Personality psychology

Background. The need for psychological and pedagogical support for families in the upbringing of hearing-impaired children makes it imperative to develop innovative methods and an effective model of interaction between the family and a special needs educational institution, to improve parental competence. 

Objective. To study the psychological content of parental competence (its cognitive, value-motivational; emotional and behavioral components) and to evaluate parental competence through psychological and pedagogical support for families in the upbringing of hearing-impaired children. 

Design. Eighty-seven families with hearing-impaired children from a special needs educational institution in Kursk, Russian Federation, participated in the experimental study. e researchers took measurements at two time points, baseline and followup. At baseline, we made a diagnostic assessment of the psychological content of parental competence. At followup, we evaluated the development of pa- rental competence resulting from the psychological and pedagogical support for these families. 

Results. The cognitive component was characterized by predominant unanimity between the parents in the upbringing of hearing-impaired children, and a partnership relationship in communicating with them. 

The emotional component was represented by the absence of difficulties in understanding the causes of the children’s emotional state and an orientation towards the child’s emotional state during interactions or physical contact. 

Terminal values (such as health, happy family life) and instrumental values (such as responsibility, honesty) were predominant in the value-motivational component. 

The behavioral component displayed a predominance of the authoritative style in upbringing, whereby parents realized their important role in the development of a child’s personality and recognized the right of children to self-development. At the same time, the authoritarian style was still significant. 

Conclusion. A model for psychological and pedagogical support of families in the upbringing of hearing-impaired children was developed, tested, and found to be effective. 

Background. Gender differences exist in almost every aspect of our lives. Individuals have an array of different social expectations with regard to behaviors, communication, appearance, attitudes, and social roles, but these expectations tend to be based on whether the individual is male or female. Currently, many social studies have been done with the help of virtual reality technologies. They have been effectively applied to the study of many social phenomena such as nonverbal communication, social skills training, social anxiety rehabilitation, etc. Recently considerable attention has been paid to issue of gender differences during social interaction with the virtual partners, avatars. However, the question of gender differencesduring interactions with avatars of diverse ethnic appearances has seldom been studied. 

Objective. The goal of this study was to investigate the gender peculiarities of interaction with avatars of different ethnic appearances. We used the CAVE virtual reality system to study gender differences in interpersonal distances which were maintained with avatars. 

Design. We designed four three-dimensional virtual scenes with avatars of four different ethnic appearances. They were avatars of Slavic, Asian, North Caucasian, and African appearance. All the avatars were male. e participants (who all identified as Russians) were immersed in virtual environments with the help of the CAVE virtual reality system. Their task was to approach the avatar, present herself/himself in any way they wanted, and give instructions for the work. During the task the interpersonal distances between the participants and the avatars were measured. After leaving the CAVE, the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire assessing the Presence effect. 

Results. The results showed gender differences in how much interpersonal distance was maintained: women preferred to keep shorter interpersonal distances with their virtual partners than men did. Moreover, the results showed the impact of ethnic appearance on interpersonal distances. Women approached the avatars of their own ethnic group more closely and kept further away from the avatars of other ethnic groups. Unlike the women, the men stayed the same distance away from the avatars of different ethnic groups. Both gender groups kept equally far away from the avatar of African appearance. Gender differences were also revealed in the participants’ estimates of the Presence effect. 

Background. Personality is not simply an end product, but rather, it is a process. Therefore, empirical work on personal meaning-building should examine the genesis of meaning and provide a content-based description of personality in terms of personality traits. Such a description suggests a systemic view of personality, where the meaning-based approach is supplemented with the definition of personality traits. The value and meaning potential of personality encompasses three dimensions: worldview, behavior, and cognition. 

Objective. The aim of this study is to identify the properties of personality, reflecting the features of polar strategies of meaning formation in acmeological terms by age, gender, and professional characteristics. 

Design. The present study considers the influence of various acmeological factors on meaning-building and concentrates on its two polar strategies: adaptive and developing strategies. We developed nine bipolar scales of personal traits with sublevels by applying the semantic differential technique. In total, there were 145 participants in the study. Participants were grouped according to three criteria: age, gender, and profession. 

Results. The obtained indices of meaning-building strategies did not coincide in all the differentiated groups, which clearly speaks in favor of acmeological dynamics of the respondents’ personal profiles. We stratified the sample according to the mean score of the basic marker of “life meaningfulness,” which enabled us to establish differences in characteristics of actual polar strategies of meaning-building. e respondents who did not fall into either of the two groups are “between the poles.” They often have an under- developed meaning-building strategy as a result of poorly formed ways of organization and actualization of personal meanings or the presence of a transitional form of situational conceptual initiations. 

Conclusion. The personal profiles that were identified represent multifactor models of the personal value and meaning dimensions, which can predict actual meaning-building strategies using semantic differential scales and indicators (“life meaningfulness” from the Purpose-in-Life test) and help researchers to reduce the number of techniques employed in their studies.