Pavel N. Ermakov

Background. Currently, psychological knowledge integrates theories on codependent behavior, advancing our understanding of this phenomenon. However, empirical research is lacking to understand its specific manifestations in relation to different types of addiction.

Objective. To identify the features of self-attitude and reflection in codependent women.

Design. The study included 233 women (ages 18–70), including 102 in relationships with a person addicted to alcohol, drugs, or suffering from a non-chemical addiction). The study was conducted using the following methods: Self-Attitude Questionnaire (Stolin & Panteleev, 1988); Differential Type of Reflection Questionnaire (Leontiev, 2009); and Codependency Self-Inventory Scale (CSIS; Weinhold & Weinhold, 1989; translated by A. G. Cheslavskaya, 2002).

Results. Significant differences were observed in self-attitude and reflection. Women with high codependency have lower self-esteem and tend to underestimate their abilities, compared to the control group. They also exhibit a lower sense of control over their lives, lower self-consistency; they tend to focus on their weaknesses and shortcomings and are more inclined to self-blame. Quasi-reflexivity is more common in codependent women who have relationships with non-chemical addicts or do not identify an addict in their lives.

Conclusion. There are significant differences in self-attitude and reflection between the control group and subgroups of women in relationships with different types of addicts; the same differences were observed in comparison of women with low and high codependency levels. The study contributes to a better understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying codependent behavior in women and has implications for future research and clinical practice.

Background. Personality is not simply an end product, but rather, it is a process. Therefore, empirical work on personal meaning-building should examine the genesis of meaning and provide a content-based description of personality in terms of personality traits. Such a description suggests a systemic view of personality, where the meaning-based approach is supplemented with the definition of personality traits. The value and meaning potential of personality encompasses three dimensions: worldview, behavior, and cognition. 

Objective. The aim of this study is to identify the properties of personality, reflecting the features of polar strategies of meaning formation in acmeological terms by age, gender, and professional characteristics. 

Design. The present study considers the influence of various acmeological factors on meaning-building and concentrates on its two polar strategies: adaptive and developing strategies. We developed nine bipolar scales of personal traits with sublevels by applying the semantic differential technique. In total, there were 145 participants in the study. Participants were grouped according to three criteria: age, gender, and profession. 

Results. The obtained indices of meaning-building strategies did not coincide in all the differentiated groups, which clearly speaks in favor of acmeological dynamics of the respondents’ personal profiles. We stratified the sample according to the mean score of the basic marker of “life meaningfulness,” which enabled us to establish differences in characteristics of actual polar strategies of meaning-building. e respondents who did not fall into either of the two groups are “between the poles.” They often have an under- developed meaning-building strategy as a result of poorly formed ways of organization and actualization of personal meanings or the presence of a transitional form of situational conceptual initiations. 

Conclusion. The personal profiles that were identified represent multifactor models of the personal value and meaning dimensions, which can predict actual meaning-building strategies using semantic differential scales and indicators (“life meaningfulness” from the Purpose-in-Life test) and help researchers to reduce the number of techniques employed in their studies.

Background. The catechol-O-methyl transferase gene influences the reuptake of monoamines (dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline) from the synaptic space. The structural peculiarities of this gene are linked with the duration of stay of neurotransmitters in the synaptic gap and the emergence and duration of emotional reactions, which may considerably affect a person’s level of aggressiveness; these peculiarities may manifest as psychophysiological characteristics.

Objective and design. This study investigated the amplitude, spatio-temporal traits and sources of evoked brain activity in men with several genotypes in the polymorphic locus Val158Met in the COMT (Catechol-O-methyl transferase) gene, levels of aggressiveness using the Buss-Darkee inventory, proneness to various types of deviant and addictive behaviors in accordance with the methods of A.N. Oryol and the preferred strategies of behavior during conflict in accordance with the methods of Kenneth Thomas. Statistical processing of psychodiagnostic data included dispersive (ANOVA) and discriminative analyses.

Results. This study found significant differences in the parameters of evoked brain activity components in responses to emotionally charged stimuli (“aggression”, “positive”, “tolerance”, “extremism, terrorism”) compared with neutral images. Student’s t-test (Holms- corrected for multiple comparisons) was used to analyze the EEG-VEP data.

Conclusion. This study confirmed the hypothesis of differences in spatio-temporal and amplitude parameters of evoked brain potentials in young men exhibiting differing levels of aggressiveness. The sources of evoked brain activity determined using sLORETA (Standardized Low-resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) were different between carriers of different genotypes.

The research in question investigates life-purpose orientations and values of various groups of a population living in a multicultural area with a variety of ethnic and religious communities. Members may have different attitudes to one and the same set of values due to their specific cultural traditions and religious guidelines. A common set of life-purpose orientations and values as well as distinctly different ones were identified in the research. It employed an ethno-psychological questionnaire designed specifically to that end and psychometric instruments aimed at identifying the values of the adults of various ethnic identities and religious affiliations. Residents of a multi-cultural area in the south of Russia who belong to different denominations were surveyed. It is stated that there is a substantial difference between the sets of values held by Baptists and Buddhists and representatives of other ethnic and religious groups (Muslims and Christians) participating in this investigation. The survey found that all of the Baptist and Buddhist respondents were described by a high-to-medium level of civil identity. Indifference to ethnic standards and a failure to accept the culture of their own people were found among all of the respondents; it was displayed by a small proportion of Orthodox Christians, whereas all of the Buddhists under investigation had a positive ethnic identity, and a certain proportion of Muslims and Catholics as well as a tiny proportion of Orthodox believers reported that they placed a priority for ethnic rights over human rights. Among all of the denominations surveyed, the majority of respondents surveyed have a positive attitude towards both their own nation and other nations.

