2015

Since the turn of this century, a substantial body of research has been published on the neuroscience of creativity. Now, it is necessary to study the neurophysiological correlates in true-to-life, professionally specific situations. The aim of our empirical research was to study the neurophysiological correlates of musical improvisation, a spontaneous creative activity. The participants were 136 right-handed practicing musicians aged 19 to 36 (102 males and 34 females), divided into two groups—professionals (56 people) and amateurs (80 people). EEG signals were recorded in a resting state (eyes closed) and during three types of internal musical activity (perceiving, mentally reproducing, and mentally improvising) from 21 scalp electrodes according to the International 10-20 System. For statistical analysis, we used ANOVA and post hoc analysis. For the main neurophysiological correlates of musical creativity, we revealed higher values of EEG spectral power in the delta band and the dominance of long-distance functional cortical connections in the high-frequency bands. Variable neurophysiological correlates were differentiated according to emotions and the professional level of the musicians. The distinguishing EEG pattern in the professional musicians during improvisation was the predominant activation of the left- hemisphere cortical regions simultaneously with high interhemispheric integration in the high-frequency band along the “creativity axis.” The revealed neurophysiological correlates of musical creativity during improvisation included basic and variable components and were characterized by a specific frequency-spatial organization of bioelectric cortical activity in the musicians.

Since the 1990s Russian enterprises have been experiencing difficulties in transitioning to the market-innovative model of development. In the context of the current variability of management paradigms, we had an opportunity to study the internal and external regulators of organizational changes that are typical for a transitioning economy. Organizational culture (ОС) was studied as an external factor, while the personal traits of middle managers were viewed as internal factors because these managers are the agents for values and for behavior models, from corporate directives to “front-desk’ personnel. The goal of this theoretical and empirical study was to determine the personality traits of middle managers who were deemed effective by top management in companies transitioning to the market-innovative model of development in the context of different types of OCs.
During the preliminary stage, we conducted a comparative analysis of the requirements for the personal traits of middle managers who are working in stable conditions as well as in conditions of transfer to the market-innovative model of development, and we selected the relevant methods of empirical research. During the first stage of the empirical part of our research we defined a group of four enterprises with OCs of different types, identified their effective mid-level managers based on expert evaluations by the top leadership, and formed test groups. During the second stage we studied the personal characteristics of these managers.
We determined that the personality traits of managers deemed effective by their leaders form integral complexes, which in turn correlate in a certain way with the type of ОС of an enterprise. We identified four models of an effective manager: Mentor, Dictator, Innovator, and Businessman; these managers have varying degrees of work productivity, value priorities in the development of ОС, personal self-concepts, organizational leadership skills, and types of decision-making. It has been demonstrated that in the evaluation of the effectiveness of a manager of an enterprise, the correspondence of his/her personal traits to the characteristics of the ОС prevailing in the company is a more important factor than his/her agreement with the long-term goals of the company and, therefore, with the more promising type of ОС. This phenomenon opens a way to utilize such functions of ОС as internal integration but prevents external adaptation, which in turn becomes a serious psychological obstacle in the development of an enterprise.
The ОС of an enterprise has a powerful potential to attract employees with certain sets of psychological traits. Important tasks for the psychological support of the organizational development of an enterprise could be the development of a criteria database for the evaluation of managers and the development of a management talent pool based on the market-innovative vector of development of an enterprise with relevant changes in the ОС.

