Relevance. In modern psychology, coping is understood as a multicomponent phenomenon. Research conducted using questionnaires allows you to study only one of the components. The proposed simulation puzzle game models the situation of solving group problems and opens up the possibility of observing and research poorly studied aspects, in particular, the ratio of individual and group coping, the dynamics of overcoming a difficult situation.

Objective. The goal is to test a simulation puzzle game as a tool for studying coping with a difficult situation, analyzing the possibilities of a technique for studying human activities to solve difficult life tasks.

Method. A group of 3 people are invited to collect on the proposed silhouette 3 identical figures of 12 elements of pentamino. In the course of the game, a protocol is kept and the video is recorded. At the end of the game is debriefing. The study involved 72 people.

Results. The analysis of signs of a difficult life task in comparison with conditions of game and results of supervision is carried out. A categorical apparatus for content analysis of replicas of participants elaborated.Selected indicators of the coping process: number of proposed solutions, content of replicas, ways of coping, role (individual indicators); time of collecting the puzzle, the emotional background, the implementation of successful initiatives, satisfaction of participants with the game (group indicators). The possibilities of debriefing to analyze the experience of problem solving are described.

Conclusions. Asimulation puzzle game allows you to study the processes of individual and group copying. Using the game model, conditions are created in which the experience of interaction with difficult life situations is reproduced.

The paper analyzes the emergence of the concept of motive in Alexey N. Leontiev’s early writings and its correspondence to Kurt Lewin’s ideas and to the distinction of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and the concept of the continuum of regulation in the present day self-determination theory of E. Deci and R. Ryan. The distinctions of extrinsic motivation based on reward and punishment versus “natural teleology” in K. Lewin’s works and of (extrinsic) motive versus interest in early A. N. Leontiev’s texts are explicated. The relationships between motive, goal, and personal meaning in the structure of activity regulation are analyzed. The author introduces the concept of quality of motivation referring to the degree of correspondence between motivation and one’s needs and authentic Self at large; the complementarity of activity theory approach and self-determination theory as regards the quality of motivation issue is highlighted.