Gusev, A.N.

Background. Distrust of technology is an important barrier to its implementation into human life. In the research of attitude to computers and automated systems, special attention in psychological science has been paid to attitudes towards technology: technophobia and technophilia.

Objective. The aim is to adapt two questionnaires to Russian sample in order to measure the technophobia and technophilia attitudes, as well as to evaluate their psychometric properties.

Methods. The adaptation of the questionnaires was carried out in accordance with the requirements of psychometric standards. As part of the work, the methods of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to assess the internal structure of the techniques. Correlation analysis was used to obtain evidence supporting questionnaires validity.

Sample. At the first stage of the study, 275 people filled out questionnaires on technophobia and technophilia, of which 194 were women (71 %) and 81 were men (29 %), the average age was 33.5 years (SD = 13.93). The second part of the study involved 545 employees of a large financial sector organization.

Results. The methods showed sufficient reliability indicators on the scales (the Cronbach’s α coefficient is higher than 0.8) and the expected correlation coefficients of the results on the questionnaires with each other and with questionnaires aimed at assessing personal anxiety, self-efficacy and personality traits (HEXACO). The internal structure of the adaptation of the questionnaires was analyzed with confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis. However, the hypothesis of the stability of the internal structure for each scale was not confirmed.

Conclusion. Adapted questionnaires can be used for research purposes. It is necessary to continue collecting empirical data on both questionnaires.

Practical application of the results. The proposed versions of the questionnaires can be used to assess technophobic and technophilic attitudes without dividing these scales into subscales. The authors have proposed an alternative version of dividing items into subscales for the technophobia questionnaire, while this version is considered as potentially more suitable, although it requires additional analysis on new data sets.

Relevance. The increasing complexity of technical devices used by humans and the high rate of emergence of new devices and their functions lead to the emergence of various practices and habits of working with them. It is possible to see a specific representation of what a personal computer (PC) consists of and how it works for each of these practices. This representation has developed in the process of working with a PC as its mental model. However, the task of reconstructing these models and comparing different respondents with each other according to the specifics of their understanding of the PC does not have the necessary methodological support. It is necessary to get representations of PC in a comparable form to effectively compare the different people`s/group`s representations of PC with each other and study their mental models, preserving the qualitative specifics of these “images of PC”.

The purpose of this work is to empirically approbate the technology of reconstructing the representations of PC users about the computer itself as a multidimensional psychological space of descriptions of its work.

Methods. Methods of group interviews and card sorting were used to collect descriptions of “how PC works”, multidimensional scaling methods were used to reconstruct representations of PC among groups of study participants.

Results. We have reconstructed and described the representations about the work of the PC of three groups of users — schoolchildren (N = 22), programmers (N = 22) and ordinary adults without special education (N = 21) as multidimensional spaces of descriptions of the work of the PC. We identified the bases of classification of PC operation descriptions for each group of users and develop a technology for analyzing the results of studying their representations about PC as latent characteristics that form the basis of classification of PC operation descriptions.

Background. This study examined a set of personality traits related to self-control or willpower, (WP), and how self-ratings of these self-control traits are influenced by the cognitive constructs of action (versus state) orientation and meaningfulness.

Design. The subjects were 943 university students, aged 17–29 (M = 19.5 years), who volunteered to complete J. Kuhl's (1996) Action-State Orientation (ASO) scale, a Russian adaptation of the Purpose In Life test (PIL) as a measure of meaningfulness and sense-making capacity, and self-ratings of self-control traits, such as “persistence”, “decisiveness”, and “self-discipline” that produced an aggregate measure of WP and four willpower factors reflecting (1) emotional regulation, (2) commitment to action, (3) energy, and (4) execution.

Results. State-oriented ineffective sense-makers (those who scored low on both ASO and PIL) rated themselves the lowest on WP. Conversely, action-oriented effective sense-makers (high scorers on both ASO and PIL) produced the highest WP self-ratings. Mediator-modelling regression analyses showed ASO and PIL to be predictive of self-rated WP – both independently, and by mediating each other’s influence on aggregate WP ratings. However, the predictive power of PIL was substantially higher than that of ASO, and the overall pattern of prediction varied across the four willpower sub-factors.

Relevance. There are set of terms and theories, that describe human`s experience of interaction with the outside world. This leads to difficulties in comparing and analyzing the results of empirical studies of human representations of the world. This phenomenon is clearly manifested in the study of human concepts of the personal computer, actively developed by psychologists and specialists in human-computer interfaces design.

Objective. In this work we pretend to explain the requirements for empirical study of personal computers mental models (MM) structure in the framework of cultural-activity paradigm, based on the analysis of the history of MM research in various areas of cognitive psychology and cultural activity approach.

Results. We discussed the main approaches to the study of mental models in psychology, characteristics of MM and specificity of methods of their study. The concept of MM is compared with similar constructs developed in various areas of psychology: "cognitive map", "scheme", "mental representation", "meaning", "image of the world". We also analyzed the possibility of operationalization of this construct. The MM concept are compared with the A.N. Leontiev`s concept of the «image of the world» and features of the MM researches in cultural activity paradigm was showed. The concept of MM is discussed in the context of different approaches to the study of meanings in linguistics and psychology: the approach of fixed meanings and research of embodied cognition. Finally, we describe the main characteristics of MM, which should be taken into account to plan an empirical study of human representations of personal computers.