The data reported in the article describe the attitudes of teenagers to problems concerning sexual violence and aggression. Given the lack of any national systems that could monitor negative factors in the teenage environment, including sexual aggression, special value lies in the data obtained through questionnaires, as these data allow us to evaluate the prevalence of such factors, and they also describe the typical lifestyles of modern Russian teenagers.
The main objective of the study was to describe the age dynamics and gender specifics of teenagers’ attitudes toward the problem of sexual aggression: its prevalence, probable reasons for it, ways of dealing with such situations.
This article is based on data from a research project conducted in 2012 in the Krasnoyarsk region. The research particularly addressed various aspects of schoolchildrens sexual behavior and their attitudes toward sexual violence. The main research method was a paper questionnaire. It was administered to 1,540 children in the 7th, 9th, and 11th grades.
The results showed that every tenth teenager indicated the presence of sexual-violence victims in their circle. According teenagers’ opinions about the reasons for sexual violence the main reasons are “bad luck,” “provocative appearance” “carelessness”. The majority of teenagers will seek help in case of rape.
The answers of teenagers who have sexual experience regarding possible solutions for sexually traumatic situations show their readiness to take responsibility for their behavior and its consequences, as well as for their mental and physical health. In this respect sexual experience can be viewed as an indicator of teenagers’ personal and psychological readiness to lead a grownup life independently of their parents.
To sum up, analyzing schoolchildren’s replies, even to those questions that were not asked directly but in oblique form, allows us to conclude that the teenage environment involves an aggressive (unlawful) component, which usually appears to be a “hidden layer” of interpersonal relations in the microsocial circle of a schoolchild. As a result, the threat of becoming a victim of bullying (ostracism) can block a teenager’s search for help.

The main research problems and tasks of a new scientific field in Russia—the psychology of professional health — are formulated. A definition of professional health as the abilities of a person successfully to cope with the demands and requirements in a professional environment is offered. A psychological vision for professional health with four basic provisions is proposed. The aim of the research was to study the extent of the influence on the professional health of managers of such psychological factors as systems of values, stress in professional activity, individual and psychological features, strategies for overcoming stressful situations. Data are provided from research conducted in 2002-2012 on managers in Russian companies. Taking part in the research were 651 managers of various organizations in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Veliky Novgorod, and Kharkov. For collecting empirical material on methods of supervision, I used polls, tests, interviews, content analysis, self-reports of participants in training programs, and a method for forming the experiment. In addition I employed psychodiagnostic techniques intended for studying the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional components of health, a technique for revealing the personal potentials (regulatory, communicative, intellectual) of the managers, and also my own techniques. The study positively correlated health with such values as having interesting work, having a happy family life, being financially secure, having an active life, and giving and receiving love. Connections between the behavioral manifestations of type A behavior and the managers’ values were revealed. The greatest negative impact on the managers was made by such factors of professional activity as an excessive workload, emotional pressure at work, difficulty in carrying out activity, and insufficient time. Health is important in the structure of the professional activity of managers; it acts as a strategic resource by providing at the least cost efficiency and reliability during all stages of a professional career.

Quantitative psychological research is focused on detecting the occurrence of certain population phenomena by analyzing data from a sample, and statistics is a particularly helpful mathematical tool that is used by researchers to evaluate hypotheses and make decisions to accept or reject such hypotheses. In this paper, the various statistical tools in psychological research are reviewed. The limitations of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and the advantages of using effect size and its respective confidence intervals are explained, as the latter two measurements can provide important information about the results of a study. These measurements also can facilitate data interpretation and easily detect trivial effects, enabling researchers to make decisions in a more clinically relevant fashion. Moreover, it is recommended to establish an appropriate sample size by calculating the optimum statistical power at the moment that the research is designed. Psychological journal editors are encouraged to follow APA recommendations strictly and ask authors of original research studies to report the effect size, its confidence intervals, statistical power and, when required, any measure of clinical significance. Additionally, we must account for the teaching of statistics at the graduate level. At that level, students do not receive sufficient information concerning the importance of using different types of effect sizes and their confidence intervals according to the different types of research designs; instead, most of the information is focused on the various tools of NHST.

