Articles

Background. Nuclear medicine is one of the innovative areas of healthcare. This area is associated mainly with the diagnosis and treatment of oncological diseases, though its application is much wider. The use of nuclear medicine methods is promising, including in such areas as neurology and cardiology. The development of nuclear medicine requires not only the creation of a modern infrastructure in combination with expert-class equipment, but also the timely training of doctors whose competencies meet the requirements of the industry. At the same time, the duration and high cost of training for specialists in the field of nuclear medicine raises the issue of maintaining the professional health of the current staff and identifying conditions that prevent the development of burnout. One of the assumptions explaining susceptibility to professional deformations is the presence of a connection between the development of burnout symptoms and the personal characteristics of a specialist.

Objective. An empirical study is aimed at defining the role of personality factors that provoke the development of burnout or protect nuclear medicine physicians.

Study Participants. The study involved 122 employees of radiation diagnostics and radiation therapy departments of 23 institutions of the Russian Federation. A total of 122 respondents: 40 radiologists (33%), 19 radiologists (15%), 63 radiation therapists (52%), of which 35 were men (28.7%), and 87 were women (71.3%).

Methods. Autobiographical questionnaire, "Diagnostics of professional burnout" by K. Maslach, S. Jackson, adapted by N.E. Vodopyanova, E.S. Starchenkova, "Short portrait questionnaire of the Big Five" (B5-10) adapted by M.S. Egorova, O.V. Parshchikova, "Short questionnaire of the Dark Triad" adapted by M.S. Egorova, M.A. Sitnikova, O.V. Parshchikova.

Results. High friendliness and conscientiousness of doctors, their emotional stability are personal traits that protect them from burnout, while neuroticism, Machiavellianism, low benevolence and conscientiousness can be predictors of burnout. In addition, the expression of the "Extroversion" factor in physician-managers distinguishes them from ordinary doctors, while the reduction of personal achievements in the latter is significantly higher.

Conclusions. Timely monitoring of burnout symptoms among staff will allow identifying risk groups for the development of professional deformations, and information about the personal profiles of doctors will help preventively respond to negative symptoms and create a targeted program of psychological assistance to doctors.

Background. The growing research interest in the phenomenon of conformity leads to the necessity of studying individual factors influencing its manifestation. These factors include, but are not limited to, personality dispositions. The current data on the relationship between personality characteristics and conformity remain contradictory.

Objective. The goal is to analyse the relationship between different types of self-reported conformity and personality dispositions as well as to validate the scale of moral conformity in the virtual environment.

Study Participants. The study involved 287 subjects aged 18 to 55 years (M = 24.2, SD = 9.3), 215 women and 72 men. 30 people from the sample (M = 19.1, SD = 2.77) took part in a retest to assess the test-retest reliability of the virtual moral conformity scale.

Methods. The following instruments were used in the study: Mehrabian and Stefl Conformity Scale; the author's scale of moral conformity in virtual environment; a series of 14 specially designed hypothetical scenarios containing conflict situations and suggesting two possible solutions (in favor of the individual or in favor of the group); short form of the Eysenck Personality Inventory; the Dirty Dozen questionnaire.

Results. A scale of moral conformity in a virtual environment was tested. A positive relationship was found between the indicators of self-reported conformity and the indicators of neuroticism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, psychoticism, and narcissism. However, when controlling for the narcissism indicator, the relationships between moral conformity in a virtual environment and neuroticism and Machiavellianism were insignificant; when controlling for the psychopathy indicator, the relationship between psychoticism and the tendency to choose antisocial conformist responses was insignificant. It was shown that there were significant relationships between all indicators of self-reported conformity, which gave grounds to assume the potential presence of a common latent factor of conformity. However, further analysis showed that the structural model of self-reported conformity without a common latent factor fits the data better than the model including the latent factor. This result suggests that different types of self-reported conformity may represent independent aspects of conformity behaviour rather than manifestations of a single, common trait.

Conclusions. The obtained results provide evidence for the existence of independent types of self-reported conformity and also confirm the presence of relationships between different indicators of self-reported conformity as well as the relationships between self-reported conformity and personality dispositions.

Background. Displaced aggression is currently a common occurrence when a person is not able to respond directly to the offender, loosing temper at other uninvolved people. The Displaced Aggression Questionnaire was introduced as the first technique to assess differences in the severity of displaced aggression.

Objective. The study is aimed at adapting a questionnaire designed to measure the tendency towards displaced aggression.

