Moscow University Psychology Bulletin, 2021, 1, 312 p.

Background. In political, economic, social and environmental crisis conditions, a great importance is given to the investigation and search for the human psychological resources, which make it possible to successfully cope with usual and challenging life tasks in the conditions when the world order and the life styles drastically change. 

Objective of this article is to summarize the results of theoretical and empirical research for developing the resource approach to the study of the conscious self-regulation of human activity considered as a system of psychological means of consciously setting the goals and managing their achievement. 

Design. The resource approach provisions were substantiated theoretically and verified empirically in the laboratory of the self-regulation psychology of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution "Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education." The studies were carried out on the large samples of schoolchildren, students, and professionals. Cognitive, personality and regulatory techniques included questionnaires and experimental tasks. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal design were applied. 

Results. The generalization of the empirical results made it possible to verify the developed scientific ideas of the conscious self-regulation of achieving goals as a system of the human universal and special regulatory resources, depending on the “globality” of the tasks they are intended for. The person’s regulatory competences implementing this system contribute to the productive aspects of achieving educational and professional goals. They also serve as a mechanism for mobilizing, coordinating, mediating and accumulating the entire palette of other individual resources and human reserves for solving various problems in human activity. Among these tasks are the personality self-development and self-education, professional self-determination, maintaining and increasing psychological well-being. 

The development of the conscious self-regulation resources contributes to successful learning and work in the context of rapid digitalization, serves as the basis for adaptation and formation of new self-organization of life, and also prevents acute stress reactions and negative emotional states under conditions of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Conclusions. Conscious self-regulation is a human meta-resource, since it not only makes a significant contribution to achieving the goals of practical activity, but also contributes to solution of the broader life tasks. 

Acknowledgments: The study was funded by Russian Science Foundation according to the research project № 20-18-00470 «Self-regulation and school engagement as psychological resources of academic success: a longitudinal study» 

Background. Currently, foreign researchers are actively developing the notion of‘everyday sadism’ is being developed. The study of the proposed subclinical form of sadism makes a significant contribution to the study of "dark" personality traits united in the concept of the Dark Triad, as well as related phenomena such as aggression, antisocial behavior, cruelty, etc.The active development of tools for measuring sadistic traits makes it possible to study both the external manifestations of sadism and its fundamental mechanisms.

Objective. The review of the modern Russian and foreign studies in the field of everyday sadism and its link with some relevant phenomena. 

Design. An analysis of current research on modern ideas about the new formalization of the phenomenon of sadism and an overview of the main English-language tools for measuring sadistic traits.

Results. The phenomenon of sadism has been in the focus of attention of researchers for many decades and has been conceptualized in various forms: from impairment disorders to personality disorders.Today, the term "ordinary sadism" is increasingly used, revealing the meaning of sadistic traits outside the clinical context.A large number of studies show the legitimacy of the existence of this construct.Its forms and external manifestations (direct / indirect, verbal / non-verbal sadism) are being actively studied. Possible psychological mechanisms of manifestation of sadism in everyday life and its connection with other relevant phenomena (aggression, types of affect, etc.) are being investigated.The question of potential inclusion of everyday sadism in the Dark triad of personality traits occupies a central place in the scientific debate. Furthermore, several valid measures of sadistic traits have been developed, some of which also allow the analysis of the structure of this phenomenon. 

Conclusion. The social relevance of everyday sadism determines the interest of many researchers in the study of its outward manifestations as well as its psychological mechanisms. The development and/or adaptation of the measure of sadistic tendencies is bound to open new ways of studying not only sadism per se, but also various related phenomena (e.g., dark personality traits, aggression, antisocial behavior, etc.).

