Articles

Background. The article is devoted to the psychological analysis of a new problem for the psychology of a possible — possibilistic thinking. It is substantiated that if classical psychology was directed to the past, focused on identifying the connections of past experience with current behavior, then the creative potential of the psychology of the possible lies in the fact that a very significant part of it is directed towards an unknown indefinite future. In the perspective of modern methodology of scientific knowledge, research in the psychology of the possible is based on the possibilistic thinking, including counterfactual reasoning and intuitive insight.

The objective of the study: to analyze the theoretical and methodological foundations of possibilistic thinking based on counterfactual reasoning and intuitive insight.

Results. The article presents an analytical review of research in the field of counterfactual thinking and serendipity. Two main areas of research into the possible are identified — cognitive and sociocultural. The cognitive direction of research reflects the desire of scientists to correlate and compare the real situation with the potentially acceptable and therefore possible. The sociocultural approach deals with the possible in a reality in which facts are not uniquely “objective”, because they depend on the opinions, attitudes, values, and norms of people. The sociocultural understanding of the human world is based on the analysis not only of the actual world, but also of the relation of possible worlds to it.

Conclusions. Possibilistic thinking is not structural and meaningful, but functional. It is actualized when, without focusing on options for changing the cognitive or communicative situation, it is impossible to understand its current state, as well as the potential for possible development. Significant components of possibilistic thinking are counterfactual reasoning and intuitive insight. The use of such thinking gives the cognizing subject an opportunity to deeply and fully analyze not only the current cognizable situation, but also possible past and future options for changing it.

Background. Development of psychological and pedagogical competence of parents is placed among the relevant problems of scientific and practical interest in the modern psychological science. Its role is especially great in the crisis periods of the ontogenesis of mental processes and personality traits of children and adolescents. There are many studies in the scientific literature devoted to the development and formation of parental competencies, but the issue of motivating teenagers’ parents to interact with school psychologists, in our opinion, has been paid insufficient attantion. 

Objective. The study was aimed at investigating the reasons for the low motivation of teenagers’ parents to interact with the school psychological service and the possibilities of educational institutions in providing support to adolescents’ parents in developing their psychological and pedagogical competence. 

Methods. The study implemented methods of theoretical analysis, questionnairies, quantitative and qualitative analysis of the research results. 

Sample. The study involved 100 people, including 50 school psychologists with more than 3 years of experience working in educational institutions of Moscow, and 50 parents of adolescents aged 14–15 studying in the secondary education schools in Russia (Moscow, Belgorod, Klimovsk). 

Results. Survey of educational psychologists has established the fact of a decrease in the number of appeals of teenagers’ parents to the psychological services at schools. Survey of adolescents’ parents revealed their readiness to interact with specialists of a psychological service, subject to special conditions. A methodological complex has been developed aimed at increasing the motivation of teenagers’ parents to interact with educational psychologists in order to develop parental competences. 

Conclusion. The study revealed the problem of a decrease in the motivation of teenagers’ parents to consult with a school psychologist. The results analysis suggests that the reasons for this decline are associated with the peculiarities of adolescence period and the parents’ unwillingness for transformation of parent-child relationships. The parents survey revealed the problem of creating conditions for the effective provision of counseling services by a school psychologist on the basis of educational institutions. The resulting methodological complex makes it possible to investigate the problems and opportunities of an educational organization in terms of increasing parental competence and offers means of involving them in interaction with school psychological service. The results of the study suggest that preventive work with parents at the earlier stages of their children’s education in school will be effective in increasing the motivation of teenagers’ parents to interact with school psychologists.

Background. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to understand emotional aspects of safety and psychophysiological mechanisms underlying it, which are significant for the development of resources for its self-provision. 

Objective. To analyze the relationship between the feeling of safety and perceived basic emotions, taking into account different ways of presenting stimulus material, as well as individual and gender differences. 

Methods. The study implemented the oculography method (eye tracking), paired comparisons, the “EmIn” test measuring emotional intelligence, the TIPI-RU personality questionnaire, comparative and correlation analysis. 

Sample. The study involved students and staff of the Far Eastern Federal University (N = 13, mean age 26.5 years), the database included 819 measurement procedures. 

Results. Joy and anger are the most significant emotions for a person’s sense of safety and are associated with individual and gender differences established during the study depending on the ways of presenting stimulus material. The study revealed the predominance of gaze fixations in the subjects of both sexes on the female faces, on the emotional expressions of anger, fear (on women faces) and joy (on men faces). Correlation analysis established closer connections of the sense of safety with emotions of calmness, joy and disgust, less pronounced connections — with emotions of surprise and fear. Although when perceiving both photographs of faces and descriptions of emotions the largest number of choices were made in favor of positive emotions as the safest ones, analysis of physiological reactions revealed a predominance of gaze fixations on the negative emotions as well. 