Study Participants. The study involved 364 respondents aged from 18 to 69 years (M_age = 22; SD = 12.2; 243 women).

Methods. Three questionaries were used: the "Displaced Aggression Questionnaire" being adapted, the "BPAQ-24" questionnaire, which allows to measure three traits (anger, hostility, and physical aggression), and the "Vengeance and Forgiveness Questionnaire" ("The Vengeance scale") intended to measure characteristics of vengeance and forgiveness. For the psychometric properties of the adapted questionnaire, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, Cronbach's α coefficient, and Student's t-test are used.

Results. The Russian version of the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire includes three subscales. The scales "angry rumination" (Cronbach's α = 0.884) and "displaced aggression" (Cronbach's α = 0.909) have a structure, similar to the original structure of the questionnaire and include 10 items each. The "revenge planning" scale has a modified structure, including 6 items (Cronbach's α = 0.876). Correlation analysis revealed significant positive relationships of displaced aggression with anger and hostility. Gender differences were revealed: women are more prone to angry rumination and displaced aggression, while men are more prone to revenge planning.

Conclusions. Psychometric analysis supports the reliability-consistency and validity of the Russian version of the "Displaced Aggression Questionnaire". The instrument is recommended for application as a diagnostic tool for displaced aggression, angry rumination and revenge planning.

Background. The developmental potential of play in the context of mental development of preschool children is recognized by almost all specialists in the field. However, the lack of common understanding of play and the variety of proposed classifications of play types make them currently poorly comparable, complicating significantly further clarification of scientific data on the influence of specific aspects of play activity on the indicators of children's development.

Objective. The study was aimed at examining the preferences of preschool children in different age groups when choosing between role play toys and play figures, as well as the potential impact of the preferred type of play on the development of executive functions.

Study Participants. The study involved 180 children aged 4 to 7 years (M = 5.96 years; SD = 0.69).

Methods. Toy preferences for role-playing or directing play were revealed in an experimental paradigm using the forced-choice experimental paradigm. Executive functions were assessed with a set of neuropsychological tests.

Results. It was shown that 4-5-year-old children were significantly more likely to choose role play toys, and 6-7-year-old children chose to play figures. When controlling for gender and age, preference for play figures was significantly associated with higher visual-spatial working memory scores.

Conclusions. The developmental potential of directing play with figures can be seen as higher for the development of visual-spatial working memory as compared to the potential of the role-play.

Background. AI algorithms have rapidly entered everyday life in the last few years, which caused the appearance of a large number of both texts and images generated by neural networks. Nevertheless, the perception of artificially generated images has not yet been studied. The relevance of the study is to observe the possibility of using artificially generated images to plan experiments in psychology of perception.

Objective. The study investigated the differences in visual search for various stimuli types: photographs and AI-generated images.

Study Participants. Thirty participants (21 females) between 18 and 43 years old (M = 21.29, SD = 5.18) took part in the study.

Methods. The study had an experimental design with two factors and two dependent variables. The subjects' task was to find the target stimulus among distractors; the stimulus material included images of objects generated using a neural network and photographs. The number of objects on the screen also varied. The accuracy of the subjects' responses and reaction time were measured.

Results. No differences in detection accuracy were found between photorealistic and AI-generated stimuli, nor were there any differences in reaction times.

Conclusions. It was shown that the type of stimulus (AI-generated or photorealistic) does not affect the speed and accuracy of finding them. The perspectives of this study are related to the possibilities of using artificially generated stimuli for planning experiments in cognitive psychology.

Background. Applied for defensive justification of immoral actions, the mechanisms of moral disengagement (MD), on the one hand, provoke unethical behaviour, and on the other hand, prevent its direct correction. Thus, the study of the factors underlying these mechanisms is relevant from both theoretical and practical points of view.

Objective. The aim of the study is to identify cognitive and personal factors in the choice of MD strategies (loci).

Study Participants. The study involved 618 respondents aged 17 to 52 years (M = 23.08, SD = 6.32), including 450 women; 410 are students from various universities and specialties, 208 are employees of enterprises and organizations of various profiles.

Methods. Data were collected using valid questionnaires: Short Scale of Moral Disengagement, Dark Tetrad Short Questionnaire, Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy, and Short Form of the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire.

