Volume #3, 2010

This third issue of the yearbook Psychology in Russia: State of the Art is timed for the XXVIIth International Congress of Applied Psychology (11th-16th July 2010, Melbourne, Australia). The aim of the issue is to acquaint foreign colleagues with a broad spectrum of theoretical and applied research conducted by Russian psychologists in the last few years. Russian psychology is developing intensively today. To a very large extent this is determined by the great interest Russian society shows for psychology in general and for the possibilities of its practical application. An ever increasing number of organizations employ professional psychologists in Russia, and there is an ever increasing demand for scientifically sound innovations in management, production, education, and entertainment. In the last years, the quantity of popular psychology books has been steadily increasing, which is an unequivocal evidence for a rising concern of the Russian population with psychological issues. Although Russian psychology always was interested in solving applied problems, the dominance of applied research can today be regarded as one of its most characteristic features.

The work is aimed at the studying of the reflexive process of a personality dur­ing psychoanalysis, which has never been researched empirically basing on the material of a subject's narrations of their dreams. It was shown that during the psychoanalytical process the reflexive processes of a personality enhance, become more active and change qualitatively. As reflection develops, the subjects start to think reflexively about their dreams, which leads to qualitative and quantita­tive change of intrapsychic images. The extracommunicative direction of dreams during psychoanalysis is replaced by the intrapsychic one, and the content of the reflexive processes changes qualitatively. The amount of ascertaining statements decrease, more frequent is detailed description of inner feelings and emotions of the subject.

Basing on the theoretical analysis and personal longstanding research, the author offers general characteristics of narcissism, delineates the relations between the disturbances of identity structure, regulatory mechanisms, cognitive styles and modes of interpersonal cognition, which allows predicting a wide range of psychic and behavioral disorders. It is shown that the phenomenon of narcissism has a bio-psycho-social causation, and that the contemporary technological glut as well as the expansion of consumerist values give new stimuli for the development of narcissistic and perfectionist personality trends.

The article deals with the research into social notions of such integral psychic phe­nomena as consciousness and the unconscious.The concept of social notions, pro­posed by S. Moscovici in 1961, was used. This research was carried out in several stages. Firstly, scientific definitions of consciousness and the unconscious were analyzed. Secondly, dictionaries of the Russian language were studied. Then an empirical study of social notions of consciousness and the unconscious was con­ducted. As many as 240 students of Perm State University took part in the study as subjects. The core-periphery structure of scientific and social representations of consciousness and the unconscious that is typical of modern Russian culture and common to such of its carriers as active researchers in psychology and stu­dents was reconstructed. Finally, notions of consciousness were compared to the notions of the unconscious. Studying the notions of psychic phenomena makes it possible to reconstruct the idea of the psychic that is typical of non-professionals. The process of constructing social notions can be explained by the"dynamic mod­el" proposed in the study by S. Moscovici and M. Hewstone (1984).

The author analyzes in brief the historical development of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy in Soviet Union and pots-Soviet Russia. He expresses his view on modern state of affairs between state and private practice and gives a detailed account of the formation of modern Russian psychoanalytic community and its entry into the international community.

Like other terms of social analysis, such as "modernity,""postmodern ity,""democ-racy"and "globalization,"the term "psychological society',signals a contribution to debate about the direction cultural, social, economic and political life is taking. The most tangible manifestation of psychological society is the sheer rise in numbers of people calling themselves psychologists and having psychology as an occupa­tion. The second characteristic of psychological society concerns the emphasis on "the self"as an individual psychological subjectivity, conferring identity, and locus of agency. In a psychological society, people, including, of course, psychologists themselves, acquire a psychological subjectivity, a way of representing themselves to themselves and to others, as having a psychological identity. There is a sense in which, in psychological society, each person becomes her or his own psychologist. Finally, psychological society is a society in which the circle representing human nature in psychological terms and the formation of people as psychological subjects becomes a major feature of social structure. Since such a society developed in the twentieth century in many western countries, it is natural to ask whether at least elements of such a society are now coming into existence in Russia.