Conclusion. A person can associate with a sense of safety not only positive and neutral emotions but also the negative ones. The most security-threatening emotions are disgust and anger, the safest ones are joy, calmness and surprise (for women — mostly joy, for men — calmness). Compared to men, women rate sadness and disgust as safer emotions, while anger and fear — as less safe. Attribution of emotions as associated with safety is correlated with high scores on the “openness”, “emotional stability” and “emotional intelligence”. 

The results obtained contribute to the study of the emotion recognition mechanism, taking into account the ways of stimulus presentation, to the study of the psychophysiological aspects of the safety perception, and can be used in the development of tools for training emotional intelligence.

Background. Psychological safety of educational organizations ensures the quality of training of professionals of a new formation, resistant to social and organizational changes, able to work in situations of varying degrees of uncertainty. 

Objective. The research had its purpose to study the dynamics of students’ perception of psychological safety of educational environment in the process of training in higher educational institutions, to reveal the relationship between the students’ level of professional competence and their perception of psychological safety of educational environment, and to develop practical recommendations for the heads of educational organizations based on the obtained results. 

Sample. The study involved 200 students aged 17 to 22 years of 1–4 courses of the training direction “Pedagogical education”, educating in the profile “Primary education”. 

Methods. The study implemented the case method, which allows to determine the level of formation of pedagogical competencies (unformed, threshold, and advanced) and the modified questionnaire “Safety Attitudes”, which allows for assessing the psychological safety of educational environment of a university in terms of “atmosphere of teamwork”, “atmosphere of safety”, “satisfaction with studies”, “recognition (understanding) of stress”, “perception of management/leadership (at the faculty, university level)”, “learning conditions”. 

Correlation analysis was used to identify the relationship between the indicators of psychological safety of educational environment of a university and the level of formation of professional pedagogical competencies. 

Single-factor analysis of variance was used to determine the reliability of differences in the observed indicators between the students of different courses. 

Results. The analysis of the data obtained demonstrated that students’ perception of the psychological safety of educational organization changes from year 1 to year 4: significant differences are observed in the indicators “Atmosphere of teamwork”, “Atmosphere of safety”, “Recognition (understanding) of stress”, “Perception of management / leadership at the faculty level”. The study revealed the interrelation between the 4th year students’ level of professional competence and their perception of psychological safety of educational environment on the indicators of “atmosphere of teamwork”, “atmosphere of safety”, “management/leadership at the faculty level”. 

Conclusion. The results of the study give grounds to consider the psychological safety of educational environment of a university as an important factor in the successful formation of a professional. Increasing the level of psychological safety of an educational organization is based on three actions: measurement, intervention, and prevention. The developed practical recommendations allow an educational organization to carry out psychological diagnostics according to proposed algorithm, to determine the target points in perception of psychological safety of a university environment (according to the scales of the questionnaire), to assist the students in their educational and extracurricular activities, and to implement a set of preventive measures.

Background. The crisis state of the modern world and due to it — the increased level of stress threatening to the psychological and physical health of people make the problem of identifying the psychological factors of coping with stress especially urgent. Young people are among the most psychologically vulnerable social groups in times of crisis, as evidenced by research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Life sense orientations and conscious self-regulation are considered as personality factors associated with constructive coping with stress. 

Objective. The study had its purpose to investigate the role of self-regulation and life sense orientations in coping with stress in adolescence. 

Methods. The study implemented the following methods: Crumbaugh and Maholic’s “Purpose-in-Life Test” (PIL) adapted by D. Leontyev, Morosanova’s Self-Regulation Profile Questionnaire (SRPQM), WSQ adapted by T.L. Kryukova, E.V. Kuftyak, COPE Stress Coping Inventory adapted by E.I. Rasskazova, T.O. Gordeeva, E.N. Osin. Mathematical and statistical data processing was carried out in Excel program by means of correlation analysis. 

Sample. The study involved university students in St. Petersburg aged 18 to 23 years (N = 60, 50% of girls). 

