Articles

Relevance. The present study examines attitudes to health supporting and medical prophylactic measures in students before and after the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology and sample. The study was conducted using an online questionnaire with two stages, each involving more than 150 students.

Results. Students adhere to rational attitudes of health supporting and medical prophylactic, but their severity is insufficient. Hygiene rules are observed, a gentle regime for diseases is observed, health is monitored at home, contacts are limited. They are worried about their own health. Active forms of health supporting and medical prophylactic are insufficiently expressed. Vaccination, hardening, and medical examinations are particularly unpopular.

Attitudes before and after the first stage of the pandemic did not differ significantly. The trends towards an active lifestyle, hygiene rules and adequate behavior in the event of an illness have increased. The popularity of vaccinations has decreased. Egocentric motivation for the use of preventive measures prevails.

Key findings. 1. The commitment of the surveyed students to health supporting and medical prophylactic is assessed as insufficiently high, primarily in relation to active methods. Concerns about health, fears of getting sick are observed. However, these experiences do not activate, rather strengthen the restrictive attitudes.

The impact of the first stage of the pandemic on the attitude of students to health supporting and medical prophylactic was insignificant. There is an increase in skepticism about vaccination.

The motive for applying security measures is to reduce personal risk, social components are less significant. Among the reasons for refusing preventive measures are skepticism about efficiency, unwillingness to support “business on problems”. The reason for the refusal of vaccination is indicated by uncertainty in safety. 

Relevance. One of the negative consequences of the pandemic may be an increase in somatization. The analysis of statements about the pandemic makes it possible to identify peculiarities of attitude to the situation by people with different psychological problems.

The aim of the study was the identification of implicit characteristics of texts indicating the peculiarities of the opinion about the situation by people with a high level of somatization.

Materials and methods. The material was obtained in the online survey (03/23/2020 — 01/29/2021, 1188 people). The survey included an assessment of respondents’ condition, it was offered to express an opinion about what was happening in a free form. Used: SCL-90-R, COPE, Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI).

The statements about the pandemic were divided into the two text arrays — “high somatization” and “low somatization”. The frequency of occurrence of vocabulary in these text arrays was estimated.

Results. The analysis showed an increase in somatization as the pandemic developed. The relationship between somatization and anxiety, sleep disturbances, and depression was revealed. Higher rates of somatization are associated with a decrease in emotional coping, an increase in categorical thinking and personal superstitious thinking. The connection between somatization and a number of non-constructive copings is shown. Lexical analysis showed a number of features of texts associated with high somatization, among them the number of pronouns of the first person, a decrease in the tonality of words, a vocabulary of suffering, negative, a decrease in the vocabulary of motivation and resistance, a decrease in vocabulary associated with the body.

Conclusions. The lexical features of statements, typical for respondents with a high level of somatization, were revealed. The connection between somatization and high emotional distress, which manifests itself in negative emotional vocabulary and is associated with a low level of emotional coping, is shown. In the group with high somatization, a contradiction was revealed in the needs and methods of their implementation — the need for help from others is combined with concentration on the self. The "representation" of the pandemic, presented in the text, is "divorced" from somatic manifestations, fear of illness and death. With this “splitting” of mental and somatic functioning, the somatization can perform the function of emotional coping.

Background. Current investigations shows substantial effect of personal experience on danger perception. During COVID-19 pandemic many people reported about psychological discomfort, anxiety, fear, comes from infection itself and collateral effects of pandemic. Investigations in psychology of risk indicate personal experience as one of components of risk perception. In the same time there are no clearance of the effect of experience of particular danger on wide spectrum of hazards.

Objective. Our aim was to clarify the effect of pandemic experience on perception of dangers of external world, to assess quantitative and quantitative differences in danger perception on different stages of coronavirus spread and restrictions rate in Russian sample.

Design. The research uses original diagnostic complex designed for danger perception assessment: Photo-test “Danger estimate test based on photos”, modified Drawn Apperceptive Test, DAT (itself a modification of Thematic Apperceptive Test), “unfinished sentences” test (original set). The research had two stages. The first stage was held before coronavirus start spreading in Russia (February 2020) and before restrictions were imposed. The second stage of research was held in the period of pandemic acceleration and hard restrictions (March-April 2020). The research was held online

Sample size: 57 undergraduates aged 18–24 years.

