Articles

Background. Searching Internet for educational information has become a routine task for schoolchildren, yet there is still a lack of data on the psychological and psychophysiological parameters determining the effectiveness of educational online search. 

Objective. The purpose of the study was to identify the psychophysiological and psychological characteristics of adolescents that influence the effectiveness of searching Internet for information necessary to complete a learning task. 

Methods. During the experiment, participants completed several interrelated educational tasks on searching for information on the Internet. The number of assimilated units of information served as an indicator of the online search effectiveness. The analysis of participants’ psychophysiological and psychological characteristics was carried out using oculography method, computer-assisted assessment of cognitive control and working memory, as well as several tests for assessment of cognitive styles and information processing. The data obtained were processed using factorial and multiple regression analysis. 

Sample. The study involved 44 adolescents (40.9% of girls, mean age 13.7±1.9 years). 

Results. The result of searching for educational information on the Internet is higher among schoolchildren who demonstrate lower self-assessment of computer use skills as well as higher level of reflexivity and more frequent returns to the task instruction. 

High school students read the instructions on the Internet faster and rarely use a subject-practical style of information coding. The ability to conceptualize determines a higher speed of reading the task instructions. Compared to boys, girls rate their Internet search results higher and find the process less difficult. 

Conclusion. The study results can be used to design the programs for teaching schoolchildren effective online search strategies.

Background. The relevance of the work is due to the lack of modern tools for assessing the degree of intolerance to uncertainty, suitable for use in clinical practice and adapted to the Russian-speaking sample. 

Objective. The purpose of the work was to translate the “Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale — IUS” (Freeston et al., 1994) into Russian, to test the resulting version on the Russian-speaking sample, comparing its factor structure with the structure of original scale and its other language variants. 

Methods. “Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale” adapted in Russian, statistical methods of analysis (Cronbach’s alpha, factor analysis). 

Sample. 155 patients with a chronic incurable somatic disease (50 people with multiple sclerosis and 105 patients with complicated arterial hypertension). 

Results. The data obtained during the scale approbation demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.912). As a result of the factor analysis, the factor structure of the original scale has repeated (5 factors, 54.85% of the total variance). Five factors have been identified as follows: 1) “Uncertainty is frustrating and leads to inability to act”; 2) “Uncertainty does not allow to relax”, 3) the factor “Uncertainty interferes with planning and productivity in life”, 4) the factor “Uncertainty causes stress and should be avoided”, 5) the factor “To be in a state of uncertainty is to be imperfect and disorganized”. 

Conclusion. The Russian-language version of the “Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale” (IUS) has a factor structure similar to the original scale structure as well as high consistency, which allows to use it in the future studies on the Russian-speaking samples. Further work on testing this technique supposes increasing the clinical sample and testing the scale on the non-clinical samples.

Background. The relevance of the study comes from the need for deeper research into psychological differentiation of men and women, which allows for clarifying the issue of sex ratio in their psychological characteristics. 

Objective. The study had its purpose to identify the differences in personality positioning of men and women. Research hypotheses: 1) men and women are significantly different in personality positioning in terms of belonging to agentic activity types, expressiveness of individual profile positions and their variability, 2) the personality positioning of men and women has a complementary character. 

Methods. The study was conducted on the basis of the author’s inventory “Agentic Activity Profile of Personality” created as a measuring tool within the agentic-dynamic approach to the personality studies. This approach is currently being elaborated by the authors to emphasize the role of personality positioning systems in agency development. The inventory allows to reveal the individual personality positioning profile (18 scales), which is formed in ontogenesis and mediates the nature and direction of agency (the subject’s activity). The inventory was developed to solve the following tasks: 1) on the basis of measurable criteria to identify individual profiles of agentic activity reflecting an individual system of personality positioning; 2) on the basis of the inventory data factorization to identify the most common sets of personality positions as pervasive organizing principles, or types. 

Results. The data on comparison between the generalized male (n = 414) and female (n = 808) agency profiles have been presented in terms of their correlation, belonging to agentic activity type, expressiveness of personality positions and their variability. 

Conclusion. The obtained results have confirmed the proposed hypotheses and have made it possible to draw a conclusion about different vectors of male and female agentic activity and a complementary nature of their personality positioning.

Background. The study considers the specifics of the latent social groups manifestation (implicit, hidden, not declared, not supported by social structures and institutions) as a special socio-psychological phenomenon. The description and analysis of latent groups is relevant, since it helps to identify the “fine” mechanisms of people’s self-organization into social communities. 