The relationship of consciousness to the reflexive processes is one of the fundamental problems in psychology. To date, however, many important aspects of this problem remain poorly understood. This article attempts a theoretical study of this problem. The subject of research is the interconnection between consciousness and reflexive processes and also the structure of these processes. This study presents theoretical and empirical materials revealing the interrelatedness of these two fundamental subjects of psychological research. In connection with this issue, I introduce a new methodology for psychological research, which I refer to as the metasystem approach. This approach is grounded in the claim that reflection is the basic procedural means of consciousness and is based on a heterarchical principle. This article proposes a new structural, polyprocess method for revealing the psychological nature of reflection and the contents of reflexive processes. I propose a new explanation for the basic properties of the psyche that underlie consciousness: self-sensitiveness (sensitivity to oneself). I theoretically prove the following proposition: reflection has a fundamental heterogeneity because its processes are localized on completely different hierarchical cognitive levels of personality. In addition, I show that in the structural organization of reflection as an integral process in relation to other (“secondary,” metacognitive) processes, another basic principle is involved — the principle of hierarchy. The property of reflexivity (and the process of reflection as a procedural manifestation of this property) should be understood as a species in relation to the more common attribute inherent in the psyche: self-sensitiveness. Elementary manifestations of this property have been observed for the simplest sensory processes.

This is the second in a series of four articles scheduled for publication in this journal. In the previous article I proposed a description of a new so-called existential criterion of normal and abnormal personality that is implicitly present in the works of Erich Fromm. According to this criterion, normal and abnormal personalities are determined, first, by special features of the content of their position regarding existential dichotomies that are natural to human beings and, second, by particular aspects of the formation of this position. Such dichotomies, entitatively existent in all human life, are inherent, two-alternative contradictions. The position of a normal personality in its content orients one toward a contradictious predetermination of life in the form of existential dichotomies and the necessity of searching for compromise in resolving these dichotomies. This position is created on a rational basis with the person’s active participation. The position of an abnormal personality in its content subjectively denies a contradictious predetermination of life in the form of existential dichotomies and orients one toward a consistent, noncompetitive, and, as a consequence, one-sided way of life that doesn’t include self-determination. This position is imposed by other people on an irrational basis. Abnormality of personality interpreted like that is one of the most important factors influencing the development of various kinds of psychological problems and mental disorders — primarily, neurosis. In this article I show that this criterion is implicitly present in the personality theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, although in more special cases. In the following articles I will show that this criterion is also implicitly present in the personality theories of Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, and Viktor Frankl.

The current issue of “Psychology in Russia: State of the Art” provides diverse papers on theory and methodology, social and educational psychology and neuropsychology.

This article examines personality subjective well-being and describes its psychological structure, general components and characteristics. An overview of foreign theories and studies on subjective well-being is presented. Correlations among related concepts such as happiness, life satisfaction and subjective well-being are also described. Subjective well-being is seen as a multivariate construction of a stable nature in mobile equilibrium. It is argued that a type of professional activity can have great importance and a positive impact on an individual’s social life, health, identity shaping and psychological wellness. This article’s findings are substantiated by the survey administered to 2229 respondents divided into groups according to their area of business: students, psychologists, doctors, teachers, engineering and technical staff, representatives of service industries, workers, military men, and prisoners. The descriptors identified two types of natures: positive, directed to a person’s inner world (happy, lucky, optimistic) and to the outer world (trustworthy, competent, successful), and negative (pessimistic, unhappy, envious). This division of nature type was categorized according to the participants’ subjective well-being index. Empirical evidence has shown that occupational specificity influences a person’s subjective well-being. A substantial difference was found in subjective well-being index of the respondents. A higher index is typical of students and military men. Educators and industrial intelligentsia also demonstrate an increased level of subjective well-being, whereas prisoners tend to have a low level of subjective well-being. The same low index is characteristic of servicing trade representatives and psychologists.

There is a lack of information concerning the features of cognitive processes in personality disorders, as well as the brain mechanisms of the pathogenesis of these diseases. Luria’s neuropsychological approach demonstrated its heuristicity in estimating the cognitive status of patients with mental disorders and can be employed to identify the brain bases of non-psychotic mental disorders (including personality disorders).

