the region (including encouraging the residents to be proud of and to cherish the region’s heritage and its people’s achievements), and to create a comfortable environment.

This article describes the theoretical difference between the flexibility and the multidimensionality of thinking. Multidimensionality is discussed as a characteristic of thinking that is necessary for exploration of the variability of structural transformations of problematic situations.

The objective of the study was to examine a number of theories concerning the correlative connection between the multidimensionality of thinking and other characteristics of creative, productive thinking: the flexibility of thinking; the formation of an operation of dialectical thinking such as “mediation”; the ability of a person to use a scheme as an abstraction for analysis of various specific content.

A total of 85 people participated in the study: they were 15 to 17 years old, students at a senior school in Kaliningradskaya oblast, winners of different stages of the all-Russian academic competition in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. All respondents had a high level of academic success and of general intelligence.

The following techniques were used in this study: (1) my technique for diagnostics of the multidimensionality of thinking; (2) my technique of “schemes and paintings,” designed for diagnostics of the ability to relate abstract schemes and various specific content; (3) the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (verbal battery); (4) a diagnostic technique for dialectical thinking: “What can be simultaneous?”

All the hypotheses were confirmed.

Confirmation was received of the existence of a correlation connection; this finding counts in favor of the assumption that the parameters of thinking my colleagues and I were working with can in aggregate be considered an integral characteristic of human thinking. It allows us to distinguish significant features of a situation from secondary ones—that is, to see a substantial contradiction and to propose several options for its transformation.

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.

The study aimed to investigate the basic aspects of quality of life and relation to disease in patients with malignant or premalignant bone tumors. Study participants (N=82) were aged 18 to 67 years (average age 34 ± 2 years). They were separated into three groups depending on diagnosis: patients with osteosarcoma, patients with giant cell tumor and patients with chondrosarcoma. The SF-36 Health Status Survey and the Quality of Life Questionnaire - Core 30 with Bone Metastasis (BM22) Module were used to assess patient quality of life. The type of relation to disease method (TOBOL) was used to determine the relation to disease of the patients.

According to the results of the quality of life study, patients with giant cell tumor exhibited the highest degree of limiting physical activity and reduced social functioning, the greatest financial difficulties and more pain sites than either patients with osteosarcoma or patients with chondrosarcoma. The study of relation to disease revealed that all studied groups of patients were susceptible to ergopathic and sensitive types of relation to disease. Moreover, patients with giant cell tumor experienced increased levels of tension and irritability with respect to relation to disease and treatment, while patients with chondrosarcoma were more susceptible to anxiety and hypochondria with respect to relation to disease.

Patients with different types of bone tumors have different experiences with respect to their physical and mental health, their social functioning and their general health. The results of the study may be useful in developing individualized psychological aid programs for patients with malignant and premalignant bone tumors.

An in vitro fertilization (IVF) pregnancy is stressful both financially and emotionally. Patients undergoing an IVF procedure often have already had infertility and reproductive losses. Pregnancy through IVF involves the increased risk of various medical complications. Experts around the world are actively engaged in studying the specifics of the mental state of participants in IVF programs during pregnancy. Of critical importance is the issue of providing psychological support for couples who are preparing for and who have received an IVF pregnancy. 

The aim of our research was to investigate the mental state of women participating in an IVF program. The study involved 224 pregnant women in the second and third trimesters: 62 women with an IVF pregnancy and 162 women who conceived naturally. The study took place at the Kulakov Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Perinatology in Moscow, Russia. All the study participants had encountered medical complications during their pregnancy. No significant differences were identified in mental well-being in the two groups; this finding suggests that somatic complications during pregnancy are a general source of anxiety regardless of the reason for their occurrence. The second and third trimesters of pregnancy register increased anxiety levels associated with experiences of reproductive loss and the presence of physical problems. The main resources of a woman’s personality that contribute to her self-confidence and mental stability are her professional employment and flexible behavior.

A major risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s type dementia (DAT) is the carriage of the ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene. Identifying cognitive deficits in healthy ApoE-ε4 carriers is valuable in order to develop interventions to prevent them from developing DAT. Existing evidence about cognitive deficits in the domains of episodic memory and cognitive control specific to ApoE-ε4 is contradictory.

The objective of our research was to assess episodic memory and cognitive control in healthy ApoE-ε4 carriers.

Cognitively healthy ApoE-ε4 carriers (13 ε4/ε4 heterozygotes) and noncarriers (22 ε3/ε3 homozygotes), who were matched on age and family history of DAT, were compared on episodic-memory and cognitive-control tasks. Episodic-memory tasks were verbal and visual recognition tasks with a systematic variation of distractor-to-target similarity. Executive functions were assessed by a task for updating working memory, an inhibition task, and a switching task. Working-memory capacity was also assessed.

The results showed that executive functions were generally not impaired in the carriers, but carriers showed a specific increase in accuracy-related switch costs. Workingmemory capacity was not reduced in the carriers. In the domain of episodic memory, the carriers were found to make more errors with phonetic distractors in the verbal episodicmemory task. They also tended to make more errors with visually dissimilar distractors in the visual episodic-memory task.