Objective. The purpose of the study: to investigate the features of the social micro- and meso-environment as potential conditions for the formation, functioning and evolution of the latent social groups. Hypotheses: 1. Different conditions of the social environment are not equivalent for people of different sex, age, working in different fields of activity, having different social experience, etc.). 2. Conditions of the social environment have different subjective significance for people and in their totality represent relatively closed social spaces. 

Methods. Research methods: historical and theoretical analysis, empirical research (questionnaires), multivariate methods of parametric statistics. According to the author’s methodology (questionnaire “Dynamics of professional life style” — DPLS), respondents assessed the role of social environment conditions as “professionalism factors”, the dynamics of their professionalism from 20 to 65 years of their lives (retrospectively to the current age and prospectively — predicting the dynamics of subsequent evolution). The study also took into account the respondents’ socio-demographic and job characteristics. 

Sample. 482 people were interviewed, men and women aged 30–50 (132 civil servants, 129 engineers and heads of departments of industrial enterprises, 221 managers). 

Results. The study results support the working hypotheses. Different social spaces, conditionally named “Relatives”, “Interpersonal Relations”, “Family Environment”, “Working Environment”, “Meso-environment”, act as dominant or subdominant spheres of people’s life, predetermining many differences between them. In the processes of socialization, people form peculiar stable and universal mechanisms for actualization and transmission of social experience; the lack of such mechanisms and experience often leads to a person’s lower openness and susceptibility to other conditions of the social micro- and meso-environment. 

Conclusion. Latent social groups originate and evolve outside of explicit social norms, rules, traditions, institutions as a form of self-organization of people that remain stable in different spaces of human life. 

Funding. The work was carried out in accordance with State Assignment No. 0138-2021-0010 “Regulation of professional interaction in the context of organizational and technological challenges”.

Background. The relevance of the work is set by the need to develop new approaches and methods in psychological counseling and psychotherapy. 

Objective. The article presents the results of three research works currently being carried out by the Laboratory of Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy researchers of the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education. These studies aim to investigate various aspects of helping practices: (1) the professional competencies of counselling psychologists, (2) the specifics of the psychology of communication in logopsychotherapy, and (3) existential Self of teenagers in artlogotherapy. 

Results. The first direction emphasizes that there are many models of professional competencies of counselling psychologists and psychotherapists, accepted by various professional communities and schools of psychotherapy. Relying on such models simplifies assessing the development of competencies in students during the learning process and in practitioners with increasing work experience. The authors present the results of developing their theoretical model of the competencies of psychologists-consultants. 

The second direction focuses on the fact that one of the most important competencies that a specialist in the helping professions must possess to be effective in communication is the ability to inspire confidence in his work. A study of the attitudes towards psychotherapeutic influence in the system of the family group logopsychotherapy is presented, which made it possible to identify the main two types of such attitudes: a setting for communication as a way to transfer the information and setting for trust in the methodology and the leader. The study also revealed a typology of attitudes towards the impact of a significant Other on the personality. 

The third research direction is represented by the discussion of a study on the existential self of a client personality in the artlogotherapy. It shows how the art-logo technique “Jewel” by T.A. Popova contributes to understanding by the client the value of his own life. The technique can be used from early adolescence. 

Conclusion. It is stated that the use of integrative methods combining several approaches is a promising direction of psychological counselling.

Background. The analysis of research in the field of professional self-determination of youth, conducted at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the 1920–2020s, reveals the dynamics of objectives and content of the scientific approaches to the problem in the context of historical and socio-economic development of our country. 

Objective. To identify the changes in the interpretation of the research subject and show the process of expanding the concept of professional self-determination from choosing a profession to becoming a professional during training and real work as well as the psychological readiness for professional self-determination. 

Methods. The study was conducted in line with the comparative historical approach which allowed for establishing changes in the phenomenology of socio-psychological processes in different historical epochs. 

Results. The article highlighted the priority directions of scientific research: from identifying the interests of youth and finding a profession that meets them to teaching labor skills and abilities as a way to increase labor motivation; from focusing on specific professional branches and specialties to finding an educational route in the field of prospective future work. The authors revealed the significant signs of the further transformation of the process of professional self-determination of school graduates under conditions of the post-industrial and digital economy. They are: the increase in the independence of young people when choosing their professional future, the destruction of the tradition of labor dynasties and the loss of value attitude to the chosen profession as a life’s work. 

Conclusion. The analysis made it possible to put forward the assumption that in the conditions of the digital economy, the very structure of the professional self-determination phenomenon is fundamentally changing, being aimed not so much at choosing and mastering a specific profession, but at finding a wide scope of application of one’s inclinations and abilities.

Background. The article reveals the path of scientific development of the laboratory of adolescent psychology. 