Results. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. In Photo-test integral score of perceived danger is higher on second stage (p ≤ 0.05) as well as anthropogenic score (p ≤ 0.01). Natural and social scores shows no significant differences. There are mentions of coronavirus are found in answers to unfinished sentences on the second stage of research.

Conclusion. Experience of danger situation substantially increases perceived risk score concerning actual hazard. Projective methods shows an actualization of the hazard theme. Experience of pandemic danger don’t effect on assessment of interpersonal relationships risks.

Relevance. Multitasking gets defined socially and dominating with the development of information technologies. It becomes the system of requirements and possibilities for combining, switching and alternating activities of different forms and contents within one complex activity. As a consequence of the technological development of the information society and a result of worldview transformations within the framework of the paradigm of multiplicity of the postmodern culture, the phenomenon of multitasking as a complex form of the activity in the technologized society becomes one of relevant objects of research in psychology and other sciences of man.

Purpose. The theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of multitasking as a reflection of a multifaceted nature and variability of the postmodern culture and a result of the entry of digital technologies of the information society into the daily life in the context of the concepts of multiplicity and complexity.

Method. The logic and methodology of the study is based on the cultural-historical and activity-based and semantic paradigm. The theoretical and comparative analyses and the method of generalization are employed to achieve the defined goals.

Results. The philosophical analysis of socio-cultural, worldview and technological factors that determine the nature of multitasking is carried out. It shows the role of certain philosophical constructs of the postmodern worldview, particular technologies of the information society in developing the basis for the emergence of the phenomenon of multitasking and also its technological embodiment — mediamultitasking.

Conclusions. At present, multitasking is the practice imposed by the specific nature of the information-communication activity under the technologization and complexity of the modern realities. Regardless of the attitude to this phenomenon, multitasking is an objective fact of the culture of the information society and, as a result, is one of the prerequisites for an efficient activity under its conditions.

Acknowledgements: the present study is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project 19-29-14181 “Multitasking in the Structure of the Digital Socialization: Cognitive and Personal Factors of Efficiency in the Context of the Digitalization of General Education”.

The relevance of this work is associated with the lack in labor psychology of a sufficient number of tools that facilitate the study and assessment of the labor interests of workers.

Objective. The goal is to develop and validate a new methodology for researching the labor interests of workers in modern organizations.

Methods and sampling. A survey toolkit was proposed, the results of which were compared with individual scales of the methods "Studying the motivational profile of a person" (S. Richie and P. Martin), the methodology of F. Herzberg "Monitoring of labor motives" and the method "Motyp" V. Gerchikov. The sample for standardization purposes included workers in modern industries associated with industry 4.0 from 21 to 50 years with a work experience of 0 to 30 years (N = 210).

Results. The author's methodology "Labor interests of workers" has been developed, which includes 35 statements. The content of the statements reflects the theoretical classification of 7 groups of workers' interests: economic; professional; career; group; corporate; territorial and general civil. In assessing these scales, a 5-point gradation is used (from 1 point - not at all important to 5 - very important). The author's interpretation of the data obtained includes: the degree of expression of the labor interests of workers, the structure of labor interests in accordance with the above classification, the analysis of priority types of interests based on the ratings given by the respondents. Statistically significant correlations were obtained between the respondents' answers to individual statements of the methodology and the final result. Numerous direct correlations between indicators of motivation and labor interests were revealed. The reliability factor of the method is 0.662, which corresponds to the average bond strength.

Conclusions. The presented methodology is internally consistent, adequate to the research goal and reliable. The results indicate a high construct validity of this diagnostic tool.

Background. Professional experience is one of the most discussed problems in modern labor psychology. Researchers are trying to expose and describe the system of cognitive and metacognitive skills and abilities, which gives an advantage to experienced professionals. However, there is still a sufficient number of contradictions and unexplored aspects.

