Dorokhov, E.A.

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.

Background. Against the background of increased attention to the category of generation in social psychology, the methodological possibility of studying generations and intergenerational differences is analyzed. The existing limitations of this kind of research are suggested and classified; methods for leveling these limitations are proposed.

Objective is to propose and test an empirically correct scheme for the study of generations in social psychology.

Sample. The material on which this scheme was tested was obtained in the course of an Internet survey (951 people).

Methods. The survey included a modified author’s Lifeline methodology to explore perceptions of cultural life scenarios. The method of analysis of the results involved the study of the possibility to apply APC (age-period-cohort) analysis to socio-psychological studies of intergenerational differences.

Results. A scheme for the study of intergenerational differences has been proposed and substantiated, including, in particular, the use of theoretical meta-analyses, the methodology of APC analysis and the study of complex attitudes of the cultural life script (CLS).

Conclusions. The conclusion is made on the need to abandon studies of traditional generations and the need to move to smaller units of analysis — quasi-generations in line with socio-psychological methodology.

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.

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.