Results. It was found that the most preferred MD strategy is the locus of victim, and the least preferred one is the disregard (or distortion) of the behaviour consequences locus. The main personality predictors of MD are high values of psychopathy and Machiavellianism, as well as low empathy and a weak ability to recognize one’s own feelings. The contribution of personality traits is most significant for the integrative indicator of MD and its behavioral locus, and the least significant for the actor locus (situational justification of immoral acts). Distortion of the victim image is better predicted by the "dark" traits—psychopathy and Machiavellianism—than by low empathy and emotional intelligence. On the contrary, the distortion of the behaviour consequences is better predicted by cognitive empathy and worse by the expression of "dark" traits.

Conclusions. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that moral disengagement most often manifests itself through the defense mechanism of victim blaming, which is likely due to the greater cognitive ease of its formation. The contributions of personality traits, empathy, and emotional intelligence to different loci of MD vary in strength and quality. Thus, the behaviour locus is determined to a greater extent by personality characteristics, the actor locus by cognitive qualities, and the victim locus is determined by both personality and cognitive peculiarities. The discovered patterns can be useful in practical work with beliefs that justify immoral behaviour.

Background. In recent decades, there has been a rapid increase in the importance of the Internet in adolescents' lives. However, data on the relationship between screen time duration and various risks of well-being are inconsistent. Therefore, further clarification of this relationship is needed, particularly in the context of specifying types of aggression.

Objective. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between different types of adolescent aggression, including physical aggression, anger, hostility and the time they spend in front of screens.

Study Participants. The study involved 10,980 adolescents from 10 regions of the Russian Federation aged 15 to 18 years (M_age = 15.9 years; SD = ±0.92; 6,096 girls).

Methods. The level of adolescent aggression was assessed with the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). Adolescents' internet activity was evaluated by analyzing their responses to the question "How much time do you spend on the Internet every day?" To analyze and process quantitative data we used descriptive statistics, crosstabs, correlation analysis and one-way analysis of variance (A posteriori comparisons were performed using the Student's t-test with the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons).

Results. The study found that adolescents' online activity is quite high. Additionally, one in six adolescents aged 15 to 18 years has a high propensity for physical aggression and anger, while one in seven has a tendency towards hostility. The results of the comparative analysis demonstrate a statistically significant correlation between aggression and online activity. It has been shown that adolescents with high levels of aggression manifestations spend significantly more time online as compared to those with low or medium levels.

Conclusions. The study established a correlation between teenagers' screen time and the severity of manifestation of various types of aggression. Based on this, there is a need to develop and implement strategies to help teens resist the negative effects of excessive screen time and reduce aggression, while promoting positive individual development.

Background. With the current course for development on a national scale, the demand for an active, self-determining personality is growing. In this regard, the issue of self-determination becomes not only a theoretical construct of interdisciplinary discourse, but also represents a very clear practical interest from the standpoint of devising educational practices that ensure the development of subjectivity.

Objective. This work aims at carrying out the primary empirical analysis of the psychosemantic space of self-determination. The main objective of the study is to identify and describe the factor structure of the psychosemantic space of perception of self-determination situations.

Study Participants. At the stage of testing the semantic differential, 300 students in humanities and science of Tyumen universities participated, including 230 women (76.6%) and 70 men (23.4%). The average age is 24.8 years.

Methods. A special version of the semantic differential with 25 unipolar evaluation features was used to assess self-determination situations.

Results. Four factors were identified. The first factor includes a set of variables that allow us to characterize the perception of self-determination positively and experience positive emotions and feelings. The second factor includes variables that characterize self-determination situations from the standpoint of situational analysis and rationality. The third factor as a set of variables indicates management of activity content within a given framework. The fourth factor is bipolar, including two variables: indifference and activity.

Conclusions. The identified factors can be interpreted within the context of V.A. Ganzen's system description principles. Moreover, the factor structure is comparable with the model of Ch. Osgood. Correlation with these models allows us to characterize the structural and functional aspects of self-determination.

Background. The formal, shallow assimilation of school knowledge is studied in psychological and pedagogical science under different terms, each of which has a separate research area. Naive concepts, a “superficial” learning approach, functional illiteracy, the gap between knowledge and application — within the framework of this far from complete list, the same phenomenon of formalism is studied. In fact, overcoming the formalism is one of the key tasks of modern school education.

Objective. This paper compares different approaches to the analysis of the functional meaning of formalism mistakes, highlights the specifics of the activity approach to student mistakes, and describes the prospects for this approach.

