Russian psychology in the world mainstream

A.V. Yurevich

 

The paper looks at the ratio of the national and the international in the national social and humanitarian science in general and psychology in particular. In the author's opinion, national science gains not only from integration in world science, but also from partial disintegration, beneficial for preserving national characteristics which made Soviet psychology interesting for the West and which are gradually being lost by contemporary national psychology, "discovered" by the West as a result of lifting of the "Iron Curtain". The author also discusses counter-global, glocal tendencies in contemporary Russian social and humanitarian science and the problem of the optimal ratio of the national and the international.

Key words: Russian science, psychology, globalization, westernization, the international, national peculiarities, intellectual spaces, sociocultural attribution, subject field.

 

Types of research activity in students of primary and secondary school

I.V. Ermakova, G.A. Tsukerman

 

The main types of formation of student autonomy in researching new methods of acting are described on the material of an 8-year longitudinal study. It has been proved that students' research activity in a lesson is not determined by children's intellectual or personality characteristics, but is an independent factor essentially determining academic performance. It has also been demonstrated that dynamics of research activity is a man-made factor defined by the quality of the educational environment. The nature of children's and adolescents' activity in setting new learning problems and finding solutions for them has been singled out as the foundation for a new typology of school students which allows description of a trajectory for formation of school autonomy.

Key words: learning activity, research activity, educational transitions, longitudinal study, cluster analysis.

 

Positive thinking as a factor of academic achievement in senior school students

T.O. Gordeeva, E.N. Osin

 

There are three components in the structure of positive thinking which enable the individual to perceive the world and himself constructively, optimistically, flexibly and realistically. These components are: a positive image of oneself, optimistic interpretation of past and present experience and positive anticipation of the future. A study conducted has demonstrated that dispositional optimism, an optimistic interpretive style and a positive image of oneself are relatively independent, although connected, aspects of positive thinking. Positive thinking is reliably and meaningfully connected to the student's sense of well-being and academic performance. While analyzing links between the optimistic interpretive style and performance, it is necessary to distinguish two kinds of optimistic interpretive styles with regard to positive and negative situations, as only the former type of situations are reliably linked to successful performance.

Key words: positive thinking, dispositional optimism, optimistic attributive style, positive image of oneself, sense of well-being, academic performance.

 

Influence of fairness of elections on attitude to supporters of political parties

O.A. Gulevich, A.I. Prikhidko

 

A study was conducted to discover influence of appraisal of fairness of elections on voters' attitude to political opponents — supporters of other political parties. The findings show that this appraisal affects voters' emotions towards political opponents, but this influence is mediated by group identity and personal values.

Key words: distributive and procedural fairness, interaction outcome, in-group identification, attitude to out-group.

 

Characteristics of perception of fairness of punishment in different cultures

B.S. Alishev, O.A. Anikeyenok, A.I. Kryuchkova

 

The paper analyses the cross-cultural aspect of the problem of selection of principles of fair punishment (retributive justice) by representatives of three different cultures in situations varying in gravity of the offence committed, presence or absence of the motive, "proximity or distance" of the offender or victim to or from the respondent. The subjects selected for a study were three groups of students from Russia, Mexico and Jamaica. The three groups demonstrated more similarities that differences in selecting principles of fair punishment. The Russian subjects displayed stricter differentiation between formalized (mediated) and immediate (direct) forms of punishment which are differently applied in "grave" and "light" situations, as well as a more pronounced influence of the "friend/foe" factor on selecting punishment principles.

Key words: punishment, retributive justice, perception of retributive justice, cross-cultural differences in perception of retributive justice.

 

A pet in the family system

A.Ya. Varga, E.Yu. Fedorovich

 

Analyzing the example of a family going through stages of their lifecycle from the systemic perspective, the authors argue that pets (dogs) participate in all processes of maintaining homeostasis and developing of the family system. Clinical analysis of cases of psychological malfunctioning in families with or without a pet demonstrates that pets (dogs) integrated in the family structure, just like people who are elements of this structure, can participate in separation processes, stabilize the monad stage, be triangulated members of the family.