Background. The study of the application of the competence-based approach in the professional training of specialists in the management sphere remains an urgent issue for many researchers, psychologists, educators and teachers. We began our consideration of this problem in a first approximation in a material published in the previous issue of the journal (Tolochek, 2020). The main issue is to identify the limitations of the competence-based approach as factors of its development and the conditions under which its implementation will be more constructive and effective. It is stated that, in line with the competence-based approach, there remains unresolved issues about the number and content of the qualities of subjects that affect the effectiveness of their activities; on the competencies of subjects performing different labor functions, working in organizations; about the place of competences in the structure of professionalism, about their role in career success.

Design: expert surveys, a differentiated and level analysis of frequency matrices of assessments (choices) of competencies by experts.  

Results. The cycle of studies of competencies and the specifics of their assessment included 69 managers differing in gender, age, seniority, managerial experience, positions in different companies. It was shown that out of 29 competencies, 19 were identified in at least 40% of experts; 8 were identified in at least 66% of experts. Competencies assessed as in demand are associated with individual features, with the evolution of managers as subjects and the characteristics of their activities.

Conclusions: 1. Only part of the competencies from the initial list of competencies described by foreign specialists were identified as relevant for managers by experts (employees of Russian companies). Among the competences, there is a “core” of basic, key qualities, and several “belts” (“shells”, “levels”) - less significant (universal) competencies associated with the effective activity of a manager in different areas. 2. Assessments of competencies relevant (important, significant and / or preferred) for managers differ depending on the individual characteristics of experts (gender, age, experience, position, career success, managerial potential) and the length of the list of assessed qualities. 3. Lists of competencies in the range of 15-20 qualities can be considered optimal for solving both scientific and applied problems. The basic list of 29 competencies can be considered “sufficient and redundant”; list of up to 19-20 competencies - “sufficient and necessary”; a list of 8-10 "nuclear" competencies - "essential basic".

Problem of the research. The review is devoted to the relationship between executive functions and metacognition in the context of a cultural-historical perspective. On the basis of the research carried out over the past 15 years, the commonality and differences of these constructs are shown. Special attention is paid to the development of executive functions and metacognition, their connection with the academic success of children, the role of the social aspect in their formation. The importance of an adult in the directed formation of metacognition and self-regulation is shown, which confirms the provisions of the cultural-historical theory. Within the framework of the cultural-historical paradigm, several mechanisms for the development of executive functions are considered: imitation based on understanding; sign mediation; as well as communication in a social developmental situation. L.S. Vygotsky noted that higher mental functions arise on the basis of real interactions of people, are interiorized, turning into psychological functions.

Main results and conclusions. The review showed that one of the most common models of the structure of executive functions is a model that includes such components as “working memory”, “inhibitory control” and “cognitive flexibility”.

Based on the analysis, it is possible to assert the influence of J. Piaget's concept on the development of executive functions. A certain difficulty is caused by the explanation of emotional regulation in the context of metacognitive problems. At the same time, L.S. Vygotsky spoke about the unity of affect and intellect, which suggests the existence behavioral control and, in particular, of emotional processes at the level of metacognitive processes.

Background. Empathy is widely recognized as a multifaceted trait that includes cognitive and emotional components. The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCEI) (Reniers et al., 2011) has been widely used in many countries. However, the question of its factor structure as applied to the Chinese samples was not resolved in two previous worksOur approbation allowed us to clarify its psychometric characteristics, which is important for its further application in China and in cross-cultural studies.

The problem of the relationship between the implicit theories (IT) of emotions and personality and empathy, which has not yet been investigated, is also relevant.

Objective. 1) re-adaptation of the QCEI questionnaire on a Chinese sample, 2) testing hypotheses about the connections of implicit theories of personality and the ability to control emotions with the cognitive and affective components of empathy (on a Chinese sample).

Design. 1,319 Chinese participants completed the QCEI questionnaire, of which 520 in person and 799 through online communication.Their data was randomly split into two samples. Exploratory factor analysis was carried out for the first sample, and confirmatory factor analysis was done for the second one.These 1319 people filled out the questionnaire of implicit theories of emotions (ITE). 520 participants filled out the questionnaire of implicit theories of personality (ITP) as well.To assess the convergent validity of our Chinese version of the QCAE questionnaire 799 participants also completed the M. Davis IRI empathy questionnaire.