Methods. In order to study the formalism of knowledge within the approaches, outlined above, functional analysis was applied as “the analysis of a mental phenomenon in relation to the performed socially-determined function”.

Results. The analysis shows that the errors of the formalism of school knowledge in most approaches are viewed negatively as something that must be avoided. However, from the point of view of the activity-based approach, the formalism mistakes are a necessary type of feedback for teachers and programme developers, pointing to specific areas of modification of the learning process, thus acting as one of the most important means of identifying key psychological and pedagogical conditions for the effective assimilation of new concepts.

Conclusions. Based on the work carried out, the need for further research of formalism within the framework of the activity approach is substantiated — an analysis of existing curricula from the perspective of which specific conditions for effective assimilation and development are supported in them and which are not. The theoretical significance of the proposed approach to the study of the formalism of knowledge is to highlight the prospects for the development of modern psychology of teaching.

Background. The growing interest in the historical development of social systems requires an assessment of the possibilities for a quantitative comparison of psychological characteristics in a person and society of different eras.

Objective. The study aims to reveal the structure of social values and features of contemporary images according to verbal and visual texts of the cultures in the past.

Methods. Behavior characteristics describing G. Hofstede’s basic cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 1980) were used to encode texts. Psychosemantic assessment of the works of art perception was carried out with the use of a scale based on the multifaceted Five Factor Model of personality by P. Costa, R. McCrae (FFM; NEO-PI-R questionnaire adapted by V.E. Orel et al.) and the scale of individual image perception in media communication by L.V. Matveeva et al.

Sample. A) Ancient Greek and Roman texts of 7^th c. BC — 4^th c. AD, Old Russian texts of 11^th–17^th centuries, Byzantine texts of 5^th–15^th centuries and texts of medieval European culture according to the 17^th c. — a total of 205 separate texts.

B) Visual stimulus material on cultures: Ancient Greece (7^th–1th c. BC); Ancient Rome (7th c. BC — 4th c. AD); Byzantium (5^th–15^th cc.); Russia (11–19 cc.); Europe (9^th, 11^th–17^th cc.) was assessed by respondents of different ages from 14 to 70 (N = 68).

Results. Reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis generally supported the structure of the five-factor model of personality and the basic dimensions of culture by G. Hofstede on the material of historical texts and works of art. The least stable dimensions are Hofstede’s Masculinity and Openness to Experience factors of the personality model. An exploratory factorial analysis of data on historical texts yielded a factor structure reflecting specific aspects of Hofstede’s dimensions. In general, the correlations between personality traits and basic cultural dimensions described by G. Hofstede and R. McCraе (Хофстеде, МакКрэй, 2010) are reproduced. The differences mainly relate to the FFM factor “Extraversion”. The features of social situations described in historical narratives that are not fixed by the characteristics of behavior that describe the basic dimensions of culture according to Hofstede are discussed.

Conclusion. The subdimensions of modern models of personality and cultural values make it possible to obtain a fairly adequate quantitative assessment of the cultures of the past.

Background. In recent years, the resting state of the subject in the absence of obvious external sensory stimuli and cognitive tasks has become the subject matter of extensive study. Interest in studying the subjective aspect of calm wakefulness has increased since the emergence of neuroimaging studies indicating the existence of a cerebral network that increases its activity in resting state. There is a variety of methodological approaches to assess the content of the stream of thoughts in calm wakefulness. The issue of elaborating a universal tool to register the subjective aspect of the restful state remains relevant.

Objective. The study aims to analyze the existing methodological approaches to the research of the subjective part of the resting state.

Methods. Review and analysis of existing research into the content of the stream of thoughts in calm wakefulness.

Results. Studies of the free stream of consciousness in a state of calm wakefulness, such as questionnaires, structured interview, reports on the current state at the time of a random signal have been analysed in the current work.

Conclusion. The conducted literature review demonstrated the methodological diversity of assessment approaches to the subjective aspect of the restful state, and also showed the need to take into account various factors affecting the reliability of the results obtained. The necessity of applying additional methods to solve specific research problems as well as the possibility of developing a high-quality universal diagnostic tool to analyze the content of the stream of consciousness in rest are being discussed.

Relevance. The question of the role of the feelings of guilt in the rehabilitation process of people whose parents were alcohol addicts remains controversial. In cognitive behavioral therapy, the feeling of guilt is associated with taking the responsibility. In the humanistic approach, the feelings of guilt and shame are considered as emotions that hinder the acceptance of responsibility and the search for social support. The study of the experience of the feelings of guilt can help formulate the goals of rehabilitation and identify the resource factors of people whose parents were alcohol addicts.