Conclusion. In the construction of empirical research of personal computer`s MM we should require special attention to such characteristics of MM, as their consistency, cultural dependency and integrity; methods of such study should take into account the own activity of the subject.

The relevance of the study is the need to clarify what factors can determine the self-esteems of volitional traits of a person.

Objective. The empirical study of the possible influence of action control mode and action and meaningfulness of life level on person's representation  about the development of his volitional traits.

Methods. 943 first-fifth year university students were asked to complete three questionnaires: Self-esteem technique of the volitional traits (V. Ivannikov, E. Aidman), Action control in planning scale (NAKEMP-90) in adaptation of S. Schapkin, Purpose in Life test in adaptation of D. Leontiev.

Results. There was a reliable relationship of the values of action control in planning scale (ACP) and general meaningfulness of life index (MLI) with three volitional traits (strong-willed, confident, bold) and total score of 20 volitional traits (TSVT). The results of 2-way ANOVA showed significant effects of Action Control and Meaningfulness of Life on the value of TSVT. The lowest TSVT values were observed in students with low values of ACP and MLI, and the highest -with high values of these indexes.

Conclusion. The results are discussed in the framework of V.A. Ivannikov’s theoretical ideas about psychological mechanisms of volitional regulation of personality, especially the role of the meaning formation in the process of transferring prompting from motive to purpose. It explains the natural connection of person`s meanings and self-esteems of volitional traits, as well as the contribution of such resource of self-regulation of human activity as action control mode.

The article concerns the problem of developing online technologies for adolescents’ career guidance and professional consultation with regard to their huge interest in computer programs (games and other entertainments) on the one hand, and the apparent lack of science-based computer methods of professional self-determination, on the other hand. We analyze the positive and questionable aspects of the design and the practical use of online technologies in professional counseling compared to existing technologies used in the professional consultation. We also consider the capabilities and limitations of these online technologies in solving the basic problems of vocational guidance (information, diagnostic, moral and emotional support of the client, assistance in decision-making and career planning). For example, the development of the author's methodology of “Choose and Go” designed for adolescents’ online use, shows the problem facing the designers of such software products, solutions to these problems. The basic ideas of this methodology are: comprehensive assessment of select work on the basis of full consideration of the psychological structure of the work; the use of expert assessments of the extent to which components of professional activity correspond to the official list of the integrated groups of specialties; the use in the modes of the real and online professional counseling; the account not only the desires of a teenager, but his/her current and potential abilities.

The results of the development of a new computer guidance method for senior schoolchildren on the basis of “Formulas of the profession” (E.A. Klimov) and a modern scheme for the analysis of professions (N.S. Pryazhnikov) are presented. The main stages of obtaining expert estimates are shown, which made it possible to correlate the components of professional activity with the official list of enlarged specialties of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The advantage of 3-level grades of schoolchildren (“I want”, “I can now” and “could in the future”) is considered before the traditional assessment of schoolchildren’s actual preferences. In the process of choosing a profession, the preferred characteristics of future work activity are set not in the form of direct estimates of their traditional designations (subject, purpose, means, conditions, etc.), but through paired comparisons of the main labor activities and training activities. The computer-based online testing system works with the methodology through the Web-interface on modern software platforms — Windows, Android, MacOS, iOS, Linux.

The article presents the results of experimental study that found the effects of attention and working memory on the change blindness phenomenon manifestation. In “flicker” paradigm 93 participants solved the task of change detection in two consistently presenting images. The participants was divided into several groups by the magnitudes of concentration and allocation of attention, estimated using Bourdon’s correction test, as well as on the accuracy and time of identification of the target stimulus in the DMS working memory test. Found a positive influence of the concentration and allocation of attention on the search changes duration. The effects of working memory indexes were different: improving the accuracy of identification of the target stimulus was associated with an increase in the search time but in contrast the speed of identification positive effects on the search changes duration. The results allow to suppose that the specific role of attention and memory resources in the change blindness.

The psychophysical research on loudness discrimination of tonal signals (method 2AFC) has been carried out, N=106. The influence of self-regulation (questionnaires: HAKEMP-90, Style of self-regulation of behavior, Self-organization of behavior) on RT and sensory sensitivity index A' was found out. The qualitative analysis of individual ways of discrimination of signals was carried out. The relationships between loudness discrimination effectiveness and self-regulation processes characteristics mediating the sensory task decision were revealed. The applying the principle of subject`s activity to traditional psychophysical research was accomplished in the frameworks of differential-psychological approach in psychophysics (A.N. Gusev). It is developed the idea that the variation of stimuli uncertainty leads to appropriate transformation of the functional organ (A.N. Leontiev, A.A. Ukhtomskiy) relevant to sensory discrimination task.