The aim of the study is to identify specific features of problem solving by chemists at different levels of professional experience by analyzing performance indicators and eye movements.

Techniques and sampling.The pilot study involved 35 experts and novices in the field of chemistry. They were asked to read descriptions, find errors and fill in gaps in chemical process diagrams. The tasks were based on technological regulations for the production of chemical products. We recorded the run time, errors and indicators of eye movements with the SMI Hi-Speed contactless video recording system with a 1200 Hz frequency.

The results showed that the run time and the number of errors were significantly lower for experts than for novices. In addition, the two groups featured significant differences in the average duration of blinking, indicating a higher emotional stress among novices. Other eye movement differences demonstrated that experts tend to favor focal type of cognitive processing. This is revealed in longer fixations, short and slow saccades. Also, the experts were characterized by an uneven distribution of attention and cognitive efforts relative to different parts of the task and by a smaller number of transitions between them. The general analysis showed that experts, solving problems, rely more on mental representations and previous knowledge, while novices are guided by the information presented on the slides.

Conclusions. The data demonstrate the superiority of experts in solving chemical problems and reveal the cognitive structure of professional experience.

Relevance.People are increasingly involved in mastering new types of work. It involves rebuilding the skills developed for a variety of occupations, both mental and motor. While the problem of forming new skills is sufficiently well-developed, the problem of their restructuring has attracted significantly less attention, although, judging by the experiences of participants, it sometimes leads to a slowdown, and in some cases to the rejection of innovation process.

The purpose of this study was to identify the causes of negative effects that female employees experienced when the spatial parameters of their workplaces were rationally changed.

Methods and sampling. The study was based on the analysis of the activities of 25 seamstresses (one team) in the familiar and the rationalized subject environment. It included two additional research methods:

1) vector-coordinate method of job evaluation; 2) graphic and verbal fixation of the dynamics of how the employees subjectively assessed their psychosomatic experiences in the process of changes.

Results. The rationalization of the spatial parameters of seamstresses’ workplaces was meant for optimizing their main working posturewithout affecting the semantic component of their activity. Nevertheless, it led to certain changes in their skill of performing stereotypical movements for grinding the parts of target production. This restructuring resulted in the appearance of long-term negative experiences of somatic discomfort (from 5 to 10 days) in the process of performing labor actions. But these experiences did not correspond to the experience of somatic comfort in the main working posture taken before starting work.

Conclusion. Despite the objective improvement of the psychosomatic state of female workers, the discrepancy in the experiences of psychosomatic state in statics and dynamics is naturally and well explained from the standpoint of the Bernstein model of movement construction. It is caused by the need to change the levels of motion control and the resulting need to restructure the previously established sensory synthesis. Such a result indicates the need for psychological support of the innovation process until the end of the negative experiences associated with it.

Background. The relevance of the study is determined by the search for the determinants of the subjective professional well-being of operators. Possibilities of operators' trust in equipment for achieving subjective professional well-being (SPWB) are considered.

Objective. The analysis of the features of manifestation of operators' trust in equipment as a psychological resource of subjective professional well-being was carried out.

Design. The author's questionnaire «Trust of the specialist to equipment (TSE)» was used to diagnose the level of trust of operators in equipment. Questionnaires: "Social and professional demand for personality", "Methods for assessing professional well-being", "Dominant state", "Passionate about work" were used to diagnose SPWB. Empirical data were translated into z-scores. Z-scores were subjected to multidimensional scaling (non-metric scaling, distance function - Euclidean distance). The results were displayed in the form of two-dimensional graphic models of the psychological space of SPWB. In the SPWB space, assessments of indicators of operators' trust in equipment and subjective professional well-being were reflected.

Research sample. The study involved 76 NPP operators (specialists), 100 locomotive driver – a total of 176 people. Work experience - from 1 to 35 years.

Results. The level of trust in the equipment among specialists is higher than among the locomotive drivers – 75,8 points and 62,4 points, respectively (p <0,001). Experts' assessments of indicators of trust in the equipment are located on the border of the SPWB space, far from the assessments of SPWB indicators. For locomotive drivers, assessments of indicators of trust in the equipment are located within the SPWB space next to 4 indicators of the SPWB. They reflected the desire for professional growth, satisfaction with the level of competence and professional achievements, the state of passion for work.

