Theoretical and Experimental Psychology. 2022. 4.

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 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 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. 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 study relevance is determined by the need for early diagnosis of the formation of the object image perception. 

Objective. The purpose of the work was to develop and test the created game methodology and the possibility of using it to assess the psycho-physiological maturity of children in the early preschool age. 

Methods. Images were presented on the monitor’s touch screen: a) one-color geometric figures of different sizes and b) multi-colored geometric figures of the same size. 

The children had to recognize either a large triangle among shapes of different sizes but the same color, or a red shape among different colored shapes of the same size. To assess children’s behavior, correctness of the problem solution and the time of recognizing the stimulus (msec), a video recording was made. Processing was carried out using the Student’s t-test with a significance of differences of at least p < 0.05. 

Sample consisted of 30 (13 girls and 17 boys) healthy kindergarten children with normal vision — 3.4±0.43. Results. When testing the developed methodology, it turned out that children of 3–4 years need more time to identify different-sizedsingle-color geometric shapes than to identify multi-colored one-size shapes. The technique allowed to reveal a group of children with a specific character of the formation of psychological functions, characterizing delay in psychological development. 

Conclusion. The proposed technique can be used as a method of early differential diagnostics of mental retardation in preschool childhood.

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”.

Background. In the Russian school of the culture-and-activity approach, one can find abundant research on the mediation of cognitive processes, yet, there are still a few studies on the mediation of experiencing as an activity. There are also no studies on the age-related features of the formation of experiencing as a higher mental function. It has been suggested that frequent listening to musical compositions by the adolescent scan serve as a means of “mastering” (mediating) their experiencing. 

Objective. The study had its purpose to study the process of age-related development of experiencing as an activity and a higher mental function in the self-determined (subject) activity of adolescents. 

Sample included 42 adolescents (14–15 years old). 

Methods. Experimental study consisted of the following stages: 1) drawing “My emotional state” and completing the first part of the author’s questionnaire; 2) listening to a musical composition of one’s own choice; 3) re-drawing “My emotional state” and completing the second part of the author’s questionnaire; 4) writing the essay “The Meaning of Music in My Life”. Empirical data analysis was carried out by means of the “grounded theory method”, content analysis, and statistical criteria. 

Results. The study revealed the significant differences (Wilcoxon shift criterion r = –0.283; p = 0.78) in the ranks of the participants’ color choice before and after listening to music, a decrease in the number of formal stereotyped images (Fisher’s angular transformation criterion φ* = 1.646), an increase in the number of descriptions of positive emotional states (Fisher’s angular transformation criterion φ* = 5.582), and a decrease in the number of descriptions of neutral emotional states (Fisher’s angular transform criterion φ* = 3.400). 

Conclusion. Listening to music allows adolescents to mediate their experiencing, which can manifest itself in their engagement, immersion in the actual state — experiencing, in a change of emotional state: from calmness — to activity, from tension — to relaxation, from experiencing fear — to experiencing anger. In the process of listening to music, the teenagers gradually master their inner world, begin to understand their emotional states, realize the personal meaning of an experiencing. The content analysis of teenagers’ texts allows to conclude that mediating experiencing by means of a musical composition (a song) as a combination of musical intonation and text helps teenagers to take a subject position in relation to their experiencing.