Results. Correlation analysis of the data obtained demonstrated that life meaningfulness is positively correlated with active coping (r = 0.440, p < 0.01), problem solving (r = 0.333, p < 0.01), social distraction (r = 0.357, p < 0.01) and negatively correlated with behavioral avoidance of the problem (r = –0.442, p < 0.01) and emotion-oriented coping (r = –0.500, p < 0.01). Self-regulation level is positively correlated with problem solving (r=0.606, p<0.01), planning (r=0.510, p<0.01), active coping (r=0.369, p<0.01), inhibition of competing activity (r = 0.334, p < 0.01). 

Conclusion. The study revealed that in adolescence, constructive ways of coping with stress correspond to high rates of meaningfulness of life and self-regulation. Young people who have a higher level of life meaningfulness and a higher general level of conscious self-regulation are less likely to give up their goals when faced with difficult life circumstances. On the contrary, their purposeful activity is aimed at finding an optimal solution to the problem. 

The data obtained empirically confirm the important role of life meaningfulness and self-regulation in constructive coping with stress. Analysis of the relationship of these psychological factors with coping strategies gives reason to conclude that while self-regulation allows to mobilize one’s resources for a quick and effective solution to the problem, meaningfulness of life helps to cope with long and intractable situations that require the preservation of physical and mental resources for a long time.

Background. Questions regarding what exactly is measured by the most popular intelligence test — Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM), and how the age-dependent characteristics of thinking process are impacting the performance, are still debatable and insufficiently studied. 

Objective. The study had its purpose to reveal the characteristics of the thinking process in the elementary school students, at the age of 7 and 9, engaged in the performance of the SPM tasks. 

Methods. A three-stage study combining the cross-sectional and longitudinal methods with content analysis of children’s justifications for choosing specific answers on different test items. 

Sample. 46 students from Moscow school with an advanced level of complexity (21 boys and 25 girls) took the test twice — in the 1st grade (mean age 7,5 years, range: 6,11–8,0) and in the 3rd grade (mean age 9,6 years, range: 9,0–10,0). 

Results. The analysis of children’s explanations, recorded while they were solving the SPM problems aloud, and the logical analysis of their wrong answers, based on their concordance with the structure of the SPM test, showed that there are not only quantitative, but also qualitative changes in intellectual development of children aged 7 and 9. 

Conclusion. The same mistake made by children of different age might be an indicator of the different levels of their intellectual abilities. The different ways they use to solve the SPM tasks might be due to the qualitatively different thinking processes, characteristic for a certain age. Therefore, the results obtained by means of SPM test must be supplemented with the qualitative analysis of wrong answers in order to assess the true level of mental abilities of a child at the elementary school level.

Background. The research relevance is determined by the increasing importance of involving talented youth in science. Revealing the ideas of student youth about the hierarchical structure of motivation for scientific activity will help in identifying and creating favorable conditions for young people to build a scientific career. 

Objective. The purpose of the study is to reveal general and special aspects of student youth conceptualization of positive and negative motives of the scientific activity. 

Sample. The investigation involvedthe bachelor, specialist and master degree students (N=721) from five universities, located in the Republic of Crimea, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Yaroslavl regions of the Russian Federation. 

Methods. The authors designed ad hoc questionnaire permitting to acquire common information about the respondents, to elicit their readiness to develop a scientific career, to reveal their conceptualization of positive and negative motives of the scientific activity. To process the data obtained a set of tools was applied: descriptive statistics, Mann — Whitney non-parametric U criterion, correlation analysis, cluster analysis. 

Results. In the student youth conceptualization, positive and negative motives of the scientific activity are formed into a motivational complex, where intrinsic work motivation prevails, extrinsic negative motivation occupies a middle position, and extrinsic positive motivation takes the third place. According to the students’ representations, the dominant positive motive of the scientists’ work is generativity (p = 0,021*), and the negative one is poor work conditions (p = 0,000**). 

Conclusion. In the student youth conceptualization, intrinsic motivation of scientists prevails over extrinsic negative and extrinsic positive ones; both positive and negative scientists’ work motivation contain three substructures of motives, that are conditionally nominated as the most important, important and the least important ones; the most important positive and negative motives of the scientific activity are determined, in the first place, by the needs for growth (self-realization, recognition, and esteem). The students, who are ready and not ready to follow a scientific career, imagine motivation of scientific activity in different ways.

Background. The problem of maintaining subjective well-being in situations of uncertainty becomes extremely relevant in the context of the global challenges of modern society. The significant role of conscious self-regulation (SR) in achieving subjective well-being has been shown in samples of students at various levels of education, but has not yet been considered in samples of young people from various ethno-regional groups. The study of cross-cultural aspects of SR influence on subjective well-being in conditions of uncertainty is intended to supplement this section of psychological knowledge and is in demand by modern psychological practice in the regions characterized by ethnocultural diversity. 