The objective of this research is to study the features of neurocognitive functioning in patients with schizoid personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder (against the norm), employing Luria’s neuropsychological methodology. Hypotheses: 1) While both types of personality disorders are related to schizophrenia spectrum disorders, the specificity of the neurocognitive functioning of each personality disorder will be observed in addition to general neuropsychological signs. Specific neuropsychological symptoms point to different brain deficits, which allows conclusion to be drawn regarding differences in the pathogenesis of each personality disorder; and 2) Luria’s methodology neuropsychology is adequate for the study of neurocognitive functioning in personality disorders.

The study was conducted using qualitative and quantitative analyses (according to Luria) of neuropsychological testing data in a group of fifty male patients aged 19,2±3,7 years with pathocharacteristic domain disorders. The group consisted of 30 schizoid personality disorder patients and 20 schizotypal personality disorder patients.

Statistically significant differences (p <0,005) in neurocognitive function (regulatory processes, memory, spatial function) between the healthy controls and patients with personality disorders were observed.

Specific cognitive disorders pointing to the dysfunction of front-thalamoparietal connections were characteristic of both groups. Lateral differences were discovered for both patient groups. The neuropsychological symptoms related to left hemisphere dysfunction were characteristic of the patients with schizotypal personality disorder. Neurocognitive deficits related to right hemisphere deficiency characterized the patients with schizoid personality disorder.

Based on theoretical analysis, in the present paper, we defined the structure of the characteristics of personality psychological maturity, which is considered an adult development criterion. The objective of this paper was to identify the mechanisms that contribute to the formation of psychological maturity in adulthood development. We first assumed that one of the possible mechanisms is the normative crisis of development. In turn, previously formed psychological maturity traits can relieve the experiences associated with this normative crisis. The aim of the present study was to analyze the formation of psychological maturity during periods of emerging and middle adulthood, with a specific focus on normative crisis experiences. The study design included cross-sectional and longitudinal methods. The participants included 309 adults. The emerging adulthood group ranged in age from 18 to 25 years, and the participants in the middle adulthood group were between 38 and 45 years of age. To study crisis events and experiences, we used three author-designed questionnaires. A self-actualization test by E. Shostrom (SAT), the Big Five personality test by Costa and MacCrae, a value and availability ratio in various vital spheres technique by E.B. Fantalova, a purpose-in-life test by D.A. Leontiev, and a coping test by Lazarus were used to define the personality characteristics used to overcome difficult life situations.

In this paper, we described experiences specific to the crises associated with emerging adulthood and middle adulthood in the context of developmental tasks. Using cluster analysis, we defined groups with different intensities of crisis experiences and analyzed psychological content of crisis experiences in different groups. Using ANOVA, we found that participants with low intensity crisis experiences show more developed characteristics of psychological maturity. During emerging adulthood, the overcoming of crises associated with the separation from family contributes to the formation of such aspects of psychological maturity as self-management, life organization and responsibility. In a longitudinal study of midlife crises, the data suggest that in groups where there are more intense crisis experiences, there are more significant dynamics in the meaning and value sphere over the course of a year that lead to the achievement of greater personal integrity and congruence.

The current study proved the hypothesis regarding the role of the crisis mechanism of psychological maturity development in two phases of adulthood. It also proved that psychological maturity contributes to a decrease in the intensity of crisis experiences.

Project activity has a long history of implementation in education (Kilpatrick, 1918). This article describes the approach to project activity that became widespread in preschool education in Russia in the late 1990s. This approach is based on the cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky (1978), Venger’s (1988) understanding of intellectual giftedness, as well as an understanding of project activity proposed by Leontiev (2000).

At the heart of project activity lies children’s exploration of the space of possibilities — that is, their search for action options that correspond to their personal motives and express their individuality. The main features of project activity are the problem situation to be presented to the child; the subjectivity of all its participants, including teachers; and its nature, which includes its social context.

