Mitina, O.V.

Background. Oncological diseases, particularly gynecological cancers, significantly affect the physical and psychological well-being of women, reducing their quality of life and exacerbating psychological distress. The study of savoring — the process of experiencing and enhancing positive moments — remains an underexplored yet important topic, especially in the context of maintaining psychological well-being in oncology patients.

Objective. The goal of the research is to conduct a comparative study of psychological well-being and the ability to savor positive moments among women with gynecological cancer and women without an oncological diagnosis.

Study Participants. The study included 203 women, 88 of whom were undergoing treatment for gynecological cancer, while 115 had no history of oncological diagnoses. The mean age of the participants was 49.9 years (SD = 8.6) and 45.7 years (SD = 10.0), respectively.

Methods. An online quasi-experiment was conducted, incorporating the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the Savoring Beliefs Inventory (SBI). Statistical analysis included the Mann — Whitney U-test, Student’s t-test, and methods of descriptive statistics.

Results. Women with gynecological oncological diseases demonstrated lower levels of life satisfaction, positive and negative explicit affects, and the ability to savor as compared to conditionally healthy women. The ability to savor the present and the past plays a compensatory role in oncological patients. This ability is significantly higher in conditionally healthy women as a whole, whereas in the sample of respondents with high levels of savoring, no differences in life satisfaction between oncological patients and conditionally healthy women were revealed.

Conclusions. The ability to savor positive events is an important resource for maintaining life satisfaction, particularly in the context of oncological disease. Enhancing the ability to savor the present may be an effective psychological support strategy for oncological patients, while fostering positive expectations and future planning appears to be more relevant for conditionally healthy women.

Background. The study is devoted to cultural specificity of the personality value sphere, and from the point of view of its level ― explicit and implicit structure. The novelty of the study lies in the appeal to inaccessible and practically unexplored implicit levels of value presentation, whereas most studies research deals exclusively with the approximate levels of their presentation.

Objective of the study is a cross-cultural comparison of the structure of the value sphere of the individual from the point of view of its implicit and explicit level on the example of Russian and Uzbek culture.

Methods. The following methods were used: the refined S. Schwartz PVQ method, M. Etkind’s color test of relationships.

Sample. 190 subjects took part in the study ― 86 people of Uzbek culture and 104 of Russian culture.

Results. The study showed a significant coincidence of the leading and insignificant values of both cultures at the explicit level. The explicit differences are as follows: despite the leading nature, less significant in the Uzbek sample compared to the Russian were such values as independence of actions, independence of thought, personal security, well-being in interpersonal relations, tolerance for other people, and more significant ― life pleasures, reputation, public safety, responsibility to the loved ones. At the implicit level, the differences between cultures are less manifested, the following values are more significant on the Russian sample: diverse life experience, public safety. More significant the Uzbek sample is the responsibility to loved ones. Cross-cultural differences of some values are significantly evident at both levels. These are public safety (Uzbek subjects have higher significance at the explicit level and lower at the implicit level than Russians) and responsibility to loved ones (higher in Uzbek subjects at both levels). Public safety has shown to be implicitly insignificant value to both cultures.

Conclusion.

1. In representatives of both cultures, the structure of personality value sphere at the explicit and implicit levels does not coincide.

2. Intercultural differences in the structure of value sphere are observed both at the explicit and implicit levels.

3. At the explicit level, the leading and insignificant values among the representatives of the two cultures largely coincide. The differences found affect the degree of significance of values associated with independence, personal and public safety, and relationships with others.

4. At the implicit level, the differences between cultures consist of the following: more significant for the Russian sample are diverse life experience, social security. More significant for the Uzbek sample is responsibility to relatives.

5. Values were also found whose cross-cultural differences in significance are manifested at both levels. These are public safety (higher on the explicit and lower on the implicit level among the Uzbek subjects than among the Russians) and responsibility to relatives (more significant for Uzbek subjects at both levels). At the same time, public safety among the subjects of both cultures is an implicitly less insignificant value.

Practical application of the results. The results can be applied in the joint training and professional activities organization of representatives of different cultures.

Acknowledgements. The article was made within the framework of the grant "Cross-cultural differences in the ways of cognitive processing of verbal and figurative material" of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant No. 20-013-00674.

Relevance. In applied psychology, researchers are increasingly faced with the task of analyzing large amounts of text, both verbal and visual. For these purposes, various methods of analysis have been developed and various computer programs have been created.

Objective. The possibilities of computerized qualitative text analysis are analyzed. The spectrum of problems solved by various methods of qualitative text analysis is considered.

Methods. The theoretical analysis of classical methods of qualitative text analysis is carried out. The specificity of the method of computerized discourse analysis is analyzed. The Internet searched for the most popular programs for qualitative text analysis, considered the main options and requirements for working in the program.

Results. Methods of content-, discourse-, intent-analysis, conversion and narrative analysis are briefly characterized. The computerized discourse analysis (CMDA) approach is described. An approach to solving problems of various methods of qualitative analysis of text in computer analysis of qualitative data (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis; CAQDAS) is presented. The possibilities of some software packages developed within the CAQDAS approach are considered.

Conclusions. The advantages of using computerized discourse analysis are shown. The topic of research of methodological problems accompanying the use of CAQDAS is outlined.