Results. A four-factor QCAE model was established for the Chinese sample (as opposed to the author's five-factor model);IRI components are significantly positively correlated with QCAE components, which indicates the commonality of their nomological network.Based on the fact that the incrementality index for ITE is significantly and positively correlated with cognitive empathy, we accepted the hypothesis of the cognitive component as the leading one in the person's assumption about the possibility of controlling emotions.The ITP incrementality index positively correlates only with the “Adjustment” subscale, which indicates a lower representation of the cognitive component in ITP in the Chinese sample. It followsfrom our results that the hypothesis on the connection of the affective component of empathy with the IT of emotions and personality can be rejected.

Relevance.

Nowadays the researchers commonly use a limited set of standard procedures and statistical coefficients when they develop psychometric instruments and investigate their structure. The routine using of such procedures without taking into account the specific features of psychometric scales can lead to incomplete or even inadequate results. In this context detailed consideration of the structure of psychometric instruments seems to be important and it may demand various non-standard ways of statistical analysis. 

Objectives. 

To conduct detailed analysis of the results of two intelligent subtests at the item level and to assess the sufficiency and adequacy of using standard methods for estimation of reliability and structural validity for these subtests.

Methods.

We analyze the data collected in intelligence testing of a large sample of respondents (11335 young adults). The respondents passed the KR-3 battery. In this study we examine in detail the structure of the subtests "Syllogisms" and "Analogies". Specifically, we estimated the reliability of the scales by the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and the structure at the item level using the confirmatory factor analysis.

Results and conclusions.

Estimation of the reliability of the scales by Cronbach's alpha coefficient showed the importance of taking into account the time limitation, which is commonly used in intelligence tests. On the other hand, a detailed analysis of each subtest items made it possible to find out an additional factor which was not originally proposed in the factor structure. It is the factor of higher-order abilities of abstract analysis, whilst the subtest originally aimed at esteeming the special abilities. Confirmatory factor analysis showed improvement of fit when this factor was added. The results allow to conclude that the researcher may miss important properties of scales if one does not perform a detailed analysis of testing procedures and the structure of subtest at the item level, and so one may draw incomplete or inadequate conclusions about their psychometric properties.

Relevance. Modern society creates the image of a successful person as actively interacting with different information flows, including an impressive stream of news content. This paper assumes that there is a personal need for tracking and spreading news that develops in the interaction between a person and digital world. The individual level of this need could explain the interaction with information (its critical and uncritical dissemination) and the subjective experience of its redundancy and inaccuracy, including those experiences and actions in a pandemic situation. 

The aim of the study was to reveal the relationship of the subjective need for news with personal values, beliefs about technologies (“technophilia”) and the dissemination of news about the pandemic. 

Method. 270 people (aged 18 to 61) filled out The short (Schwartz) Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ), Beliefs about New Technologies Questionnaire, Monitoring of Information about Coronavirus Scale as well as items on the subjective need for receiving and disseminating news, readiness for critical and non-critical dissemination of news about pandemics, subjective experiences of redundancy and distrust of pandemic-related information. 

Results. According to the results, the Need for News Scale allows assessing the subjective importance of receiving news and discussing them with other people and is characterized by sufficient consistency and factor validity. The need for regular news is more pronounced among men, older people, people with higher education, married people, people who have children, while the need to discuss news is not related to sociodemographic factors. For people who are more prone to technophilia it is more important to regularly receive and discuss news information with others, which, in turn, mediates the relationship between technophilia and monitoring news about coronavirus. The need for news dissemination mediates the relationship between technophilia and readiness for critical and non-critical dissemination of information about the pandemic.

Acknowledgement: The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project No 18-18-00365 "Digital socialization of cultural-historical perspective: intragenerational and intergenerational analysis". 

