Psychology in Russia-State of the Art最新文献

Background: Initial psychological papers on COVID-19, mental health and wellbeing 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: The problem of fake news becomes especially prominent during periods of social exacerbation, such as the coronavirus pandemic, wherein the events have a significant impact on many lives. Generational differences are considered as a factor affecting perceptions of the reliability of news.

Objective: The aim of this study was to reveal and compare the social representations of information reliability and news verification criteria among people belonging to the Generation of Reforms (born 1968-1981), the Millennial Generation (1982-2000) and Generation Z (2001 and later) in Russia.

Design: The study involved 431 participants and was comprised of two stages: focus groups and a survey. The data analysis methods employed were thematic analysis, qualitative and quantitative content analysis, coefficient of positive answers (according to J. Abric), Kruskal-Wallis H test, Pearson's chi-square test, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, and Kendall's t-rank correlation coefficient.

Results: We have found significant differences between the Generation of Reforms (CPA: 80,5; p = 0,000) and Generation Z (CPA: 90,2; p = 0,000), and similarities between the Millennial Generation (CPA: 90,3; p = 0,000) and Generation Z, in the structure and content of social representations regarding "fakes". Notably, Generation Z favors a fact-checking strategy to identify news reliability, while "Reformists" rely on offline contacts.

Conclusion: Generations in Russia differ with respect to their tolerance of "fakes" and their strategies for news verification. The results advance our understanding of "fakes" as purely social constructs. The attribution of media incompetence to older and younger cohorts by each other was discussed as the generational conflict.

Background: Relatives of patients withaddictive disorders often face significant difficulties in their daily lives. Although the burnout concept is currently considered a significant and promising theoretical framework for studying family members who care for chronically ill patients, its application has encountered considerable difficulties in the area of addiction treatment.

Objective: This article explores the methodology for studying the psychological issues arising in families affected by addictive disorders. We analyzed the social, economic, and cultural conditions of the different study models developed in this field, and identified the difficulties hindering the acceptance of the burnout concept as a theoretical construct for investigation.

Results: There are several main obstacles to the burnout concept's application to studying the psychology of addictive patients' families. These obstacles are: 1) a stigmatizing attitude toward the relatives, labelling them as dysfunctional/codependent, or merely passive recipients adjusting to stressful and challenging circumstances; 2) a sole focus on the destructive elements of the "informal caregiver - addicted patient" relationship dynamics; 3) underestimation of relatives' willingness, experience, and knowledge in the care of their addicted family member and failure to recognize their right to participate in treatment decision-making; and 4) lack of specialized tools for assessing burnout and its opposite pole - the engagement of addicts' relatives during the patients' care.

Conclusion: Application of the burnout concept as a theoretical framework allows us to reformulate many psychopathological phenomena described in the family members of addicts, and expands the perspective of psychotherapy by providing the opportunity to conduct interventions to improve relatives' functioning as caregivers. This, in turn, will contribute to the effectiveness of treatment outcomes for bothaddicts and their families.

Background: The theoretical basis of this study was the resource approach (Morosanova 2014, 2017), in which the conscious self-regulation of learning activity is understood as a meta-resource for students, allowing them to consciously and independently set learning goals and manage their achievement. This approach made it possible to create models of direct and mediate contributions of self-regulation and school engagement not only to academic performance, but also to other motivational and personal competencies.

Objective: Our study aimed to investigate the impact of conscious self-regulation, school engagement, motivation, and personality on academic achievement, while taking into account the effects of mediation.

Design: A quantitative research design was applied, using data collected from more than 1524 students from the 5^th to 11^th grades in Russian schools and applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).

Results: The results allowed us to construct a statistical model of predictors of students' academic achievement. The model was verified on the total sample, as well as samples differing in gender and age. The results show that conscious self-regulation is central to non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. For the first time, a study has revealed and described the reciprocal relationship between self-regulation, academic motivation, school engagement, and academic performance. The resulting model demonstrates that behavioral and cognitive engagement make a significant contribution to academic performance, while emotional and social engagement do not find significant links with it, although they determine other areas of school life.

Conclusion: Our paper investigates the nature and strength of the effects of major non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. The study results substantiated the resource role of conscious self-regulation not only for students' academic performance, but also for their academic motivation, school engagement, and attitude toward learning. The predictor model of academic achievement we developed will provide a foundation for combining existing heterogeneous concepts into a single integrated model and clarify the contradictions between them.

Background: Following the new line of research on Family Social Capital, this work focused on the adaptation and application of the Family Social Capital questionnaire to studying the association between Family Social Capital (FSC) and the intention of Russian females to start a business.

Objective: This study investigated the relationship between three dimensions of Family Social Capital (Structural, Cognitive, and Bonding) and components of Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) operationalized via Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior among females in Russia.

Design: Online survey participants (N=222) were assessed with 1) an adapted version of the FSC questionnaire (Álvarez et al., 2019); and 2) the EI questionnaire previously verified on a large Russian sample within Social Capital research (Tatarko & Schmidt, 2015).