Objective. The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between the responsibility and the feelings of guilt experienced by people whose parents were alcohol addicts.

Methods. Sample: 1) people whose parents were alcohol addicts (N = 52; M age = 24.5); 2) control group (N = 50; M age = 24.2). We used a phenomenological analysis of the statements of the participants in the twelve-step recovery program, “The Interpersonal Guilt Questionnaire” (O'Connor, Berry), “The Guilt Inventory Questionnaire” (Kugler, Jones), “Coping strategies” (Lazarus, Folkman), the content analysis of the family resource factors.

Results. People whose parents suffered from chronic alcoholism characterize the feelings of guilt as a familiar family process, as a result of increased responsibility for other people, as a result of taboo aggression towards their parents and as a result of experiencing a real or expected loss of their parents. An increased feeling of guilt is associated with avoiding finding a solution to a problem and is not associated with taking increased responsibility. Resource factors contributing to overcoming the feeling of guilt: keeping a diary, self-observation of negative emotions, communication with friends and healthy relatives, participation in rehabilitation programs. The participants in the control group are less inclined to experience the feelings of guilt and shame, and identify the confidential communication with family and friends, and sport as resource factors.

Conclusions. The feelings of guilt experienced by people whose parents were alcohol addicts is not associated with the acceptance of increased responsibility for their lives and does not contribute to the acceptance of the social support.

The Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI) is a measure to assess individuals’ beliefs about their capacity to savor positive life experience. Studies showed positive association of savoring with happiness and well-being. The Russian adaptation of the SBI will help to expand research in the fields of psychological well-being and emotion regulation.

Objective. The present study aimed to validate the Russian version of the SBI and determine its factorial structure.

Method. The participants were 490 adults mainly from Moscow. The following measures were used: the Russian version of the SBI, the life orientation test, the attributional style questionnaire, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, the gratitude scale, the positive and negative affect scale, the satisfaction with life scale, the subjective happiness scale, and the Riff’s scale of psychological well-being.

Results. Confirmatory factor analysis has supported the theoretically expected three-factor structure of the measure. Three factors of savoring the moment, anticipation and reminiscence were moderately related. The validity of the methodology is confirmed by correlations of savoring with indicators of psychological well-being, happiness, dispositional optimism, optimistic attributional style for positive events, gratitude, positive affect, life satisfaction and self-esteem. All three subscales of savoring and total savoring score showed high level of internal consistency. The convergent and structural validity of the method was proved.

Relevance: in the last decade, virtual reality (VR) technologies have been actively introduced into the training process in various types of sprints. At the same time, there are studies showing the inconsistency of VR for the formation of sports skills and their transfer to real conditions. But despite this, the use of VR can be useful for practicing specific motor skills and cognitive functions, for example, anticipation.

Objective: to develop VR-PACE technology (VR Technology for training Puck hitting And HOSKE skill Effectiveness) using virtual reality aimed at diagnosing and analyzing the skill level of a hockey player, as well as their training.

Methods: within the framework of the study, a simulation virtual environment was developed that simulates a hockey field (ice arena in Sochi) and sets four difficulty levels (four blocks) depending on the speed of the puck and the distance to it. The study involved 22 people, 13 of whom were professional hockey players (Mage=20±2.5), and seven were beginners in hockey (Mage=20±1.4).

Results: it was found that professional hockey players have a significantly smaller amplitude of head vibrations during the reflection of pucks, that is, they understand the position of their body well enough during certain actions, and they do not need to observe the full trajectory of the puck. There were also significant differences in the speed of response to the presented washers in the block with the fastest speed of presentation of 2 washers. The results obtained may indicate a better formation of technical and tactical, temporal and spatial factors in professional hockey players.

Conclusions: the adequacy of the developed tools for the analysis of professional skills of hockey players was demonstrated. It was also shown that the skill level of a hockey player is determined by the formation of a set of parameters, including spatial, temporal, technical and tactical abilities. This is manifested in the automation of a number of skills, as well as the optimization of motor responses: 1) higher and more stable amplitude of movements over the entire observation interval and minimization of unnecessary movements; 2) higher reaction speed to more complex pucks (close to real game situations); 3) concentration of attention on significant signals, anticipation.