The results are indicative of an episodic-memory deficit specific to the carriage of ApoE-ε4. This deficit may be driven either by deficits in storage or by deficits in the encoding of the to-be-remembered material. Contradictory results concerning the presence of an episodic-memory deficit obtained in previous studies may stem from small effect sizes, the use of specific materials, and the employment of attention-intensive encoding strategies. The carriers also showed a switching deficit that possibly is related to difficulty in retrieving task rules from episodic memory. Existing empirical contradictions concerning the presence of an executive deficit in carriers may in part depend on the extent to which tasks used to assess an executive deficit draw on the switching function. In this study, there was no general executive deficit in the carriers of ApoE-ε4.

The current issue of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art presents topical articles in clinical, cognitive, social, and developmental psychology.

This article examines the theoretical and methodological justifications for studying students’ research potential. It presents proof of the isomorphic nature of human research activity and research potential as well as of the fluid nature of its development: from research-like behavior to science-based research activity. It defines three functional components (motivational, cognitive, and behavioral) that form the structure of research potential. It further presents the results of empirically studying the cognitive features of master’s students possessing different levels of research potential. It provides data on the dynamics of research-potential components at different educational levels (bachelor’s and master’s programs). Special attention is given to a comparative analysis of evaluations by research tutors regarding their students’ research potential and of the indicators obtained using psychodiagnostic methods.

Questions connected to the correlation of such notions as “image of the world” (A. N. Leontiev) and “invariant image of the world” (A. A. Leontiev) are considered. The proposition that professional activity is one of the bases for distinguishing invariant images of the world is substantiated. Based on the analysis of the professional activity of lecturers in medical institute clinical faculties, the notion “professional view of the world,” which reflects professional activity in an invariant image of the world, is introduced. The necessity for specifying the notion “professional view of the world” and introducing the notion “professional world,” describing professional measurement of the living space of medical institute lecturers, is also shown; the structure-forming components of this notion are singled out. It is also shown that the systems of relations by which the professional world is determined are by nature meaning relations (D. A. Leontiev).

This article describes the results of four empirical research studies of teachers’ notions about effective conduct in various pedagogical situations and about communicative competencies, which can help in resolving difficult pedagogical problems. The findings indicate that teachers’ ideas concerning their professional conduct and communicative competencies are rather positive. The majority of teachers identify their conduct in difficult pedagogical situations with that of an “ideal” teacher. At the same time, the results received when the semantic differential was used revealed the ambiguous character of teachers’ assessments of their own communicative competencies. Psychological training focused on deepening teachers’ notions about communicative culture was carried out. As a result of the training, teachers’ notions about their own communicative competencies changed.

The author of the article argues that multimedia content can be used not only for entertainment purposes, but also may help achieve various psychological effects on the audience. The paper provides a brief overview of the psychological research performed in the field of multimedia perception and describes the cognitive theory of multimedia learning. The article analyses two phenomena that may be regarded as prerequisites for the emergence of multimedia as a new technology: multimodality of human perception and so-called polyphony of reality. Multimedia content affects various sensory systems and thus imitates the real world, which is full of stimuli from various modalities. The author also highlights a range of psychological effects that may accompany the usage of multimedia content in the mass media.

The development of modern information technologies is causing changes in the structure of the human psyche, bringing about a new psychotype. The transition to a new level of evolution is accompanied by the growing manifestation of the psyche’s ontological features — nonlocality and self-determination. From a sample of more than 300 people, it was demonstrated that active Internet users are significantly different in a number of parameters from those who mostly use traditional media. This article examines the resources of media psychology as a new paradigm in the study of mass communication phenomena and the laws of the development of psyche.

In this paper, we developed a psychological model of digital competence including four components (knowledge, skills, motivation and responsibility) and four spheres (work with online content, communication, technical activity and consumption). The Digital Competence Index (DCI) is a 52-item instrument assessing an index and an entire profile of digital competence. In the Russian population study (1203 adolescents 12-17 years old and 1209 parents), acceptable reliability (.72-.90 for all of the scales, except motivation) of DCI was demonstrated. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the superiority of the four-component structure with the second-order index. Mean DCI was 34% of the maximally possible level in adolescents and 31% in parents, indicating the necessity for the educational programs in Russia. The motivation component was both the lowest and the least homogeneous factor, indicating that important special efforts to improve motivation to learn in Russian adolescents are needed.

Childhood obesity is one of the most dangerous pathologies; it can lead to serious illness in the absence of medical support. In this article we give an overview of the use of videogames for reducing and normalizing the weight of overweight and obese children. We discuss the categorization of the existing games and their limits, and we outline the perspectives of psychopedagogical research in the domain of game design for treating obese and overweight children. The role of long-term motivation in the treatment of obesity is one of the crucial questions we discuss. We try to understand how videogames can help children and parents maintain motivation during weight-loss treatment. The role of parents is undeniable in ensuring the success of weight-loss programs for overweight or obese children. Perhaps videogames can be the instrument for families’ lifestyle changes.

The structure of their future presidents’ images among Russian and American students was studied. The general tendencies and specific features of the perception of a future president among Russian and American students were revealed. For respondents of both groups, the significant factors influencing their choice of whom to vote for were the program of the candidate, his strategic thinking, the reliability of his team, a high degree of professionalism and competence, leadership skills, the ability to speak and convince, and personal qualities. In regard to specific features, Russian students paid more attention to the business qualities of a future president than did American students; Russian students were optimistic and considered elections capable of effecting changes in the country. American students showed less interest in political events, along with the professional qualities of the leader; they paid attention to his appearance and believed that elections can affect the private life of people.