Results: The study confirmed the positive relationship of EI with two dimensions of FSC: Structural FSC (namely, the frequency of time spent with significant family members) and Bonding FSC (namely, family resources that can be activated in various life situations). Both positive relationships are mediated by Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) - one's feeling of being capable to act upon one's intentions. The third dimension of FSC - Cognitive FSC (namely, family cohesion and intra-family trust) - showed no association with the intention to start a business among Russian females.

Conclusion: Russian women with higher levels of EI demonstrated higher investment in family time with significant family members (Structural FSC) and reported exposure to larger intra-family resources (Bonding FSC). These two factors, even though not strengthened with a supportive and trustworthy family atmosphere (Cognitive FSC), provided the sense of confidence and control, which empowered the women with the courage to take preliminary actions with the intention of starting their own businesses.

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: Kindness and acts of kindness have the potential to cause tremendously positive effects on subjective well-being, reflected in improvements in mental and physical health, and interpersonal relationships. Fostering knowledge about kindness may help in self-development and psychotherapeutic interventions aimed to improve an individual's emotional well-being. However, existing research data and understanding of this phenomenon in Russia, as well as descriptions of acts of kindness, are presently relatively limited.

Objective: To study the Russian understanding of kindness, its meaning in the Russian context; to categorize a variety of identified acts of kindness; and to define kindness based on the data derived from a Russian sample.

Design: There were 291 Russian participants, recruited using an online recruiting platform, who filled out an online questionnaire that identified definitions of kindness with corresponding examples. Also captured in the sample were the participant's age, gender, and religiosity. The data underwent qualitative analysis through open, axial, and focused coding.

Results: As a result of qualitative analysis, four theme categories emerged to define kindness: a) personal states and qualities (one's own states and self-perception, moral values and qualities, self-regulation and emotional stability); b) openness to others (attention to others, love and positive attitude); c) emotional and cognitive understanding of others and tolerance, actions and behavior (altruistic sacrifice, help, politeness and respect, forgiveness, generosity, pleasing actions). Concrete examples of kind acts and behavior were categorized. A definition of kindness was formulated based on the data.

Conclusion: The research results can be used in training, counselling, and therapeutic sessions to increase subjective well-being. Directions for further research have been defined.

Background: The spread of COVID-19 has forced organizations to quickly offer remote work arrangements to employees.

Objective: The study focuses on remote work during the first wave of the pandemic and describes how Russian employees experienced remote work. The research has three main objectives: (1) to investigate the influence of gender and age on employees' perceptions of remote work; (2) to investigate the relationship between remote work and psychosocial variables, such as remote work stress, remote work engagement, and family-work conflict; (3) to examine whether and how much such psychosocial factors are related to remote work satisfaction and job performance. These objectives were the basis for developing six hypotheses.

Design: A cross-sectional study involved 313 Russian employees. Data were collected using an online survey distributed in April and May 2020. The hypotheses were tested using ANOVA, correlations, and multiple linear regression analyses.

Results: Women experienced more stress and more engagement when working remotely; older employees perceived remote work as a less positive experience; opinions about remote work and remote work engagement were positively related to remote work satisfaction; leader-member exchange (LMX) was a significant predictor of job performance.

Conclusion: During the lockdown, remote work was perceived as a positive experience. We discuss some practical implications for organizations and managers.

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: The 120th anniversary was celebrated in 2022 of the birth of the outstanding Soviet scientist P.Ya. Galperin (1902-1988), who made a significant contribution to the development of Russian psychology.

Objective: To analyze the significance of P.Ya. Galperin's concept of "orienting activity" for the study of processes of mental development, learning and instruction.

Design: The concept of "the zone of proximal development" (L.S. Vygotsky) is interpreted in light of the doctrine of orienting activity, presenting three examples from different areas of research, where the concept of orienting activity is used to analyze the phenomena of mental development in children and adults.

Results: 1. The concept of orienting activity makes it possible to substantially concretize the psychological content and mechanisms of "the zone of proximal development." 2. The subject's orienting activity plays a key role, which is implicitly present in the method of "cognitive learning" developed in the Geneva psychological school and reproducing (according to the followers of J. Piaget) "an autonomous process of constructing new operational structures". 3. The study examines the organization of orienting activity in the process of children's mastery of the concepts of combinatorial thinking in a learning experiment based on Galperin's method of stage-by-stage formation of mental actions and concepts. 4. The role of a client's orienting activity is explicated, and its special organization by the psychologist who is counseling parents on the mental development and upbringing of children and adolescents.

Conclusion: P.Ya. Galperin's discovery regarding the structure of human activity and introduction of the concept of "orientation," and the creation of a method for studying the orienting component of action as distinct from the executive component, lead to a much deeper understanding of the central problem posed by L.S. Vygotsky: the interrelation and mechanisms of connection between the processes of learning, instruction (teaching) and development.