Objective. The study had its purpose to reveal ethno-regional specifics in the relationship of conscious self-regulation, tolerance to uncertainty, levels of stress, aggression, and subjective well-being. 

Methods. The diagnostic complex included V.I. Morosanova’s questionnaire “Style of self-regulation of behavior, SSPM-2020”, the questionnaire for diagnosing the subjective well-being of a person by R.M. Shamionov, T.V. Beskova; the questionnaire of tolerance / intolerance to uncertainty by T.V. Kornilova and M.A. Chumakova, the questionnaire of perceived stress by T. Young, the questionnaire for diagnosing aggression by S.N. Enikolopov, N.P. Tsibulsky. 

Sample. The study involved 1099 respondents aged 16 to 35 years (679 women) from the Karachay-Circassian Republic, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, the Stavropol Territory, Moscow and the Moscow Region. 

Results. A path analysis of the connection between conscious self-regulation and subjective well-being was carried out for 7 ethno-regional groups of respondents. This allowed for establishing both direct and indirect (through reduction of stress and aggression) effect of the SR component “persistence” on the subjective well-being of participants. Along with general patterns, the study revealed the ethno-regional specificity of the resource role of conscious SR in achieving subjective well-being. For the dominant ethnic groups, SR components “modeling”, “persistence”, and “reliability” serve as the resources of subjective well-being. Intolerance to uncertainty turned to be a predictor of their subjective well-being. For the non-dominant ethnic groups, SR components “planning”, “persistence”, and “reliability” serve as the resources of subjective well-being. Tolerance to uncertainty is predicting their subjective well-being. 

Conclusion. The study provides empirical evidence of the direct and indirect influence of the conscious SR components on the level of subjective well-being of the young people in various ethno-regional groups.

Background. The problem of artificial consciousness is relevant in connection with intensive development of artificial intelligence technologies and the complication of technological environment of the mankind, including artificial agents and decision-making systems. It is widely covered in the interdisciplinary discourse of natural sciences, humanities and engineering. Yet, the unresolved number of fundamental issues of a methodological, systemic, and technological nature constrains its solution. The paper considers the problem of creating artificial systems that make the world and the technical subject acting in them. 

Objective. The engineering and psychological study had it purpose to investigate the technological possibilities and limitations of creating a system with artificial consciousness based on a permanently operating network learning mechanism. 

Results. The author proposed a post-non-classical two-stage model of the mechanism of techno-self-organization of artificial subjective reality, in which techno-consciousness performs the task of a multi-level multi-qualitative reduction of a part of reality accessible to the cognitive experience of a technical subject. It is substantiated that at the current level of technology development, creating a reflective consciousness with predetermined properties is impossible. However, engineering methods allow for creating an environment that generates artificial subjective reality and reflective consciousness. 

Conclusion. The article considers fundamental scientific, methodological, psychological, and technological issues of forming self-organizing processes underlying artificial consciousness. The author proposed his concept and metaphorical model of the brain as a generative self-organizing environment. The study considers the possibility of its implementation in designing and analyzing systems with artificial consciousness.

Background. Research in the field of healthy longevity is increasing due to the popularization of a healthy lifestyle among the population. At the same time there is a growing interest in the problem of diagnosing cognitive and physiological functioning of a person in the process of normal aging. Many scientists agree that chronological, biological, and cognitive ages often do not correspond to each other and there are many reasons for that. 

Objective. The purpose of the study was to systematize and analyze the data concerning the latest trends in determining the cognitive and biological age of a person, the possibility of correlating these parameters, to identify the main structural changes in the brain during the normal aging, to illuminate the possibilities of improving the cognitive functioning of a person. 

Results. The analysis has revealed that biological and cognitive ages are complex indicators, which are influenced by a huge number of factors, both environmental and genetic. There are different ways for measuring biological and cognitive ages. Yet there is still no single method or approach. For measuring biological age, they often resort to the methods based on the complex indices, epigenetic clocks, on the telomere division and DNA methylation. For measuring cognitive age, the most recognized are those based on the dynamics of cognitive functions, which are highly plastic and can be adjusted. 

Conclusion. Due to the increasing longevity of the population, the detailed study of the cognitive age parameters and neuroprotection methods will become one of the key research trends in the field of aging in the coming years. 

Funding. The study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE University) in 2022 and as a part of the research project of the Department of Biology and Biotechnology (HSE University) “Fundamental research of topical issues of cognitive neuroscience and legal foundations of biology, medicine, and bioethics”.