Background. The article is devoted to the study of the mechanisms of face perception when using the technology of eye-tracking. In scientific literature, two processes are distinguished - analytical (perception of individual facial features) and holistic (perception of general configuration of facial features). It is assumed that each of the mechanisms can be specifically manifested in patterns of eye movements during face perception. However, there is disagreement among the authors concerning the eye movements patterns which reflect the dominance of the holistic or analytic processing. We hypothesized that the contradictions in the interpretation of eye movement indicators in the studies of face perception may be associated with the features of the eye-tracker data processing, namely, with the specifics of identifying areas of interest (eyes, nose, bridge of the nose, lips), as well as with individual strategies of eye movements.

Objective. Revealing the features of eye movements analysis in the process of facial perception.

Method. A method for studying analytical and holistic processing in the task of assessing the attractiveness of upright and inverted faces using eye-tracking technology has been developed and tested. The eye-tracking data were analyzed for the entire sample using three types of processing, differing in the marking of the areas of interest (AOIs), and separately for two groups differing in eye movement strategies. The distinction of strategies was considered based on differences in the mean values of the fixation duration and the amplitude of saccades.

Results. It was shown that: the presence of statistically significant differences of the dwell time in the AOIs between the condition of upright and inverted faces depended on the method of identifying these AOIs. It was shown that the distribution of the dwell time by zones is closely related to individual strategies of eye movements. Analysis of the data separately by groups showed significant differences in the distribution of the dwell time in the AOIs.

Conclusion. When processing eye-tracking data obtained in the studies of face perception, it is necessary to consider individual strategies of eye movements, as well as the features associated with identifying AOIs. The absence of a single standard for identifying these areas can be the reason for inconsistency of the data about the holistic or analytical processing dominance. According to our data, a more detailed type of marking the AOIs, in which not only the main features (eyes, nose, mouth) but also the area of the nose bridge and nose are distinguished, is most effective for the analysis of holistic processing.

Acknowledgements. The research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation(project No № 19-18-00474) and with the use of equipment purchased by Lomonosov Moscow State University Program of Development.

Relevance. In applied psychology, researchers are increasingly faced with the task of analyzing large amounts of text, both verbal and visual. For these purposes, various methods of analysis have been developed and various computer programs have been created.

Objective. The possibilities of computerized qualitative text analysis are analyzed. The spectrum of problems solved by various methods of qualitative text analysis is considered.

Methods. The theoretical analysis of classical methods of qualitative text analysis is carried out. The specificity of the method of computerized discourse analysis is analyzed. The Internet searched for the most popular programs for qualitative text analysis, considered the main options and requirements for working in the program.

Results. Methods of content-, discourse-, intent-analysis, conversion and narrative analysis are briefly characterized. The computerized discourse analysis (CMDA) approach is described. An approach to solving problems of various methods of qualitative analysis of text in computer analysis of qualitative data (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis; CAQDAS) is presented. The possibilities of some software packages developed within the CAQDAS approach are considered.

Conclusions. The advantages of using computerized discourse analysis are shown. The topic of research of methodological problems accompanying the use of CAQDAS is outlined.

Relevance: the problem of diagnosing perfectionism in sports activities is relevant for solving a large number of research issues related to the study of emotional states and factors of success in athletes, as well as practical tasks related to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of athletes. In this regard, the design of a method for diagnosing perfectionism in sports activities seems necessary and relevant.

Objective: to test the method “Sport Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale”, and to check the reliability and structural validity of this method.

Methods: testing was carried out on a sample (N=323) of Russian athletes of different kinds of sports. In the process of adapting the questionnaire, a direct and reverse translation of the questionnaire was performed, the factor structure of the questionnaire was checked using exploratory factor analysis, the internal consistency of the questionnaire scales and convergent validity using correlation analysis.