Conclusions. The trust of specialists in the equipment becomes a psychological resource of subjective professional well-being in critical working situations. The trust of locomotive drivers in the equipment is a constant psychological resource for maintaining subjective professional well-being.

Relevance. The article presents the results of published studies’ review and the empirical study, targeted to estimate job stressors and proactive coping strategies in nurses during COVID-19 pandemic. The research urgency is connected with the necessity to evaluate psychological availability of nurses to be resistant to high work strain and risk of SARS-CoV-2 contamination.

Objectives. The research aim: to compare stress level, job stressors evaluation and proactive coping strategies in nurses with high and low chronic states.

Methods. Diagnostic set included: Chronic stress and fatigue inventories by A.B. Leonova; Job stress survey by Ch. Spielberger; Professional burnout inventory by N.E. Vodopyaynova; Proactive coping inventory by E. Greenglass; checklist “Means states’ optimization” by A.S. Kuznetsova.

Sample. Hospital nurses (n = 306; age 43,2±10,9; service 20,7±11,5). 

Results. Revealed job stressors are typical for nurses: inadequate salary, insufficient time for breaks, excessive paperwork and increased responsibility. Strong differences in job stressors evaluation are found between nurses of risk group (with high level of chronic states) and nurses with no chronic states (well-to-do group): in risk group, perceived job stress is significantly higher. Proactive coping strategies are quite high. Regression analysis did not reveal coping strategies as stress predictors. Three months after well-to-do nurses still perceived no high job stress, while in risk group perceived job stress increased.

Conclusions.Under pressure of unmanageable pandemic strain, self-evaluation of proactive coping possibilities in risk group and well-to-do group significantly diverged. Most likely perceived stressors are connected with the inability to manage work strain and to minimize the impact of its negative effects.

Relevance. The article presents research results regarding personal and regulatory factors influencing the reliability of personnel in power plants. We discuss the possibility of integrating different psychological approaches to assessing functional reliability. We had assumed that including dynamic variables (acute and chronic stress manifestations, “internal cost” of activity) and stable personal factors in the analysis will permit to compare their contribution to psychological stability and reliability. 

Methods.The main indicators of the study include: personality traits (ITO, Sobchik, 1998); functional components of self-regulation (“SSPM with a reliability scale”, Morosanova, Bondarenko, 2015); occupational stress indices (IDIKS, Leonova, 2006). 

The number of errors in the cognitive microstructural tests “Attention Span” and “Stimuli Recognition”, S. Sternberg's model) was assessed as objective parameter of the operators’ reliability. 

The sample includes 378 employees of power plants (average age 41): 31 people are middle managers (chiefs and their deputies) and 347 are operational and technical personnel (engineers, electricians, controllers). 

The results indicate that the main psychological predictors of low occupational stress manifestation include: (1) regulatory processes and features (modeling performance conditions and assessing the result); (2) personality traits (high extraversion and emotional lability, moderate anxiety, sensitivity and self-sufficiency). The level of self-regulation determines differences in indicators of performance reliability of the operating personnel (error-free completion of microstructural tests).

Relevance. The article discusses the prospects for research paradigms shift in the study of employee attitudes towards organizational change. The transition from the traditional economy of production and consumption of material goods to the economy of knowledge, then to the economy of impressions, and in the very near future - to the digital economy, which took place during the last decades, and marks the full-scale deployment of the fourth industrial revolution, forces modern organizations to constantly change. The systemic nature of an organization assumes that transformations in any of its areas of activity are reflected in all other components. The leadership of every organization needs to be able to manage the process of change. At the heart of the change process are, first of all, changes in the interactions among employees of the organization.

Objectives. The purpose of the article is to trace how traditional ideas about the basic principles of organizational change management are changing. As a replacement for the traditional vector of management efforts aimed at timely diagnosis and subsequent overcoming of staff resistance to the changes being introduced, there comes an understanding of the possibility of identifying and supporting the psychological readiness of employees for organizational changes. 