The method “Fairy Semantic Differential”, during which a respondent should assess a number of fairy-tale characters according to a set of personal characteristics, is designed for the individual work of a psychologist with children 4—9 years old. Personality characteristics, according to which the characters are evaluated, are formulated in terms that parents, teachers use when dealing with children of this age. An analysis of the child's attitude to this or that fairy-tale character allows us to determine the specificity of his (her) moral-value sphere. The method also allows evaluating of real adults, who are significant for the child (parents, teachers, etc.) Comparison of fairy-tale characters' ratings with those of a significant adult makes it possible to reveal the specifics of the child's attitude to this adult. The article discusses quantitative indicators that can be calculated using the data of the answering the questionnaire. These indicators characterize the child’s personality, his (her) understanding of interpersonal relationships with surrounding people, dimension of categorical space of interpersonal perception, content of this categories and its hierarchy, the level of cognitive development in this area, the degree of socialization. The method allows measuring self-esteem indices. The results of an empirical study of Moscow primary schoolchildren using the method “Fairy Semantic Differential” are presented, during which a psychometric analysis of the indicators was conducted. It was shown that the cognitive complexity of interpersonal perception, determined by the method “Fairy Semantic Differential” is significantly higher among adults, does not correlate with intelligence tests. Socialization increases with age, is significantly higher among girls than among boys, partly correlates with known methods that measure the level of social adaptation of a child, the degree of differentiation of moral and conventional norms, verbal intellect. The analysis of self-esteem indices reveals significantly higher self-criticism among girls, than among boys.

Psychosemantic approach is most in demand when it comes to research collective representations, allowing to identify the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that are poorly reflected upon, or hidden because of social undesirability, and therefore difficult to diagnose. Political leaders’ perception is just such an example. The article deals with a number of images of contemporary political leaders and historical figures who have played at one time a significant role in world politics in the student audience perceptions of South Korea. Psychosemantic author’s technique “The image of a political leader” was used to obtain empirical data. 107 subjects (females and males) took part in the survey. The study included the construction of multi-dimensional semantic spaces, projecting the operational model of categorical perception structures of political leaders. For data analysis methods of multivariate statistics were used (principal component analysis and discriminant analysis).

Along with conventional notions about the positive influence pets on the development and psychological well-being of children, an increasing number of investigations evaluate the role of pets in the life of the modern urban family more carefully. Existing contradictions can be resolved via submission on pets as integral and important parts of the entire family system: the emergence of pets in the family may be associated with the maintenance and regulation of its homeostasis. We tested this assumption in the empirical research, which objectives were: 1) identification of the association between the age of the child/ siblings and appearance pets in families; 2) correlation of the data with the stages of family life cycle. Based on the data obtained from the survey (n=658) among students, conducted among first-year students of the faculty of psychology of Moscow State University and among the clients of the veterinary surgeon in 2008—2012 (n=75), we have analyzed the dependence of the frequency of occurrence of pets, which respondents considered “family member”, on the age of child/children in the family at the time of their purchase. According our findings pets’ appearance in a family with the only child happen when the child is 7, 9, 13, 16 years old, in a family with two children it happens when the second child is 7, 9, 13 years old and (or) the first one is 12—16 years old). These peaks happen when families have normal crises, not related with the changing family structure, but with the other factors, particularly with necessity contacting with social surrounding or with strict changing demands of psychical development of the child. The peaks of appearance pets in a family which were found by us can be evidence of including pets in regulation homeostasis of family life.

The PC-based Questionary for S. Schwatz Method of Value Preferences was developed. Access to the system is carried out through Internet. The pilot monitoring was conducted using the sample of 711 seniors of the state public schools in Moscow in the age 16-18 years old. The psychometric validity and reliability of the Schwatz Method of the Value Preferences has been proved trustworthy. We have got the set of similarities and differences of the results got on the similar samples comparing our PC-based modification and traditional pencil-paper method. The PC system with distant internet access in its present development can be used for the scientific and applied research as well as for current monitoring of the public educational institutions.

The effect of chess skill, age and memorizing’s conditions on the efficiency of recall of sequences of opening chess moves was studied. 39 chess players of different skill (from 2 category to the grandmaster) and age (from 17 to 81 years old), divided into 4 groups (ELO>2000 before and after the age of 40; ELO<2000 before and after the age of 40), memorized the sequences of moves in three conditions (passive perception, physical making of moves, imagination) and recalled them, making the moves. It turned out that: a) in the passive perception condition more young chess players, on the one hand, and more highly skilled, on the other, significantly better recalled the moves; b) almost in all groups of players the success of the memory grows to the extent that, as converging conditions of memorizing and reproduction, with the highest growth rate found among chess players with ELO>2000 after 40 years; c) the current memorizing of chess experts (in comparison with intermediate players) to a greater extent mediated by opening schemes and knowledge. Confirmed and concretized the hypothesis about the activity-based encoding specificity in the episodic memory. But chess skill and age determine the effect of remembering by mediator – conditions of imprinting, so the principles of the encoding specificity and activity-based specificity act in unity.

Principles of data analysis, which were got during developing inventory of multifactor research of tolerance, are observed. This inventory has two-mode structure. The necessity of studying of tolerance as complex system including possible objects of tolerant attitude along with different possible levels of regulations these attitudes was advocated. The structural equation modeling namely multi-trait multi-method model (MTMM) was used. Equations for specification the models are included. The possibility and advantages of using MTMM for analysis data having 3-mode structure in studies of different types is discussed.

Assessment of the psychometrical features of the Russian version of Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) was conducted on the sample of students (n=196; different specializations, from different cities across Russia). The following methods were used: Cronbach’s alfa coefficient, test-retest, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis. As a result Scales of the Inventory show good validity, internal consistency reliability and reproducibility. Factor structure of the Russian version of ZTPI is almost identical reproduction of the original Inventory factor structure. Convergent and discriminant validity was shown.