Sobkin, V.S.

Background. The relevance of the work is connected with the significance of L.S. Vygotsky’s early studies both for the formation of the foundations of the cultural-historical approach in psychology and theoretical and methodological principles of modern research on the psychology of art.

Objectives. The aim is to determine the peculiarities of the approach to the study of aesthetic response in Vygotsky’s work “The Psychology of Art”. Identification of substantive aspects concerning Vygotsky’s research “method” is important for studying the psychological uniqueness of artistic experience. The theoretical and ideological contexts that determine the ambiguity of assessments of “The Psychology of Art” by Russian psychologists are established.

Study Participants. The original text of Vygotsky’s dissertation “The Psychology of Art. Analysis of Aesthetic Reaction” (archive of the Vygodsky family), subsequent editions of “The Psychology of Art”, critical articles by leading Russian psychologists on the “The Psychology of Art”.

Methods. Critical historical theoretical analysis, comparative textual analysis of the original text of Vygotsky’s dissertation “The Psychology of Art. Analysis of Aesthetic Response” (archive of the Vygotsky family), subsequent editions of “The Psychology of Art”, critical articles by leading Russian psychologists regarding “The Psychology of Art”.

Results. It is shown that in “The Psychology of Art” when studying the peculiarities of aesthetic reaction and cathartic experience Vygotsky uses not only the principles of structural, functional and genetic analysis of the artwork, but also a wide range of psychotechnical techniques aimed at interpreting the meaning of the artwork. At the same time, the peculiarity of his use of methodological principles of reactological and psychoanalytical approaches, models of mental experiment in analyzing psychological features of the artwork impact are revealed. It is revealed that the subsequent critical evaluations of “The Psychology of Art” were clearly influenced not only by the theoretical attitudes of various authors, but also by ideological connotations (“ideological filters”, “mechanisms of social protection of the text”, etc.). A shift in the substantive critical assessments of the work was recorded: from the dynamic analysis of artistic experience (“waste of energy”, “explosive reaction”) to the tasks of personal meaning to resolve affective contradictions arising in the perception of different levels of the organization of the artwork. It is shown that it is the attitude to the socio-biological type of human development that determines the pathos of the study of “The Psychology of Art” as a “social technique of feelings”.

Conclusions. In “The Psychology of Art” the main range of questions about the mechanisms of sign mediation of emotional mental processes and meaning-making is fundamentally worked out.

Background. There are very few modern studies on the psychology of the actor and they are mainly based on the study of individual personality traits of actors. The current article discusses L.S. Vygotsky’s approach to the psychology of the actor and presents the results of a comprehensive study of the personal characteristics of student actors. Peculiarities of professional activity and the modern socio-cultural situation was taken into account in the interpretation.

Objectives. The research is a complex analysis of personal characteristics of actors during the early stage of mastering their professional activity.

Study Participants. The study involved second and third year students of the acting faculty of the Institute of Contemporary Art (Moscow); a total of 76 people (39 girls, 37 boys), with an average age of 20.2 years.

Methods. R.B. Cattell 16 PF personality questionnaire, Eysenck EPI personality questionnaire adapted by A.G. Shmelev, short Big Five portrait questionnaire “B5-10” (authors M.S. Egorova and O.V. Parshikova), short Dark Triad questionnaire (adapted by M.S. Egorova, M.A. Sitnikova, O.V. Parshikova), A.A. Megrabyan empathy questionnaire, and the integral indicator “expert assessment of abilities” were used in the study.

Results. As a result of a factor analysis of the respondents’ indicators for all the methods used, the following 10 factors describing 69.9% of the total cumulative dispersion were identified: F1 “emotional excitability, plasticity”, F2 “sensitivity to moral constraints”, F3 “empathy”, F4 “openness to experience, trying oneself out”, F5 “publicity”, F6 “frankness, sincerity”, F7 “emotional joining the group”, F8 “insightfulness”, F9 “individualism”, F10 “free-thinking”. The identified factors are interpreted as specific personal formations involved in the realisation of acting.

Conclusions. The personal characteristics discovered in the study are considered from the point of view of the content and organisation of the actors’ training process. They can act as an alternative to the traditional approach aimed at the development of actors’ individual mental functions. Consideration of specific psychological vectors of personal development of student-actors as a basis for the proposed in training etudes and exercises shifts the focus of training on the image of character as a semantic unit of psychotechnical training.

Background. The editorial article reflects the main concept of the issue of the journal, dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the death of L.S. Vygotsky - an outstanding Russian scientist, whose works had a noticeable influence on the development of psychology and pedagogy in the world.

Objectives. The goal is to demonstrate the relevance of the principles of the cultural-historical approach of L.S. Vygotsky at the current stage of development in psychological and pedagogical science and practice.

Results. The article reveals the content of the publications of the journal issue devoted to the sources of the emergence of Vygotsky’s scientific school, his biography, empirical and theoretical and methodological research carried out in line with the cultural-historical approach. It also displays Vygotsky’s invaluable contribution to the development of education and science in Russia and abroad.

