2008. vol. 5. No. 2

The article examines ideological, theoretical and methodological issues of psychological description of a normal individual. It offers a substantial interpretation of such issues. It also gives an illustration of all the difficulties of practical work in this field.

The goal of this paper is to explore the role of culture in the process of civilization and development of various countries. It is argued that scientific research on the effect of social institutions, culture, value systems on the development of innovative economics may improve founding principles of the state politics and environment that facilitates creativity of Russian people. Culture is argued to be accepted by an individual at three levels, specifically: 1) public opinions and moods, 2) concepts and aptitudes, and 3) values; furthermore, a schematic model of a culture is suggested. Following the work of G. Hofstede, R. Inglehart and S. Schwartz four possible scales of measuring cultures are suggested: individualism — collectivism, freedom (equality) — hierarchy (order), openness to changes — conservatism (traditions), self-actualization (self-accomplishment) — harmony (equilibrium).

This paper introduces a theory and methodology for measuring cultural values suggested by S. Schwartz. The nature of cultural values as basic elements of a culture is analyzed. Basing on empirical research conducted by the author in 84 countries of the world, eight cultural regional types are distinguished. It is also suggested that countries vary along seven scales of cultural values, i.e., Affiliation, Intellectual and Affective Autonomy, Hierarchy, Equality, Skills, and Harmony. Correlations between values and the level of socio-economic development, as well as types of economical and political systems are demonstrated.

Theoretical approaches and results of empirical research on the relationship between cultural values, economic settings and aptitudes towards innovations in Russia are introduced. Empirical results showed that economic development in Russia is facilitated by acknowledgment of Intellectual and Affective Autonomy, and Skills (in other words, recognition of the values of independence and activity of an individual). From the other side, economic development is impeded by the values of Affiliation and Hierarchy that maintain settings of economic paternalism and that are negatively correlated with the level of psychological well­being of an individual. It was demonstrated that regardless of age and ethnicity of an individual, the universal cultural factors of Intellectual Autonomy and Skills facilitate a creative and innovative aptitude of Russian people, but the value of Hierarchy impedes it.

The thesis of this paper is that intelligence is a determinant of income among individuals and populations, and that national differences in intelligence are a major factor responsible for the wealth and poverty of nations. We also examine some other correlates of the IQs of nations, namely ability in mathematics and science, adult literacy, life expectancy and religious belief. Intelligence is defined as «general cognitive ability» expressed as the ability to reason, solve verbal, mathematical and spatial problems, learn quickly, remember, and acquire a large fund of knowledge (Carroll, 1993). Intelligence is measured by tests first developed in France by Alfred Binet and scored to give an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) based on a population mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15.

This empirical study examines perception of individual psychological characteristics judging by facial expressions of an individual. It was demonstrated that different perceptual stages are characterized by different mechanisms of inter-personal perception and presentation of personal characteristics.

The article describes the experience of usage of a measure designed to investigate understanding of uncertainty in life situations as an integral phenomenon with its own mechanisms. A measure is designed to ask participants to generate situations with uncertainty on the basis of given stimulus situations. The participants' texts obtained in the study were analyzed within the framework of qualitative approach and «grounded theory» method. Several versions about phenomenon's nature have been proposed as a result, one of the versions is presented in the article.

The article is devoted to discursive and linguistic abilities which are essential components of human intelligence that have influence upon adequate and correct understanding of the «flow of speech». The authors invent a new concept of «discursive abilities» and prove the reasonableness of its existence at the theoretical and empirical levels. The development of the discursive abilities and their positioning within a structure of intelligence are examined in the domain of foreign language acquisition. For all that an original measure of linguistic and discursive abilities is used in the research along with well-established tests of general, verbal and social intelligence.

This study examines a hypothesis that during intra-level development of emotions from negative emotional asymmetry towards a positive one, two-directional development of emotions themselves is observed — from negative to positive as well as from positive to negative. The hypothesis was mostly confirmed for students of elementary, middle and high schools.

The article examines the results of psychological studies of interrelation of basic signal systems of a human and the peculiarities of his verbal ability. The article presents the results of verbal ability measurement in older adolescents by means of an associative experiment.