Three main types of project activity are presented: research, creative, and normative; each has its own structure and value for children’s development. Examples of their implementation in preschool settings are provided. The impact of project activity on all its participants in preschool — children, teachers, parents — is addressed.

The article shows the effectiveness of project activity for educational work with both intellectually gifted and normally developing children.

The background of the study is the historic and cultural conception of development, which considers symbolic activities significant for preschool-age children. Our objective was to identify indicators of reflection as an essential feature of preschool development during the acquisition of symbolic actions at three levels: materialized, perceptive, and verbal. The design of the study was descriptive with qualitative and quantitative analysis applied. Included in this assessment of the development of symbolic function were 180 children of preschool age (from 5 to 6 years old) who were in the third year of formal preschool education in Bogotá, Colombia. Qualitative analysis of the results pointed out specific indicators of symbolic development at each level. On the materialized level such indicators were the sequencing of actions with substituted objects, the generalization of the symbolic features of objects, and a verbal, coherent explanation of the mode of substitution. On the perceptive level the indicators were the generalization of features in graphic representations, the possibility of using an image as a strategy for voluntary memorization, and a verbal explanation of the use of an image as a substitution. On the verbal level reflective explanation of verbal substitution was established as the positive indicator. The results permit us to posit the usefulness of clear qualitative indicators for assessment of a child’s level of psychological development and readiness for school learning at the end of preschool.

This is the first of four articles scheduled for publication in this journal on the position people with normal and abnormal personalities take in regard to so-called existential dichotomies. The main objective of this article is to propose a new, existential criterion for normal and abnormal personality implicitly present in the works of Erich Fromm. According to this criterion, normal and abnormal personalities are determined, first, by special features of the content of their position regarding existential dichotomies, and, second, by particular aspects of the formation of this position. Such dichotomies, entitatively existent in all human life, are inherent, two-alternative contradictions. The position of a normal personality in its content orients one toward a contradictious predetermination of life in the form of existential dichotomies and the necessity of searching for compromise in resolving these dichotomies. This position is created on a rational basis with the person’s active participation. The position of an abnormal personality in its content subjectively denies a contradictious predetermination of life in the form of existential dichotomies and orients one toward a consistent, noncompetitive, and, as a consequence, one-sided way of life that doesn’t include self-determination. This position is imposed by other people on an irrational basis. Abnormal personality interpreted like this is one of the most important factors influencing the development of various kinds of psychological problems and mental disorders — primarily, neurosis. In the following three articles it will be shown that this criterion is also implicitly present in the theories of personality devised by Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, and Viktor Frankl.

This article studies the structure of the pastime of contemporary preschool children and the importance and prevalence of various kinds of activities that parents and their children share. The emphasis is on those features of parental behavior that are determined by gender role (mother/father), family status (two-parent/separated family), style of parentchild relationship, and also child’s gender. The work is based on data from 1,936 questionnaires received from parents of preschool children (from 1.5 to 7 years old) who were attending Moscow kindergartens. The research was carried out in 41 kindergartens in 9 districts of Moscow. The survey uncovered several social-psychological features of the position parents take while organizing their shared pastime with preschool children: the influence of traditional gender-role models of parental behavior; the “complementary” principle of mother’s and father’s social-role positions in the upbringing of a daughter; the distortion of traditional maternal behavior in the upbringing of a son in a separated family; the reduced organization of shared play with a child in a separated family; the influence of the style of the parent-child relationship on the participation of parents in their children’s activities. The dynamics show how the parents’ position changes as their children grow older (from 1.5 years to 7 years): namely, the decrease of parents’ organization of and participation in a preschool child’s activities has a negative impact on their emotional state while interacting with the child.