Conclusion. The articles presented in this issue discuss the fundamental principles and postulates of the cultural-historical approach, as well as outline ways of research concretization of the idea of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness. The significant contribution of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University to the development of research in the field of cultural-historical psychology is especially noted. The wide presentation of the results to the scientific community and their introduction into pedagogical practice are highlighted.

Background. This study discusses one of the last L.S. Vygotsky’s works — the fourth chapter in «Fascism in Psychoneurology» bulletin (1934). Motivation of the author to write this text is analyzed in the broad context of sociopolitical and personal aspects of his life: general growth of sociopsychological tension, repressions that touched L.S. Vygotsky’s family in 1930s, personally significant Jewish question and antisemitism in nazi Germany. In addition, joint letter from R.N. Vygodskaya and L.S. Vygotsky to D.I. Vygodsky published for the first time. This letter mentioned the arrest of Vygotsky’s cousin L.I. Vygodsky.

Objective. The aim of the study was to reconstruct personal meanings and circumstances of L.S. Vygotsky in writing a chapter for «Fascism in Psychoneurology» bulletin.

Methods. Elements of source analysis, search and analysis of archival documents, theoretical analysis of literature on L.S. Vygotsky’s biography.

Results. The analysis showed that L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria’s criticism of Fascism in psychology is built around several topics: criticism of the basic anthro-pological idea of the Third Reich about the predestination of human development depending on «blood and race»; an analysis of the process of politicization and ideologization of science, exemplified by the concept of «Integrationstypologie» introduced by E.R. Jaensch, which L.S. Vygotsky criticizes; political self-defense of Soviet scientists against possible persecution; the issue of national self-determination of Soviet Jewish scientists.

Conclusion. Authors of this article suggested that this work may be seen not only as a scientific criticism and assertion of humanistic values in psychology but also as an act of political self-defense from sanctions and persecution that took place during the second half of the 1930s.

Background. Media performs an important role in the social construction of an image of a disability. In its turn, that image influences the reader`s generated value orientation and behavioral attitudes towards the disabled persons. One of the main problems is that in most media articles disabled persons are not differentiated by sex. This raises the question of whether there is a description of the disabled persons` gender features in articles where their sex is specified.

Objective. To conduct a content-analysis of the news articles in order to reveal gender-specific features of the social construction of a disabled person`s image in aspects of behavior, social interaction and personality characteristics.

Sample. 107 media articles published during the period from December 2020 to August 2021 in the RBC, RIA Novosti, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, TASS, Izvestia.

Methods. The media article texts were analyzed using content-analysis. For this purpose, the authors selected 27 categories in a coordinated expert assessment. These categories are related to three parameters: disabled person's actions, interaction with a disabled person and personality characteristics. Contingency tables were constructed and frequency analysis of the categories used in the descriptions of the disabled men and women were conducted based on obtained data.

Results and conclusion. The frequency distribution of the categories used in media articles shows that description of disabled persons corresponds to gender social role stereotypes. At the same time, the ways of social interaction of disabled men and women are different. Disabled men are focused on communication with a principal-agent, while disabled women address those involved in some situation. When disabled women are described there are violations of the readers` expectations regarding their greater vulnerability. In other words disabled women are presented as more persistent compared to disabled men. 

The relevance of the study of the socio-psychological well-being of graduate students (including such an indicator of social well-being as their assessment of the significance of various life fears and threats) is associated with the intensive changes taking place with the Institute of postgraduate studies in connection with the transition to the “economy of knowledge”, as well as with the socio-economic and socio-cultural processes that are transforming Russian society.

Objectives. The study of socio-psychological features of life fears of graduate students depending on the influence of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors.

Methods and selection. The article is based on the materials of an anonymous monitoring questionnaire conducted in 2019 by employees of the Information and analytical center of Russian Academy of education. The study involved students of post-graduate research organizations that train post-graduate students in the field of education Sciences, as well as pedagogical universities in Moscow and the regions of the Russian Federation. Empirical data were processed using mathematical statistics methods (statistical software packages SPSS and StatSoft Statistica).

Results. The paper analyzes the influence of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors on the assessment of life fears and threats by graduate students. The relationship between the assessment of life fears by postgraduate students and the assessment of their life prospects, material and family status, the level of education of parents, and the presence of emigration plans is shown. The correlation analysis revealed a stable, age-independent structure of fears and threats for graduate students.

Conclusions. Graduate students' assessment of the importance of life fears is determined by the influence of a number of socio-demographic, socio-stratification and socio-psychological factors. The conducted special correlation analysis showed that the basis of the structure of graduate students 'fears is a complex complex that includes six interrelated “centers”: “risk of losing health”, “economic failure”, “lack of professional prospects”, “lack of social protection”, “unemployment”, “tightening of the regime in the country”.