Savchenko, N.L.

Background. The current publication presents the text of three previously unknown letters from L.S. Vygotsky to E.I. Heifetz, which were written by him in 1918, 1920 and 1921. A psychological analysis of the letters was carried out in the context of the author’s life at the time of their writing.

Objectives. The goal is to disclose previously unknown aspects regarding the personal and professional development of L.S. Vygotsky.

Methods. Analysis of archival documents in comparison with biographical materials from the period of Vygotsky’s life under study.

Results. The letters represent a unique source for understanding the experiences and moral and ethical views of the young Vygotsky: in them he provides reflections on his “Life’s Work”, the personal choices and social “sacrifices” required for its realisation and talks about the mystery of personal feelings. The analysis shows how these feelings and Vygotsky’s life views changed over time.

Conclusions. The analysed letters, along with characteristics of relationships within the family and in the microsocial environment, reveal the uniqueness of Vygotsky’s self-perception and personal self-determination in his youth.

Background. Due to global changes and growing socio-cultural uncertainty, it is important to determine which personal traits allow a person to maintain a high level of subjective well-being in modern conditions of living.

Objective. The article aims to determine the contribution of personal traits (perfectionism, coping strategies and tolerance for ambiguity) to the components of subjective well-being (life satisfaction and subjective happiness).

Sample. The study involved 142 respondents (123 females, 19 males), students of Moscow universities (mean age = 19,32, SD = 0,644).

Methods. Respondents were offered to complete 6 questionnaires: «Three-factor perfectionism questionnaire», «Proactive coping abbreviated questionnaire», «Diagnostic technique of stress coping» of D. Amirkhan, «Scales of tolerance and intolerance to ambiguity in modification of S. Badner’s questionnaire», «Subjective happiness scale» of S. Lyubomirsky, «The satisfaction with life scale » by E. Diener. Statistical processing of the data was performed using statistics system, IBM SPSS Statistics 23 macros PROCESS, using regression and moderator analyses.

Results. Regression analysis revealed the positive contribution of proactive coping and the negative contribution of the perfectionism component “negative selectivity and fixation on one’s own imperfection” both to individual components of subjective well-being and to its integral indicator. The proactive coping strategy “seeking social support” contributes to the cognitive component of subjective well-being and its integral indicator, while not affecting the emotional component. Moderator model shows an increase in subjective well-being when using a proactive coping strategy, regardless of the level of the perfectionism component “negative selectivity and fixation on one’s own imperfection”.

Conclusion. Such personal traits as proactive coping strategies (proactive coping, seeking social support) and the perfectionism component of “negative selectivity...” contribute to the level of subjective well-being. Proactive coping also levels the connection between perfectionism and subjective well-being.