The author demonstrates that the bulk of futurological forecasts do not come true as well as predictions contained in scientific fiction. In his view the systematic mistakes of such forecasts are due not to the shortcomings of predictions, but to the fact that the development of civilization is unfolding in irrational direction. It is connected with the substitution of "paradigm of development" by the "paradigm of entertainment" - the distinguishing manifested process which has psychological roots. The author states that underestimation of the changes in human psychology is still alive and well in futurological forecasts what diminishes their exactness.

Throughout human history, in-group solidarity has been achieved at the price of confrontation with out-group individuals ("them vs. us" mental scheme); this has been guaranteed by religious or quasi-religious ideologies. However, in compli­ance with some basic evolutionary patterns, the traditional mechanism of social aggression-regulation is actually becoming counter-productive and threatens to destroy planetary civilization during the next decades. The author argues that the perspectives of global viability essentially depend on whether or not the human mind develops new mechanisms of strategic meaning-construction and solidarity regardless of large-group (confessional, national or class) mythologies.

The paper studies the degree of aggression among teenagers in different social, economic, and cultural conditions. The research was conducted for the Altai and Moscow regions. It also suggests the analysis of dynamics of juvenile delinquency which is often expressed by social inability to adapt in society. Sex distinctions in dynamics of aggressive behavior of teenagers were specially considered.

The importance of success in cross-cultural communication in the modern world is growing every day. However, because of the lack of a coherent methodological framework and common terminology, there is eclecticism in the practical concepts of successful intercultural communication. This article presents the in­tegration of Russian and western social-psychological knowledge and creates a model of the ethno-cultural competence. Thus, in accordance with Russian social psychology, the socio-perceptive, communicative and interactive aspects of ethno-cultural communication are allocated and described. The three-part model of ethno-cultural competence, which includes cognitive, behavioral and motivational factors, was operationalized in order to become a base for standardized training programs to increase ethnic and cultural competence.

Optimal, or flow experience is a psychological construct introduced by M. Csik-szentmihalyi; it refers to intrinsic motivation when an activity is worth doing for its own sake and denotes productive work with high concentration on the task, distinct objectives and high level of satisfaction, positive feelings such as enjoyment, balance between the available skills and the task challenges, immediate feedback, as well as temporary loss of self-consciousness and distorted sense of time. This construct is being intensely used in numerous environments connected with the use of information technologies, including specific ones such as Internet addiction. The latter context is argued to be incorrect, since addiction means a negative feeling while flow is positive. Numerous examples follow distinguishing online gamers' repetitive behaviors referring to flow experience from those which refer to addictive behavior.

This article deals with researches on the cognitive component of interpersonal cog­nition and studies a possibility of improving it during teachers' education. Mistakes people make while estimating one another are analyzed on the basis of empirical researches. The author suggests a model describing main interpersonal cognition principles that is capable of minimizing such mistakes. The author describes the researches conducted under her supervision, in which the strategies based on the interpersonal cognition principles were studied. It has been shown that teachers using a model set of the interpersonal cognition principles are much better at es­timating children's personality characteristics, than those who are unable to use them. The author also presents the method called The Development of the Strate­gies of Interpersonal Cognition, and considers forms and conditions of its usage in education of future teachers.

The present paper reveals basic trends of psychological studies in media com­munications conducted in Russia, in particular, at Lomonosov MSU.The principal researchers, engaged in the field, are introduced: A.A. Leontiev, N.N. Bogomolova, O.T. Melnikova, L.V. Matveeva.The model of human interaction with media space, suggested by LV. Matveeva, is considered in detail. The paper presents principal results of investigation, undertaken on the basis of the present model, and focused on personality self-expression within telecommunication, as well as characteris­tic features of telecommunicator and image regulation of mediated intercourse. There also presented some trends in development of media psychology in pres­ent day research: a study of reception and recognition of emotions in media com­munication; the problem of informational-psychological security of spectator; the image of Russia offered by mass media.

