Lomonosov Psychology Journal, 2011, 2, 184.

Introduction.

The paper is aimed to present several results of the number of big scale international projects; their purposes were: 1) diagnosis of the contemporary adolescents’ psychological well-being actual level; 2) search of the ways to improve this level. Adolescent psychological well-being actual level has been monitored on different experimental fields in Russia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. After that multifactor intervention (with adolescents, their parents, teachers, and school administration) took place. The study results achieved demonstrate the intervention strategy efficacy and productivity, and allow defining a direction of further movement.

The role of attachment to mother (AM) in formation of children’s and adolescents’ attitude to world around and to themselves is analyzed in the article. AM is considered as a complex system of internal regulation and one of the bases of mental development typology. Results of a series of the researches are described, relating secure/insecure adolescents’ AM to their worldviews, in particular to their emotional attitude towards family, teachers, peers, friends, school, and also to the future, the country, people and the world as a whole. 

The role and functions of the child-parent relations and communication with peers in adolescence are considered as characteristics of the social situation of development. The developmental processes of the value, emotional, cognitive and behavioral components of autonomy in their heterochrony are discussed. The results of the research demonstrated complicated non-linear relationship between the level of personality autonomy and child-parent relation’s parameters (the level of parent’s control, the adolescent’s independence and self-management competence, communication and cooperation with parents). 

In the experiment 9 and 12 year old participants took part in an induced conflict of interests, organized as a cooperative-competitive game. The significant age differences in styles of dyadic interactions in an induced conflict of interests were found. Results indicated that a style of interaction with partners and total outcome of the game were partly predicted by a level of social intelligence and a child’s ability to manipulate others’ behavior. 

The main approaches to moral development in foreign (J. Piage, L. Kohlberg, C. Gilligan, N. Eisenberg, E. Turiel) and domestic psychology (L.I. Bozhovich, S.N. Karpova, E.V. Subbotsky, S.G. Jacobson) are analyzed in the article. The justice and care principles as the foundations for constructing the approaches to moral development are examined. The differences between care and justice principle are revealed. Some results of investigation about the dependence of moral-value development in adolescence and youth from social situation of development are discussed. 

In the age-approach framework (L.S. Vygotsky, D.B. Elkonin) student’s perception of the moral atmosphere in the secondary school is discussed as the essential feature of the social situation of development. The results of the research cleared the role of the student’s perception of the moral atmosphere in the secondary school as the essential factor of the value and moral development in adolescence in the modern Russia society. The peculiarities of the perception of the moral atmosphere in the secondary school were revealed. The clusters of the different patterns of the perception of the moral atmosphere in school were described. 

In article are described main results of the study of creative problem-solving tasks (CPS) with sudden insights for various age-specific periods. A classification of testing tasks was developed referencing thinking methods leading to creative solutions such as addition, modification, unification and transformation. This set of creative problem-solving tasks was offered to 7 groups of 200 children age 3 to 15 and 50 adults. Early insights were found in 4-year olds’ work on very simple tasks. Data indicate that the dynamics of CPS skills development varied by the age cohort. 

The article presents the results of the content of the motivational sphere of mothers with children in infant, early and preschool age. It is shown that the motive of achieving happiness of the child lead in the motivational sphere of all women surveyed. However, the semantic content of this motive depends on its relations with other components of the motivational sphere of the mother. Specificity of the motivational sphere of the mother at the age of the child was described. A tendency to enrich the motivational sphere of the mother is to an increase in the autonomy of the child. 

The article describes a psychosemantic technique for investigation of representations of the family. It is shown that the implicit theory of the family (ITF) have a three-level structure, depending on age, gender and culture. So, there is a system of basic constructs, components of ITF which are common to all people: (1) Family — Individual, (2) We (Dependence — Affection), which connotative shade, and (3) The functions of the Family (Social — Psychological). The authors examine similarities and differences in ITF of French and Russians, men and women, married and unmarried, people of different age. 

Psychologically the “little man” is defined through his willingness to recognize experience and change his social status in different communities: from family to his place in the broad cultural-historical process. Special conditions and potential opportunities of success of the “little man” are emphasized, that gives him sometimes a better position — even in comparison with those men, who have greater status (e.g. in comparison with recognized representatives of the elite). The problem of psychological unpreparedness of many “little men” to use their specific advantages is considered. An attempt to understand the reasons for unexpected success of people, who never ware taken seriously, is made. 

The article describes the results of the several years introduction of computerized testing in the outcome examinations for the final year students of psychological faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The procedure of testing, the features and the structure of the test item bank, technological and organizational issues are discussed including the procedural rules for students and professors. The main focus of the article is statistical analyses of the obtained correlations between test scores, traditional oral exam scores and academic history scores for all years in the university. As a result of the systematic improvements of test item bank the correlation between test scores and academic history scores increased each year and is equal last year 0.72 (the Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient) and 0.86 (Gulford’s coefficient for extreme groups). At the same time the analogical correlation for oral exams remained at the same level (0.55—0.59 the Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient). 

The article presents the results of an experimental research of color distinguishing by city dwellers of China and a midland of Russia. Comparison of color vision was made under the basic chromatic characteristics (hue and saturation) in terms of spherical model of color distinguishing. The cross-cultural differences are not revealed. That is for about threshold light stimulus, the color distinguishing is carried out in visual system of the people belonging to different cultures, absolutely equally, both for radiation, and for light reflected from a surface. Hence, the spherical model of color vision is adequate representation of color distinguishing without dependence from a cultural habitat of subjects. 

The article presents review of foreign socio-psychological theories of the drug addiction development: social learning theory or social cognitive theory (Bandura), social networks theory (Needle et al.) and social influence theory (Ling et al.), stages of behavior change theory (Prochaska, DiClemente), health belief model (Rosenstock), socio-ecological theory (Hansen), social control theory (Elliot), the social development model (Hawkins, Weis), family interaction theory (Brook et al.), problem behavior theory (Jessor). Most researchers in the socio-psychological approach to address the factors of drug addiction among young people focus on the characteristic of the social environment. 

Moscow Winter Psychological School(WPS) of students, post-graduate students and young scientists “Psychology of social problems: Challenges of the XXI century”.