Results. The growing concept of Positive Organizational Scholarship abandons the traditional interpretation of the relationship between change and resistance that needs to be overcome. It focuses on the positive perception by employees of organizational changes, on creating such conditions when change becomes a way for employees to unleash their potential, self-actualization and personal growth. The indicated change in research paradigms is traced in the article on the material of a number of empirical studies carried out with the participation and under the scientific guidance of the author. The studies were initially devoted to the study of socio-psychological factors of personnel resistance to organizational changes, and then to the identification of socio-psychological prerequisites for the formation of psychological readiness of employees for organizational changes. These studies were accompanied by the development and testing of appropriate methodological tools.

Relevance. Recruitment and organizational culture can be important strategic resources for retaining the most promising employees and reducing organizational turnover.

The purpose of the work is to search for predictors of the organizational culture' attractiveness among individual factors of personnel with access to forecasting staff turnover.

Methods and sampling. A comprehensive study of employees of three industrial enterprises was conducted. A total of 131 people, 105 men and 26 women, took part in the study. The package of standardized methods included: "Questionnaire for assessing subjectively important performance characteristics", "Career anchors", "Diagnostics of the motivational structure", "Attractiveness of organizational culture”, "Assessment of the subjective attitude to organizational culture" .

Results. The result of statistical analysis was received four factor structure of the organizational culture' attractiveness: motivational factor, communicative interaction, stable operation and the uncertainty. The contribution of employees' individual factors for assessing the organizational culture' attractiveness of industrial enterprises was revealed. In order to reduce the potential employees' turnover, it is necessary to select personnel with attitudes to the balance of personal and professional life and without a motivation for management. The organizational culture should be focused on providing conditions for sustainable functioning – working hours, wages, working conditions. These factors are crucial for making a decision to leave the organization.

Conclusions. The data obtained in our study can be useful for HR managers and managers of industrial organizations. They can influence the employees' turnover by changing the organizational culture or selecting personnel with certain motivation.

Relevance. The article analyzes the problems of modern researchers studying the "man - work" system from the standpoint of post-nonclassical models that develop the idea of "subjectivity" in the relationship between man and world. It is necessary to develop a methodological approach for an adequate noncontroversialdescription of the world of professionals. Such an approach should describe this system in a consistent way, allow for correlation of ideas about it with the reality itself and remove the limitations associated with the researcher’s abilities. 

Objective. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the possibilities of psychosemantic approach for studying professional activity on the example of two pieces of empirical research on the activities of medical workers employed by commercial and budgetary organizations and having to do with different contingents of patients.

Methods. In the studies conducted we used the survey methods "Integral Satisfaction with Work" (developed by V.A. Rozanova), “Professional Burnout” (N. E. Vodopyaynova, E.S. Starchenkova) and psychosemantic methods: semantic differential"My Work"; free associations; 10 unfinished sentences on the topic"My Work"; C. Osgood's 14-scale semantic differential modified by E.Yu. Artemyeva. 

Sample. The study involved 212 doctors with different career span, of which 66 people are employees of budget hospitals, 36 people work in commercial medical centers, 60 people are maternity hospital employees, and 50 people work in a hospice. 

Results. Semantic features such as “emotional tone of assessment”, “ratio of semantic coincidence between descriptions of different “types” of work object (in our case,“ Man” and“Patient”)”and “abstractness/concreteness of descriptions” reflect the conceptual characteristics of professional experience of doctors working in different organizations and with different contingents of patients. 

Conclusions. The psychosemantic approach to studying the "person - work" system, in which the activity approachof a person to the world is postulated, makes it possible to provide an adequate description of complex systems in a changing environment. The methods of psychosemantics, due to their "sensitivity" to shades of meaning of the words used by respondents, correspond to the idea of post-nonclassical models of mental determination, when external influences are mediated by the activity of a person and by the currentstructures of hisor hersubjective experience.

Relevance of the article is due to the need to predict changes in the characteristics of traditional and new occupations with regard to development of information technologies and automation tools. 