The paper is devoted to consideration of self-regulation training that can be used in order to prevent a development of negative human functional states (HFS) in work environment. According to the well-developed in Russian work and organizational psychology traditions the effects of practical implementation of various self-regulation methods on job efficiency and worker's well-being are analyzed. The positive patterns of changes in HFS syndromes taken place as a result of prolonged courses of self-regulation training are described. It is shown that a successful acquisition of self-regulation skills strongly depends on (1) specificity of job content and (2) individual sensitivity to various relaxation techniques. These findings are useful for enhancing the quality of work-site stress management and health promotion programs.

The psychological basis of creative thinking training as a means of development of conflict competence of a professional includes: in the first place, the knowledge of psychological nature of creative thinking of a professional; in the second place, recognition of above situational thinking as a leading quality in the structure of creative professional thinking; consideration of above situational thinking in the context of development of conflict competence of a professional, in the third place. In order to develop conflict competence, it is necessary to learn to get above the level of momentary requirements of a situation, to detect above situational problems, to set the goals, excessive from the point of view of the initial task. Pro­fessionals, thinking in terms of above situation, while analyzing a conflict situation, start to realize and actualize their own resources, which facilitates a creative way in problems resolving. It is the detection of above situational problems that forms the basis for creative thinking and is characterized by a set of key personal qualities necessary for his self-transformation as an agent.

Management as a form of cognition implies gaining new experience and knowledge, particularly about oneself. Traditionally, the psychology of social cognition distinguishes between an object and a subject of cognition (i.e. the one who cognizes). The subject of cognition can represent both an individual and a social group. As consciousness and mentality of an individual changes in modern society, essential topics of social cognitive psychology assume new importance: society components are becoming inter-cognitive. There is a change in the structure of management relations within the management system that includes aims and functions, as well as the subject and object of management.

This paper deals with the development and main features of the cultural-historical approach in neuropsychology. A three step model of the evolution of Russian neuropsychology is proposed. The social and subjective features of disturbances in the pattern of mental functions and their dynamics in children and adults are discussed. The problems of the internal representation of defects, of the quality of life of patients and of their caregivers prove to be of fundamental value for contemporary neuropsychological investigations.

Gene-environment correlations have been studied in behavior genetics since the beginning of the 1980s, including genetic effect on the perceived family environment; however, the majority of studies have been based on retrospective self-reports. The current study is meant to analyze the sources of variance (complementary genetic factors, shared and non-shared environmental variance) in perceived family environment with Russian adolescent twins. Perception of family environment was measured with the Russian version of Family Environment Scale (Moos & Moos, 1981). The structural equation model in "Mx"(Neale, Boker, Xie, & Maes, 2004) was employed to estimate the influence of genetic and environmental factors on adolescents' self-reports. The environmental variance components are prevalent for most FES scales (6 of 10). The shared environment was significant for 3 primary grades and the Organization factor, the complementary genetic variance was revealed for 2 primary grades and the Expressiveness-Control super-order factor. These results are generally consistent with previously reported moderate heritability of FES scales, although the heritabilities for the Conflict scale and the Structure super-order factor appear to be relatively high. The gene-environment correlation might be a possible explanation for these findings.

This article concerns studies devoted to the analysis of stereotypes of women's behavior using a method of plural identification. This method has developed within the general psychosemantic approach and allows to study not only well realized social and mental representations, but those deep and implicit, too. The article describes three experiments. All of them are cross-cultural. In the first and the second experiments attitudes of Russian and Azerbaijan respondents were compared. The third experiment is focused on comparing the feedback received from Russian and US samples. It has been shown that cultural influence is more important than gender influence when we deal with attitudes towards female behavior and life scenarios. That means that positions of men and women of the same culture have more in common than responses pf women or men from different cultures. The method permits to conduct cross-cultural researches into different (subcultures both in one country or in different countries.

This research is devoted to the investigation of the role of conscious self-regulation in human development and activity. The concept of conscious self-regulation of a subject's voluntary activity and the history of its research conducted in Psychological Institute RAE are discussed. The results of the research dedicated to the typology of individual styles of self-regulation and their relationship with educational and professional activity effectiveness are presented. Personal dispositions have specific influence on the individual peculiarities of regulatory profile. It is concluded that the integrated system of individual self-regulation includes dynamic and content aspects of a personality, its conscious and subconscious structures for development and achievement of goals