Key words: systems approach, family system, family life cycle, pet.

 

Reflection theory vs constructivism

A.V. Nikolskaya

 

Two paradigms in psychology — constructivism and reflection theory, arguing that that they are not antagonists are analysed. On the contrary, they are complementary and can both be applied to animal psychology.

Key words: constructivism, reflection theory, methodology, psychological methods, theory of autopoetic systems, theory of social systems.

 

On the state of pedagogical psychology in the light of the contemporary social situation

M.A. Stepanova

 

An attempt to draw psychologists' attention to acute problems of contemporary school instruction: pre-school instruction, specialist subject instruction, teaching psychology at school, the uniform state examination is made. On the basis of own findings the author suggests conducting, alongside traditional psychological studies, of a special cycle of studies aimed at discovering aspects of influence of the above and other pedagogical innovations of the last years on schoolchildren's psychological development (psychological analysis of the instructional process). The author also points out contradictions in pedagogical psychology and suggests possible solutions.

Key words: pedagogical psychology, educational psychology, psychotechnical approach, history of psychology, pedagogy, education, instruction, theory of stage formation.

 

Essential amendments to the text "The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology" published in 1982 in a collection of L.S. Vygotsky's works

E.Yu. Zavershneva, M.E. Osipov

 

The paper contains new information about the original of the manuscript "The historic meaning of the psychological crisis", describing the appearance of the manuscript, providing a list of the essential amendments to the text, published in Volume 1 of L.S. Vygotsky's collection of works. The list also includes cancelled quotations, ideological replacements, omitted or distorted fragments of the manuscript.

Key words: "The historic meaning of the psychological crisis", editor's error, ideological replacement, incorrect replacement.

 

Asymmetry of abstract-concrete interactions

A.I. Nazarov

 

While reading a text or listening to oral speech, we perceive words with both abstract and concrete meaning (A-words and C-words respectively). Data available has mostly been obtained from studies of C-words. The study described looked at temporal characteristics of abstract-concrete interactions when subjects were to remember the A-word corresponding to the displayed C-word and vice versa. In another experimental cycle they estimated pairs presenting different combinations of abstract and concrete words. The study revealed that there exist different dynamics of processing word pairs (C-A or A-C) depending on which type of word comes first. The author also discusses limitations for this regularity and one of its possible mechanisms.

Key words: abstract and concrete knowledge, forms of representation of knowledge, categorical and associative organization of knowledge, abstract-concrete interactions.

 

Prognostic validity of the psychological diagnostic method "Professional orientator" (on the material of delayed testing)

A.G. Serebriakov, V.A. Kononova, V.V. Altukhov, O.N. Ivanova, A.G. Shmelev

 

The paper presents material on validity of the computerized psychological diagnostic complex "Professional orientator". The paper describes the history of the method, stages of its modification; it details psychometric indices of the current version of the test, analyzes data on testing of senior school students and on delayed questioning processed with the help of expert assessment and mathematical statistics. The authors describe the test's integral scales for specific areas of specialist subject instruction; analyze prognosis for professional choice on the basis of testing, motives for professional choice and satisfaction of students with professional choice and studies at university. The paper also contains statistically meaningful data on prognostic validity of the method "Professional orientator".

Key words: professional orientation, psychological technique, professional orientator, computer test, longitudinal study, professional choice, classification of professions.

 

Emotional image therapy of dependence and loss

N.D. Linde, E.V. Korneyeva

 

A new conception explaining the psychological mechanism of emotional dependence and loss, as well as a technique for its correction based on N.D. Linde's method of emotional image therapy is presented. The paper contains eight examples from the practice of N.D. Linde's student E.V. Korneyeva which are vivid illustrations of the method proving that it can be just as effective when used by a different therapist.

Key words: emotional dependence, loss, image, emotion, investment theory, emotional image therapy.