Objective. To show how the activities of the laboratory combine with the traditions of the Institute of Experimental Psychology, created by G.I. Chelpanov, with the concepts of O.V. Lishina, A.G. Asmolov and M.G. Yaroshevsky, who stood at the backgrounds of the laboratory, and with the challenges of modern psychology. 

Results. The tradition of studying thinking, perception, personality in the paradigm of development as well as the combination of theoretical work with experiment and reflection comes from G.I. Chelpanov and his school. The study of the role of the adult, motivation and attitudes in the formation of the personality of young people is based on the works of O.V. Lishin and A.G. Asmolov, and the development of the methodology of the historical genetic approach is closely connected with the Yaroshevsky’s concept of the historical psychology of science, his concepts of cognitive style and oppositional circle. In the process of modifying the methodology and tools for studying the socialization and identification of modern youth, the ideas of G.G. Shpet and N.I. Zhinkin were applied. This made it possible to develop the idea of cultural determination and harmonization of two processes — socialization and identification. The features of socialization and identification in a transitive society are revealed, their specificity in multicultural and monocultural spaces is shown. The author analyses the complexities of socialization in a situation of uncertainty and the phenomenology arising from the harmonization of two processes, often with the opposite direction — towards society and towards self-development and individualization. The analysis revealed the new trends in the development of adolescents and youth in the digital society, the basis for classification of the information space and allocation of information fields. Particular attention is drawn to the patterns of information socialization, to the reasons for popularity of social networks and streaming video, and to the connection between the image of the world and the content of a personal page on social networks. The author describes the tendencies of the personal and cognitive development of young people associated with the emergence of virtual and augmented spaces. 

Conclusion. The article highlights the importance of combining traditions and modern approaches and the need to synthesize various scientific schools approaches as well as fundamental and applied research for the fruitful development of the laboratory’s scientific activities.

Background. In modern conditions of digitalization of education and the spread of the digital format of reading, it becomes especially relevant to refer to the scientific heritage of Academician of the Russian Academy of Education G.G. Granik, in particular, to her concept of text comprehension. 

Objective. To analyze and summarize the results of the fundamental and practice-oriented research on the problem of text comprehension, carried out by G.G. Granik and her colleagues during forty years (1980–2020); to present a new empirical study of adolescents’ comprehension of text in the process of reading from paper and from screens. 

Methods. Methods include theoretical analysis and generalization of research results on the problem of text comprehension, carried out in the scientific school of G.G. Granik. 

In order to conduct the empirical study, the authors’ diagnostic toolkit was used, aimed at identifying the level of understanding of factual and conceptual textual information. 

Sample. The total sample consisted of 173 students in grades 7–8 of the secondary schools in the Moscow region. 

Results. It was found that students who read from paper demonstrate better diagnostic results than those who read from screen, however, the differences are statistically insignificant (p > 0.05). This may indicate that modern adolescents are rather quickly becoming better adapted to the digital format and the differences in reading from paper and from screen are gradually being erased. However, the level of understanding of a long and complex text remains quite low: almost half (49.7%) of the students were unable to formulate the main idea of the text, only 30.6% coped well with this task. 

Conclusion. Conceptual ideas about text comprehension, generated in the scientific school of G.G. Granik in relation to traditional paper reading have an undoubted development potential and can be used as the basis for research on digital reading.

Background. The article contains an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky`s autograph for his brother David dated 4th August, 1917. Meaning reconstruction of this autograph not only sheds light on L.S. Vygotsky`s understanding of the art phenomenon during his early (pre-psychological) stage of work, but also helps us to assume his worldview position at this period. 

Objective. Reconstruction of L.S. Vygotsky`s understanding of the phenomenon of art at the period between two revolutions and comparison of this understanding with the concept of art given in his “Psychology of Art”. 

Methods. Elements of source analysis, theoretical analysis of literature devoted to the specified stages of L.S. Vygotsky`s life, analysis of archival documents. 

Results. In his autograph L.S. Vygotsky contrasts two understandings of art: art as a social sign activity for transmitting feelings between individuals (L.N. Tolstoy) and art as a supra-individual spiritual phenomenon, a metaphysical human activity purposed to justify the world (F. Nietzsche). At the time of August 4, 1917, L.S. Vygotsky agrees with Nietzsche`s concept of art as the idea of an instrument for justifying the world is close to him because of his personality and professional crisis. Later, in his “Psychology of Art” L.S. Vygotsky gives the art definition that is closer to the socially oriented definition of L.N. Tolstoy, thus moving away from metaphysics. 

Conclusion. The presented analysis of L.S. Vygotsky’s autograph is important for understanding his moods and thought at the period between two revolutions of 1917. It also reflects the nonlinearity of L.S. Vygotsky`s professional search throughout his life.