The aim of the work is to identify the main areas of optimization and support of professional activities in the conditions of informatization based on the forecast of changes in conditions and situations of activity.

Methods- theoretical analysis and systematization of ideas about the determinants of activity and their integration. 

Results. Stability and variability of professional activities are considered within the framework of situational approach, focused on the integration of external conditions and internal variables as the determinant of activities. The study clarifies the concept of activity conditions as characteristics of the environment. The definition of situation is limited to the relation of subjective interpretation and assessment of external conditions to evaluating personal resources in accordance with the purpose and actual experience, the mechanism of which is associated with reflexive regulation of activities. In accordance with the nature of subjective assessment of conditions, the types of situations are divided into ordinary and extreme. The situation is usual (standard) for a subject if the methods of action are well-established and assessed adequately, regardless of the conditions, which can be even dangerous, extreme and emergency. Unusual situations are characterized by a combination of novelty of conditions, on the one hand, and limited experience and resource assessment, on the other hand. According to the characteristics of resources (functional systems and the content of experience) it is suggested to distinguish between situations of tension, characterized by the need to act at the limit of one’s opportunities but within one’s experience, and situations of uncertainty. There are a number of arguments for limiting the notion of "uncertainty" and the corresponding situations to the characteristics of the internal subjective sphere, the source of which are components of activity, not elements of the environment. In situations of uncertainty, it is suggested to distinguish between the situations of problem solving and decisions making, actions that differ in psychological mechanisms, and to consider risk situations as a subcategory of decision making. The systemization of situations formed the basis for the forecast of their changes for traditional and new occupations in the context of advanced information technology, as well as the definition of the directions of software support for action and ensuring the preparedness. 

Conclusions. The probability of extreme and emergency situations involving danger for people is unlikely to change. Dangerous situations in professional environments can start to be assessed as ordinary if one forms an adequate concept of conditions and one’s own resources (readiness) by using training systems, including virtual reality tools. Information security problems are being studied intensively, both in terms of theoretical analysis of information environment characteristics and in the development of software protection and minimization of danger. It seems possible to reduce the situations of extreme. Minimizing problem situations can be obtained by creating experience and reducing uncertainty. In decision-making and risk situations it can be obtained through software and technical support for the choice and automation of assessment operations. The possibilities of using software and technology to reduce tension will also be expanded through automation of cognitive and executive operations, alignment of their parameters with the subject’s mental capabilities, formation of skills allowing one to work in a wide range of situations.

Relevance: History of science is a necessary component of its progressive development; however, the history of Russian applied psychology has not been sufficiently studied. 

Purpose of the work: to present the results of the author's historical and psychological works carried out on the basis of the subject-activity approach.

Research method: The study uses systemic methodology and the subject-activity approach based on the provisions of Marxist philosophy, theory of science and traditions of Russian psychology and its history (A.A. Bogdanov, E.A. Budilova, E.A. Klimov and others). It also uses analogies for a better understanding of the unity of consciousness principle and the activity of its subject (an individual scientist, a group of researchers and practitioners, society as a whole, as a collective subject). The study demonstrates the advantages of the methodology chosen in comparison with the one adopted by scientists who are limited by the cognitive resources of one-sided approaches (for example, the traditions of internalism or externalism) in historical and psychological research.

Sample: The article provides an overview of the author's most important publications on historical and psychological topics over the past 35 years.

Results: The study presents the author's research of the formation, development and transformation of applied psychology on the example of psychological sciences on labor and working people carried out in Russia from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century, in correlation with the events of the country's civil history. The author analyzes the development of certain scientific problems (problems of social psychology of labor, problems of working capacity and fatigue, the prehistory of competence-based approach in psychology, problems of safety psychology in ergatic systems, etc.). It also presents the analysis of the work done by a number of leading Russian psychologists in this field. The results of the research are included in the program of the special course "History of Applied Psychology".

Conclusions: The study formulates the main provisions of the subject-activity approach in historical and psychological research and the possibilities of its application in order to understand the past of psychology and predict the trends of its future development.