The objective of this research was to assess the motivational potential of psychology students using an egoskopiya method. Heart rate and EEG data were recorded while the participants performed the Mehrabian achievement motivation test. Thirty students of the Faculty of Psychology of Southern Federal University who were aged between 20 and 30 years participated. The psychodiagnostic study involved 136 students from the Faculty of Psychology of Southern Federal University who were aged between 18 and 49 years. To determine the lateral organization profiles of sensory and motor functions, a computer-based testing program termed “Profile” was used. The Compact Russian Structure of Temperament Questionnaire (STQ-77) was used to evaluate the features of temperament. 

The results revealed that people with a strong motivation to succeed exhibited a predominance of right features in their lateral organization profiles. Their cardiovascular systems were in more activated states than those of the people who were extremely motivated to avoid failure. The observed temperament features of psychology students with different levels of achievement motivation indicated that the level of achievement motivation is related to the properties of temperament such that students with lower levels of achievement motivation (i.e., motivation to avoid failure) exhibited the temperament traits of Neuroticism and Impulsivity in addition to low values on the scales for the Sensitivity to Sensations, Intellectual Ergonicity, and Sensitivity to Probabilities. High levels of achievement motivation (i.e., motivation to strive toward success) corresponded to the psychology students’ propensities for Sensitivity to Sensations, high levels of Intellectual Ergonicity, high levels of Sensitivity to Probabilities and low values on the scales of Impulsivity and Neuroticism.

This article shows that the peculiarities of divergent and convergent thinking in young males and females of various creativity levels are stipulated by a definite EEG frequency-and-spatial arrangement. Young males and females of mixed and left lateral arrangement profiles demonstrate an expressed activity of occipital, central, and temporal areas of both cerebral hemispheres. In young males and females of right LAP (lateral arrangement profile), connections are clearly localized in case of solution of both convergent and divergent tasks. Solution of divergent and convergent tasks may condition certain frequency-and-spatial arrangement of EEG in young males and females with different levels of academic progress and a different lateral arrangement profile (LAP).

Achievement motivation is a psychological category which implies a desire to achieve significant (powerful) results in certain sphere. According to the results of psychophysiological research people who are motivated for success are very active before they are instructed by the researcher which proves that they aimed at the perception of the referent situation and the intense level of expectations. One of the vital issues today is a problem how genes influence human behaviour. Thus on the basis of contemporary researches we can conclude that such influence is regulated by brain processes.

Background. It is known that some genes regulate neurochemical metabolism, and their polymorphisms affect cognitive performance, including the ability to categorize emotionally significant information.

Objective. The aim of our study was to analyze the recognition of emotional and neutral visual scenes in carriers of different polymorphic variants of the MAOA, COMT, DRD4, and 5HT2A genes.

Design. The study sample consisted of 87 university students (Caucasians, women 63%, average age 20.4±2.6 years). The genotypes of the COMT, 5HT2A, and DRD4 genes were determined by polymerase chain reaction. Agarose gel electrophoresis was used to determine the number of tandem repeats of the MAOA gene. Three hundred sixty (360) photographic images of scenes of different emotional valence (positive, negative, and neutral – 120 images for each category) were used as stimuli. These images were classified by expert assessments. The images were presented in a random sequence. The exposure time was 700 ms. The research participants were asked to determine the emotional valence of each scene.

Results. We found that only the COMT gene genotype affected the recognition of emotional and neutral visual scenes. Carriers of the COMT Val/Val genotype, which causes dopamine to stay in the synaptic space for a shorter time, are better in recognizing and demonstrate higher sensitivity to the emotional content of scenes. Carriers of the Val/Met genotype demonstrated the worst ability to differentiate the emotional valence of visual scenes.

Conclusion. This study has shown that the length of stay of monoamines in the synaptic space regulated by the COMT gene affects the recognition of emotional visual information.

Background. The genes responsible for regulating neuro-chemical metabolism are capable of influencing emotional responses. 

Objective. The goal is to determine the influence of the polymorphism of BDNF, HTR2A, and COMT genes on potentials evoked in response to faces with various emotional expressions and objects with different emotional valences. 

Design. The stimuli set included 175 faces and 150 objects with neutral, positive, and negative emotional content. All images were unified in size and brightness and presented for 500 ms. The participants’ task was to determine the emotional content of each stimulus. Each participant’s EEG was recorded at 128 points and averaged in alignment with her responses. Six measures of ERP were recorded for each lead: three for faces with different emotional expressions, and three for objects with different emotional valences.

Results. We discovered that the BDNF and HTR2A gene polymorphism does not affect the visual perception of emotionally charged stimuli as reflected in changes of ERP. By contrast, participants in the COMT Met-Met group differed from participants in groups COMT Val-Met and COMT Val-Val in that their ERPs for both faces and objects were characterized by an increase in P300 amplitude in their frontal, temporal, and parietal areas, predominantly in the right hemisphere. The COMT Met-Met participants were less successful in differentiating stimuli by their emotional valence. 

Conclusion. The COMT gene mutation of the Met/Met type may lead to deficiencies in decision-making about the emotional valence of visual stimuli, as reflected in a substantial increase in the P300 response amplitude.