Results: a five-factor model of the method was identified. It included the following scales: “Organization and high personal standards“, “High parental expectations”, “Doubts about actions“, “ Concern over mistakes” and “High coaching expectations". Analysis of the reliability of the scales showed significant internal consistency of each of them. To assess convergent validity, a correlation analysis of the scales of the tested method and the “Three-factor perfectionism questionnaire” by N. G. Garanyan and A. B. Kholmogorova were performed. The results of the analysis showed that the method “Multidimensional perfectionism scale in sports” has the high convergent validity, which indicates a fairly predictive value of this tool.

Conclusions: for the first time in the field of Russian sports psychology, a tool for measuring perfectionism in athletes has been tested, which has shown high structural validity and reliability. In this regard, the method “Multidimensional perfectionism scale in sports” can be used for practical purposes to solve diagnostic and psychotherapeutic problems in the field of professional sports.

Relevance. Our work is devoted to the analysis of such factors of the psychological well-being of homosexual men as belief in a competitive world and internalized homophobia. The study of these factors is important, since they form the image of the world and the image of oneself, which create the foundation for the perception of one's achievements in the social world and self-acceptance. Since modern society maintains negative attitudes towards homosexuality, especially male homosexuality, we assume that along with the assimilation of these prejudices, an image of the world can be formed in which it is necessary to remain vigilant and expect a “dirty trick” from others, which will negatively affect the psychological well-being of gays. 

The aim of the study was to examine the influence of belief in a competitive world and internalized homophobia on psychological well-being among homosexual men.

Research methods and sampling: methods of K. Ryff “Psychological well-being”, J. Duckitt “Jungle world beliefs” and W. Mayfield “Internalized homonegativity”. The study involved 68 men who identified themselves as homosexuals.

The results of the study showed that internalized homophobia makes a greater contribution to psychological well-being, while the role of faith in a competitive world is significantly less important. At the same time, acceptance of one's homosexuality contributes to psychological well-being, understood by K. Ryff as a positive functioning of the individual, and faith in a competitive world negatively affects psychological well-being. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the social outlook and self-attitude of the individual play a significant role in psychological well-being.

The relevance of the study. The paper raises the problem of methods of psychological research, this problem is reflected in written and oral speeches of P. Ya. Galperin. The scientific significance of this problem is due to the fact that using the forming method allows us to obtain data concerning the laws of the formation of a new action in the conditions of not only controlled, but also spontaneous formation.

The purpose of the study is to obtain scientific psychological information concerning the forming method. The key concept of the theory of P. Ya. Galperin is the concept of orientation, which determines the success of the action.Polemizing with J. Piaget on the question of age capabilities of the child, P. Ya. Galperin experimentally showed that in the conditions of forming method "real mental actions and concepts" are formed much earlier than in the traditional spontaneous formation.If in the first case the process of formation becomes generally controllable, in the second it is only directed.The transition to the method of formation by stages, stressed P. Ya. Galperin, creates a basic for an appreciable improvement of the methods of instruction and means a radical change in the methods of psychological research.

Methods - historical and psychological analysis, comparative analysis.

The results. The publication consists of three parts. The main part (the middle one) is P.Ya.Galperin's article «The cross-sectional method and the method of formation by stages». It is published on the materials of the personal archive of P. Ya. Galperin.The article, written by P. Ya. Galperin on the results of his speech at the International psychological Congress in Moscow in 1966, was previously published in the journal "Voprosy psyikhologii", in this form article is a corrected version by P. Ya. Galperin.

The first part of the paper is a short introduction providing a general characteristic of the Piaget and Galperin discussion on Psychological Congress.In conclusion (the third part) an attempt is made to identify the main lines on which it is possible to compare the views of P. Ya. Halperin and J. Piaget.

The conclusion. The reference to the materials of Piaget and Galperin discussion is not only of historical and theoretical importance, but also allows us to outline the prospects of current scientific research in the field of genetic psychology.

The article is dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the XIX International Psychological Congress.