With regard to cultural-historical and activity approaches, collaborative activity with an adult, including communication as a type of meta-activity, is considered to be the necessary mechanism of child development. A child is considered to be an active partner, possessing his/her own motives, and is guided by mental representations of the parent and interactions with him/her. Russian psychologists have developed a range of parenting style classifications; however, these styles primarily emphasize a parent’s position, contrary to methodological perspectives, with inadequate consideration of a child’s own agency. The aims of the current research were to investigate actual goal-oriented interactions between preschoolers and their parents and to outline certain patterns (types) of interactions, considering both partners and analyzing interac- tions according to the activity model. A total of 75 parent-child dyads (children aged from 4.6 years to 6.11 years) participated in “collaborative activity trials” in which the observational method was based on the activity approach. Cluster analysis (k-means clusterization) revealed five different groups of parent-child dyads: conflictual, harmonious, distant and two-fold dominant (with dominant parent or dominant child). Between-group comparisons (Mann-Whitney U test) showed significant differences in a range of parameters of activity and emotional components of interactions. The harmonious type of interactions is not prevalent, although subgroups with different types of domination are the most common, which may be attributed to cultural peculiarities. Domination-subordination misbalance does not seem to seriously distort the normal developmental trajectory; however, in cases of conflictual and distant dyads, interactional issues might hinder the course of goal-oriented activity, which might serve as a predictor for potential difficulties in further learning.

Play and playfulness are basic features in early childhood education. The elements of play are pleasure, a sense of freedom, and the co-construction of shared meaning through the use of rules or rhythms. Play and learning are closely related in early childhood. But when the focus on the educational benefits of play becomes too strong, the most essential feature of play is lost: children’s pleasure. Young children in group settings often have to adapt to the teachers’ demands related to security, hygiene, and social norms and values. But the playfulness of the teachers helps to overcome differences in power in the caregiver-child relationship and prevents young children from becoming overburdened with strict rules and group discipline. Play and playfulness are a resource of shared pleasure and creativity in learning processes.

Learning through play is a common phrase in early childhood education worldwide. Play is often put forward as the overarching principle for working with young children (Johnson, Christie, & Wardle, 2005). However, if we go beyond the rhetorical level and explore how “learning through play” and a “play-based curriculum” are understood and transformed into practice, we may find differences both within and between countries (Karlsson Lohmander & Pramling Samuelsson, 2014a, 2014b; Pramling Samuelsson & Fleer, 2009).

In this article we discuss the relationship between the concepts of play and learning and describe how they are enacted in everyday practice in early childhood education in Sweden. Starting with a brief presentation of the development of early childhood education, we then reflect on the challenges preschool teachers may encounter when trying to implement a new learning-oriented curriculum (National Agency for Education, 2011) and still trying to keep play as a central dimension in children’s everyday life in preschool.

Since the turn of the century, politicians in the Scandinavian countries have placed great emphasis on early childhood education and care. They have been especially concerned with lifelong learning in the field of language learning, early literacy, and numeracy. Almost all children between the ages of 1 and 6 years attend a preschool, and the quality of the learning environment is of great importance. This article presents a comparative study of student preschool teachers’ conceptions of the knowledge that they claim to have acquired about children’s early literacy throughout their bachelor education in Norway and in Sweden. The aim is to compare responses to a questionnaire administered to the student teachers and to examine the similarities and differences in the content of and goals indicated in the two countries’ national plans for early literacy. This study is based on sociocultural theories and has a multimethod design. First, through a discourse analysis we examined the national plans for preschool teacher education in Norway and Sweden and studied similarities and differences. Second, we sent a questionnaire to all student preschool teachers at all universities and university colleges in Norway and at the University of Gothenburg. The differences between the Norwegian and Swedish education students were most obviously seen in their responses to the questions about how they work with early literacy. The discourse analyses showed that the national education plans for preschool teacher education in the two countries differ in certain instances but share common ground in others.

The current issue of Psychology in Russia: State of the Art opens with reports from the 4th Annual international research-to-practice conference “Early Childhood Care and Education” held on April 23rd - 25th 2015 at the Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia).